Starting any kind of business is not easy and ecommerce businesses require a little bit extra from the entrepreneurs to reach the heights they were meant for. The Ecommerce industry is on the rise since this pandemic because more and more businesses are coming online to promote their brand and sell their products amidst the social distancing norms applied by countries across the globe.
For business owners and entrepreneurs, it is a no-brainer to develop an online ecommerce business store as it is almost certain that people would hesitate in visiting the physical stores out of the fear of catching the coronavirus. However, it is not a straightforward task and requires a lot of planning and strategizing in getting an ecommerce store on the floor. With any sort of plans or strategies, there come certain pitfalls that you need to avoid to decrease the chances of failure in the coming future. So, let us have a close look at some of the blind spots that you need to be aware of to increase the chances of your success.
#1. Imbalanced Inventory System
The inventory system is the core upon which any business works, let alone an ecommerce business. Any inventory management based upon ecommerce shopping cart software can easily be affirmed as a vital cog in the overall success of any kind of business. You need to strike a balance regarding the number of products that need to in the inventory to carry your business forward.
When you decide to take your chances by starting an ecommerce business then you need to address the fact the storing too much of products in the inventory can badly impact the cash flow of your business. Now, on the flip side, if you finalize on storing a fewer amount of products, then you might face a shortage of products. This leads to customers not receiving their desired item and experience a feeling of disappointment. That is why striking the right balance regarding the number of inventories depending upon the type of business decides the future of an ecommerce business.
#2. Little Emphasis on Customer Support
The way you treat your customers is pivotal in determining the future of any business. Customers need to feel important if you want them to stick with you in the long term. Customers coming up with any kind of queries, be it easy or complex, you need to get to them as early as possible as satisfaction factor your customers need to be on the higher side of the scale.
Plus, if you don’t provide the necessary attention to your customers then prepare to lose them as they would go away looking for some responsive alternative. Apart from that because of your unprofessional behavior you won’t earn any recommendations from them which might prove fatal for your business. So, make sure to provide much-needed to your customers as your business depends solely on them.
#3. Insufficient Cash Flow
Cash flow is one of the most important pillars of any business. Cash flow simply can be defined as the total inflow and total outflow of capital in any sort of business. Cash flow, without a doubt, helps you to keep your business running and therefore you need to work on making it grow larger in the future.
Based on your business plan, you need to decide upon the amount of money that you have to invest in your business. Investing too much capital in the business would harm the marketing sector of your business. This negative impact would result in a downward spiral of sales and shutting down your business. So, you need to ensure that there is a positive cash flow of your business that will generate profits for your business and improve it leaps and bounds.
#4. Incompetent Planning
Planning on various fronts is required in ensuring that a business becomes successful. Planning for business beforehand is a wise step to take. Upon entering the business, you would need to zero in on the plan of promoting the website. Along with that, you would also be required to turn your attention towards creating a proper business model to ensure that you survive the high competition in the market.
Setting up a successful ecommerce business is not a one-day job, you would have to be patient to thrive in this field. You need to handle the whole procedure efficiently. There are high chances that you would not receive whatever you thought of despite your maximum efforts but you need to re-plan your strategy at this point in time and get back in the game. You need to have a monetization plan in your list of plans for your business otherwise you won’t get the desired results. So, ensure that you spend a lot of your time planning for your business to make it successful.
#5. Ineffective Marketing Strategy
To succeed in any field, you need to have proper information regarding the things circulating in that market. A marketing plan, an efficient one, would work wonders for any kind of business. Appropriate feedback and reviews need to be collected and later reviewed to get a proper idea of the current situation evident in the market. You need to create a near-perfect marketing model acting upon which your business will be able to attract a large number of customers. Various factors would influence your marketing plans such as gender, age, and shopping tendency of the customers.
Content writing, if included, will provide an extra dimension in promoting your products. Apart from that, you should also include the luxury of reviews for your customers. Upon reading the previous reviews on a particular product, the customers will be able to get a clear idea of the quality of the product.
#6. Mediocre UX/UI Design
UI and UX design play a key role in making an ecommerce business successful. Customers are easily attracted to a business website that looks out-of-the-box and has a smooth user interface. In this way, an outlook is provided to your website as whenever a customer visits your website, the first thing that they notice is your user interface design. If you provide a smooth and comfortable interface then they would love to visit your website again in the future.
