E Commerce Marketplace blog

Category: E Commerce

  • Affordable ecommerce website builders tailored for small business owners

    Affordable ecommerce website builders tailored for small business owners

    These days you do not need to code your own E Commerce solution or even a website. There are plenty of website builders which help you, even if you are a beginner to start a website and manage your business. In addition to just listing of the product they provide multiple services like integrations with payment gateways and social media platforms. It helps you in launching your online business quickly instead of getting bogged down in the details.

    Here we have listed a few of top E Commerce platform builders with their prime features gleaned from their sales pages

    SquareUp

    SquareUp provides affordable options to start your E Commerce journey. Their three-tiered package includes Square Free, Plus and Premium with features added based on increased pricing.

    They have their products structured to industry basis and verticals include Food and Beverages, Retail, Beauty and Services as main offering.

    On a broad level they provide various services related to a website, inventory management, payment processing, reporting and analytics. Their specific product verticals provide services related to for e.g., table management for a restaurant. They also provide AI services such as business recommendations based on your industry and which features may serve you best.

    Wix

    Wix boasts of creating a website based on AI , just from a prompt or use pre defined templates to help you take your business online. Once you set up your website, you can easily list your products , add a complete E Commerce suit, add portfolios and blogs for Search Engine Optimization.

    It supports multiple payment options such a Paypal, Google Pay and Apple Pay in addition to credit cards.

    They also claim to have AI based fraud detection available 24*7.

    In addition to this, they provide CRM suit for lead management and customer engagement. They also provide data analytics for your business reporting needs. You can manage your website from their Wix mobile App.

    As for the pricing , there are four tiers: Lite , Core , Business and Business Elite with varying level of accesses and tools available.

     

    Shopify

    Shopify is probably one of the largest customizable Ecommerce software. With Shopify, a seller can instantly creating a website based on AI prompt or use their industry standard E Commerce theme for it. Once created you can use Shopify hosting space to host your website.

    Shopify boasts of automation including Email and E Commerce automation. Using these automations you can create workflows based on specific trigger conditions to perform any operation that you need in your E Commerce process.

    It has checkout module and all APIs to access your checkout process. These tools can be used either directly by business owners or by developers working to create custom processes for your needs.

    You may utilize inventory management tools, marketing automation tools and various analytics tools to learn more about your business performance.

    In addition they provide order management tools, returns management, point of sales and shipping options.

    In terms of pricing they have four plans

    Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus with varying accesses and tools availability. You can also purchase add on tools such as POS Pro for physical storefronts.

    WooCommerce

    WooCommerce is one of the best in the breed open source E Commerce Software. The best part is that it does not lock you into any host. Even your data remains with you, private.

    Woo Commerce is based on powerful and well known platform of WordPress, which means that your WordPress skills can transfer into Woo Commerce with relative ease.

    It provides WooPayment options for integrating multiple modes of payment.

    There are two different editions , one for developers to build their solutions on top of WooCommerce and one for enterprise to help them access advanced tools .

    With multichannel Ecommerce , you can use various extensions to directly sell on multiple social media platforms and e commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay.

    Photo by Pixabay:

  • Channels that you can use to enhance your customer service for your E Commerce Project

    Channels that you can use to enhance your customer service for your E Commerce Project

    Customer Service is an essential part of any E Commerce project. A good customer service makes your customer come back and purchase from you again. It also helps you promote your products and increase customer satisfaction , while also increasing brand awareness.

    Listed below are some of the ways you can channel your customer service.

    Phone

    Phone is the most traditional way for any business to connect with their customers. Phone can be useful as it helps customers connect quickly with service rep and address their inquiries. However, this only works where orders are infrequent or they require special assistance. A phone line may be jammed because of excessive calling. A customer service representative may spend more time than usual on a customer call putting other customers to hold.

    A phone line should be used only when you are sure that you can handle the customer call volume. Having a phone number definitely gives a feeling that you care about your customers and you have a human addressing their concerns rather than a bot

    Email

    Email is a channel that can help answer questions with a time lag. You can use email channel to let the customer know that you are looking into their problems while you look for the solution. Email also helps in creating a personalized connection with the customer. If you are a founder, you can always thank your customer with a personalized message for their business.

    However, the advantage of email gets nullified if you take a lot of time to reply. The customer may get frustrated and anxious if there are no subsequent follow up emails. If it is needed, it is a good idea to even pick up the phone and call the customer rather than doing back and forth on email.

     

    WhatsApp

    WhatsApp is becoming a popular channel for communication. WhatsApp may be used to send OTP and it is considered more secure than plain text. Status updates too can be shared on whatsapp. Some companies provide a list of menu items for handling customer’s query.

    WhatsApp can also be used as a marketing channel in addition to customer service . However, too many messages on WhatsApp which is still considered a personal chat platform may annoy users.

    Using WhatsApp though provides more control over the customer service process than emails and combined with other channels can really level up your customer experience.

    Social Media

    Social media can be your best tool, if used strategically. Social media helps build brand awareness, let people discuss your products and thus provide valuable feedback on your product and processes.

    You need to monitor your social media and read the comments put by either interested parties as soon as possible. The comments that are form of complaint should be investigated as fast as possible because responding quickly shows your high levels of customer service.

    Chatbots

    Chatbots are the latest addition to your customer service systems. Chatbots can range from just providing a menu-based experience to leveraging artificial-intelligence based question and response system.

    Chatbots have a bad reputation with customers because they are often not designed to give customers an optimal experience. But if thought through, they can free up customer service team for other important issues while most generic work can be left to the chatbots.

