We all love Halloween. This is one day in the year when we tap into scary costumes to celebrate our fear fascination. We shall try to scare you too but not in costumes, but by sharing common reasons for ecommerce business failure.
So, when everyone is preparing to celebrate the spooky occasion of Halloween let us tell you 5 reasons, which lead to scary ecommerce failures:
- Lack of Proper Planning:
Proper planning is highly essential before you step into the online world. A lot of aspects have to be taken into consideration and a lot of research has to be done before you gamble your money on your new online venture.Chalk out a detailed plan about what you want to sell and who are there online already selling the same stuff. Brainstorm on what would be your unique proposition and how you would market that. Do a Competition analysis and think on how you can differentiate your business from the rest of the pack.
If necessary, consult someone from the online industry to strategize your business flow – how to run order – delivery cycle. Read about popular consumer incentive tactics. Incentives always necessarily do not mean discounts, but free shipping or free returns, easy return policies etc.
Take feedbacks from people and judge wisely before selecting a digital agency or a developer to build your online store.
- Lack of Visibility:
Moving forward for an e-business requires a lot of planning and no plan should be made without proper understanding of these two following points.• Physical stores can be seen by anyone but your online store’s visibility will be decided by the search engine.
• Adding to your advantage the Internet does not allow discrimination based on economy scales. You have equal chance of having your virtual store right beside the one of a big company.
Brand positioning is everything for surviving in today’s online world. Today 80% of the search traffic is represented by Google’s first search result page. If you are not on the first page you have lost the battle already. Consumers don’t move to the second page for more options. Achieving a place on the first page requires in depth knowledge of how search engines operate and marketing skills.
- Lack of consumer understanding:
Understanding Customer behavior and preference is of utmost importance when you are running an online business. Its all virtual, visitors would walk through your store pages/categories, judge items by their specs or detailed product pictures, look for lucrative offers, customer reviews, return/guarantee policies and much more.Tap into customer’s shoes and study their experience. Use Google Analytics to know what they are looking for and liking on your store and where there are leaving your store. Run surveys to take customer feedbacks. Also actively participate in social networks to reach out to more people and increase brand loyalty.
- Complicated Website and Checkout process:
This is one of the main frustrations of an online customer. If a shoppers can’t find what they are looking for in your website, they will leave soon. To make them stay and browse through your products and to have them buy, you need to have your products organized with proper information, good quality product photos, delivery information, related products, links to return policies, etc. These small details matter if you want your customers to come back to you again and again.Study customer data to realize the different customer segments visiting your store and welcome them accordingly by putting up customized landing pages.
Long and complicated check out process will freak your customers out and the chances of giving up is huge! Tell them the stages in the checkout process, make the important fields clear, provide multiple payment options and make sure you display the total price throughout the checkout process.
Lastly, little things that a lot of ecommerce businesses ignore are small words that can bring smile to your consumer’s face free of cost. For example you can a bit of add personality and humor to the checkout success pages and delivery acknowledgement mails. Candid and personalized thanks in your delivery acknowledgement mail based on the item purchased. Like if the customer purchased a new wrist watch, add in a line like “Hope the new watch would add up to your style quotient . Cheers! “
- Lack of support:
If you want your customers to buy from you remotely, you should provide them with the support and suggestions they need. Help them reach out to you easily so that they can be guided in case of any confusion. Include FAQ link, Telephone number (preferably Free numbers), Live chat option, Email ID and position them at the important stages of purchasing like the product page and checkout page.Have a defined support policy and return policy to educate your customers and make sure your company staffs that are managing the process are fully aware of it. Proper communication with the customer is essential to have them develop trust in your brand.
There are several other factors for which your e-commerce website will fail, but these are the most common ones. Running a successful online business is both enjoyable and rewarding.
Final tips:
Many ecommerce businesses start off good initially but as the number of orders and customer base increase it goes haywire. With the load increasing a smooth order – delivery cycle becomes a major concern. Organizations get ERP systems and CRMS in place to manage the operations and load which becomes essential at one of time. Then that just adds up to the number of systems/applications you have to manage and you end up keeping dedicated resources to look after the exchange of data between these systems. But even after that problems persist and you fail to reap the profit you deserve from the business.
Here’s a story of one such guy who started an online business and faced a lot challenges but they all got solved by APPSeCONNECT.
If you are an eCommerce merchant and looking to complete commerce sales processing through your ERP or CRM, we have the right solution for you – APPSeCONNECT, world’s easiest solution to integrate your ERP, eCommerce and CRM and help you grow your business.