At this point, over 60% of the customers are doing their purchasing through smartphones. They prefer to do their shopping through their smartphones as it saves them a lot of their time and makes the whole process effortless. That is why it is super important for you to develop a mobile-friendly UX design. This helps out in increasing the overall sales of your business and growing the business.
Also Read: How to Develop an eCommerce Website
#7. Compromise on the Quality of Photos
It is common sense that if you are looking to sell products online then you need to make sure that the quality of photos that you upload should be of the highest order as the customers will come to a buying conclusion based on those photos. In case, the quality of the photos is not up to the mark, then a negative impression would be created on the customers. Customers generally leave a bad comment in the review of the product out of the feeling of disappointment they received upon seeing the photos.
The quality of the product directly relates to the quality of the photos so ensure that the quality of these photos is top-notch. Degrading the quality of photos will see a sharp decline in the sales of the business and the turnover of the business will decrease drastically.
#8. Aggressive Competition
There is massive competition in the field of ecommerce business at the moment as those with of resilience of getting through this tough ask tends to thrive in this business. You need to adopt qualities that will make your business stand apart from the crowd. Be aware of things that are going on in the market and things customers are finding attractive. You need to adapt to the trends, make sure that you are updated with all the latest trends, and inculcate them in your business. Keeping your business fresh and updated is the only way of staying in the eyes of the customers.
#9. Stuffing in Wrong Products
You need to be completely aware of the choices of your customers. You need to do research on the likes and dislikes of your target audience and then create a chart of things that you need to have in your inventory. Prioritizing the choice of your customers will play a major role in defining the fortune of your business. If you stuff in all the out if order products then customers will not make purchases from your website and you will face a tremendous amount of loss.
#10. Poor SEO Optimization
Optimization of SEO facilities assists a lot in promoting ecommerce start-ups. Because of this very reason, you need to integrate SEO optimization techniques into your business from the initial point. Iron out your important keywords and ensure that these keywords are used in a balanced manner. Title tags for your pages relevant to the items you are selling also come in handy.
Through these techniques, the customers find it quite easy to get the product they were looking for. When a customer will perform a Google search to find the product that he is desperately looking for then SEO will help you out by showing your business store in the topmost search results.
Also Read: How to Perform SEO Audit of an eCommerce Website
#11. Ineffective Website
Establishing a proper platform makes the task of growing a business a lot easier. The following step in this pursuit would be to develop a website for your business. There are further requirements from an ecommerce start-up such as it should be fast, secure, smooth, flexible, however, all of these are secondary as establishing a smoot website should primary on the to-do list. There are various examples of businesses coming to a close because of a lack of a proper website to showcase their business. So, it almost inevitable that your business will be doomed if you do not acquire a proper website for your business.
#12. Improper Maintenance
Managing your business from behind the scenes proves quite decisive in deciding the fate of your business. Proper maintenance is an important part of running a business effectively and therefore should be prioritized high on the list. This can be done by creating some terms and conditions along with fixing some privacy policies. Don’t forget to keep a return policy in your terms and conditions. This is required in case a customer wants to return a product he bought and found it faulty. Upon their request, you have to refund the amount or replace the faulty item with the correct one.
Apart from this, you need to keep a constant check on the functionalities of your site. This is necessary to keep your site updated with all the latest updates. Without this enhancement, you will find it hard to keep pace with your counterparts.
#13. Striking a Balance Between Price & Cost
The motive behind setting up a business should be to gain profit however if you allow the greed to creep in and look to earn some extra bucks then you might lose your potential customers for good. You need to fix the prices of your products lest you will find yourself in a dilemma of striking a balance between cost and price. So, make sure that your focus is on gaining profit and not losing customers in the process.
#14. Over the Top Shipping Cost
High shipping cost proves to be the biggest hurdle in the way of any ecommerce business start-up. When you are starting, it proves to be tough for you to pay the high shipping cost. If the shipping cost is higher than the net price of your products then it becomes almost impossible for you to live up to the demand of the business. This would put an unnecessary burden on you and might force you to abandon the project. Therefore, try not to invest too much in this sector of your business.
Wrapping Up
The current situation caused by coronavirus has forced a lot of business minds and entrepreneurs to jump straight into this ecommerce business opportunity. We will see numerous ecommerce businesses being set up in the upcoming future however only a few will be able as they will stumble on one point or another. However, through this piece of information, we have made you aware of all the possible pitfalls you would discover in your path of setting up a successful ecommerce business store. Also, if you need professional assistance then get in touch with an ecommerce development company is a good idea.
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