Throughout the years, innovations in technology have allowed people from all walks of life to attempt to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. E-commerce stores are popping up left and right, but only a few tend to survive. The following list details the top three e-commerce frustrations you’re likely to face when starting your own business.
The customer experience
One of the most overlooked areas, when entrepreneurs launch their website, is the testing of their customer experience. Often, the belief is that the product should sell itself, but that could not be further from the truth. Customers will leave your website if it is not built with an easy-to-use interface. Another issue that prevents people from moving forward is the navigational system. If they can’t find what they want, how can they buy it? Other pain points include the shopping cart and checkout process.
In order to ensure that all of these are taken care of properly, it is wise to make use of a platform and service such as ShopWired. This will enable a business to operate in exactly the way it needs to, without having to worry about how to make sure it all works out well. For the customer experience to be as strong as possible, this kind of platform is absolutely worthwhile. If you can use one of these platforms, you are going to find that it’s a lot simpler and easier to keep your ecommerce business moving in the right direction.
Shipping
When it comes to saving money, companies often seek out the cheapest way to ship their products. However, this is not often a luxury new startups can utilize as shipping time can make or break your business. Unfortunately, customers have been accustomed to the two-day shipping option that large companies, such as Amazon, have provided. This is obviously not an option for smaller companies. There are a few common logistic hacks to make it easier. One is to invest in smaller packaging. Boxes do protect items better, but that cardboard is heavy and will increase the price of your shipping. Consider using poly mailers or even padded envelopes to reduce weight and price. Dropshipping is another method that can be used. This essentially means that the manufacturer, rather than yourself, ships out the product to your customers. It can be a less personal way to ship, but it definitely saves money.
Visibility
Say you have the best of the best on your team. They set up a great website for you: product descriptions, high-quality photos—the works. None of that will matter if your website and products are not being seen by the public. Even if people are searching for you on Google, they might not even spot you since Google only showcases the most-searched-for items on its first page. To increase visibility, it is highly recommended that you educate yourself about SEO, or search engine optimisation. Through keywords and other highly-searched phrases, you can begin having search engines position you within their first or second pages, thus making you more visible.
Visibility, shipping, and customer experience issues need to be at the forefront of your mind when launching an e-commerce site. Through careful planning and execution, you will have a plan of attack when these potential problems raise their head.
Finding financial support
Another frustration is always going to be finding the right investment option for your ecommerce business. It can be difficult to find investors willing to sign on the dotted line. You need to make sure that you are making your company as appealing as possible. There are a few ways to do this. Our recommendation is that you have a solid plan for the next five years. You might also want to explore separate self-investment opportunities like forex. Forex demo trading platforms make this investment option easy to access.
