The US eCommerce industry is expected to grow up to $523 billion in 2020. According to a recent estimate, the international e-commerce industry worth more than $22.1 trillion. So, the industry is growing fast, and there are as many opportunities in this industry as in any other highly growing industries. But that does not mean the businesses in the e-commerce industry are all performing well without facing any challenges. If you are yet to start your e-commerce business, knowing the following five common challenges beforehand will help you face them better:
1. Selecting The Right Niche
Competition in the e-commerce industry is very high. These days, almost anybody can start an e-commerce website with recent technological advancements and availability of platforms e-commerce website builders like Shopify. Even sophisticated invoicing systems are highly accessible for anybody willing to start an e-commerce business. High competition makes it difficult for e-commerce businesses to make a profit from popular product niches. To be more specific, you need to select the right products to sell on your e-commerce website. So, you need to identify the right niche that is not covered by giant websites because you can’t battle with giants with limited investments.
2. Generating the Targeted Traffic
To make sales, you need targeted traffic to your e-commerce website. The customers those who want to buy exactly the products you sell need to visit your site. Some random social media or referral traffic may not increase sales like organic traffic from Google or other search engines. You need to invest in long term SEO of your website to generate targeted traffic to your website. With Google changing its algorithm on a regular basis, trying to apply any black hat SEO can harm your website for the long term. You need to go for multiple other traffic generating methods like display ads, social media ads, email marketing, and PPC to generate targeted traffic.
3. Capturing Quality Leads
Sometimes only targeted traffic might not help your e-commerce business. Even after spending a significant amount of money in generating targeted traffic, only 1-3 percent are converting. This is a huge e-commerce challenge, and you need to have a good bunch of strategies to convert traffic to leads. Building a long list of email subscribers can be key for having a long term success in increasing the conversion rate.
4. Providing Superior Customer Service
When an e-commerce business grows into a good business, providing quality customer service becomes a huge challenge. Customers might face issues in many aspects, and they will want to chat live on-site and on social media platform. If you can keep up with the required amount of customer support, you can generate sales. On the other hand, not having a quality support system will result in loss of customers to your competitors with better customer service.
Check out: How To Improve Customer Relation Management
5. Return of Products
Independent sources reveal, 8-9 percent of products bought from any traditional brick-and-mortar businesses are returned. But the number is at least 30% of the products ordered online. Consumers return more than $642 billion worth of products each year. Return of products makes the job of e-commerce businesses difficult and less profitable. You need to make sure you’re present the products in the best possible way to your website so that customers get the right impression before they order it.
Conclusion
These are five common challenges all the e-commerce businesses facing today. If you are already running an e-commerce business, you may already be facing them. If you are planning to start your e-commerce business, make sure you take necessary steps to face these challenges.