    With enough recursion, testing and analysis, a good chatbot system over the time can enhance your customer service. However, it is important that chatbots are just one aspect of customer service and it doesn’t take much time for a customer to get disaffected with its repeated responses. A human in loop when things go out of order is always warranted.

    Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

  • How to start your E- Commerce business with no money ?

    How to start your E- Commerce business with no money ?

    Can you start an E Commerce business for a little or no money? For sure. You can utilize a number of channels other than the standard domain name and website. With enough innovation and creativity, you may utilize many channels available to sell your product without spending a dime.

    Previously, you would need a website and a domain name to sell your products but of late, it has been very easy to reach to relevant people without destroying your bank.

    Listing your product on large E Commerce Portals

    It is quite easy for anyone to start an E Commerce store almost for free on large E Commerce Portals. These include Amazon, eBay, Etsy and a host of others. All you need is an id and email and you can start listing your products for free. The initial fees are minimum and help you avoid capital expenditure.

    Just make sure that you are truthful about what you are trying to sell and write great product titles and description.

    Marketing using word of mouth (offline marketing)

    Word of mouth is one the free technique that you can employ for your marketing. You can always ask your friends to promote your store. You can create short URL of your shop and share them with them.

    You can also place flyers in local newspapers about your venture. You may add compelling offers to induce people to visit your site/ or your social media page.

    Social media marketing

    If you have an expertise in certain area, you can create tutorials, walk-throughs, how-to videos and place it on YouTube or Instagram. These sites allow you to upload videos at no cost. To create such videos, you may use open-source tools to create and edit your videos.

    Consistently creating a user base using social media posts helps create trust between your business and audience at almost no or minimal cost.

    Writing content yourself

    You are going to run the shop and sell the products and thus it can be assumed that you have deep idea on how to best use your products.

    If you can convert that knowledge into words and start a blog based on those words, you can start seeing free traffic from Google. You may use free software such as WordPress to host your content. You may also use free content hosting sites for writing your posts till you migrate to your own platform.

    Sell from social media itself

    These days social media companies encourage you to create content and sell products from your content. This is great for people with minimal budgets. Also, maintaining an E Commerce website is costly. Using social media pages and videos to sell your content is a great way to save on costs.

    Buying your brand domain(optional)

    If you can afford to buy a domain, you should. Your brand is the one that identifies you.

    Buying a cheaper domain and a cheap hosting space to host a basic website (minus any E Commerce functions) is better than not having a domain at all. There are a lot of ways you can lower down your prices of domain. For example, using comparison sites to compare prices or buying multiple years upfront to minimize average cost of renewals.

    As you can see, there are many ways to sell a product or service, even if you put a small or no capital.

    Photo by Marsel_Shots

     

  • Essential features of an E Commerce site

    Essential features of an E Commerce site

    Clean and Mobile friendly homepage

    An essential part of E Commerce site is a good layout and page design. The headers should contain relevant links in a neat orderly way.

    The main content box should display your best offering and / or any promotions that you are running for this season.

    The website should not take a lot of time to load and it should be mobile friendly. This means that images and text should scale to meet the needs of a mobile user. Since there are a lot of resolutions and types of mobile phones , your website needs to be thoroughly tested on as many of them as possible.

    Easy to find contact information

    Contact information for your website should either be present on the home page or a dedicated page depending on your business scenario. Your contact information may be a phone number, email address or social media handles.

    It would be great if you have an address and you display it in a prominent location.

    It is so frustrating when a website has infinite scroll of product listing. The contact information is often tucked into the bottom of the scroll and by the time a visitor reaches there, Make your contact information easy to find and your visitors will trust you more

    Good product details

    A nicely written product heading and description will work wonders for your E Commerce site’s reputation. Clean graphics and sections organizing the information indicate that you take your business seriously and your work is professional.

    Great images

    Good quality images enhance the value of your product line. Great product images available in multiple resolutions from different angle helps a visitor decide if they wish to make the purchase or move on to something else.

    Easy checkout

    If a visitor is here just for one product, you need to make it easy for them to purchase it from the main page or the product page. That means, providing a way for instant checkouts ( with or without requiring logging in ).

    If they have multiple products, you need to provide them to review the items/prices in for example a shopping cart page and then allowing them to make the purchase . You should be able to provide them a place for putting in discount coupons. On the other hand a running promotion should apply automatically to their cart.

    Wish List/ Save for later

    The benefit of an online store is that a visitor may not buy immediately but save the items in a wish list for purchase later. You may analyse if there is any way you can motivate the user move items from wish list to shopping cart. Wish list also helps you analyse which products are in demand and also if anything can be done to make sales of them faster.

    Customer support channels

    Customer support channels form an important part of your interaction with your E Commerce visitors . A common support channel is email and it gives you some time before you need to respond.

    On the other hand , a phone needs an employee to man it. You may also use whatsapp , which is very popular for solving customer issues.

     

    Photo by iMin Technology

  • Why small businesses need digital marketing?

    Why small businesses need digital marketing?

    In the era of social media, it is imperative that your E Commerce product needs to leverage the power of already existing networks that are curated by various social media giants.

    Using Google to leverage your content effectively, so that users can land on your page based on search results will work wonders for your E Commerce project.

    Let us discuss a few ways digital marketing helps you break new ground in your marketing and how is it essential to your business’s success.

    Reach

    A small business will often find it difficult to reach audience on a limited budget. Building an engaged base requires money, time, and teams to manage expectations. Social media instantly allows a small business to enhance the reach. The virality generated by a relevant content idea can reap its own reward without spending any additional dollar. Users share what they like on social media with their friends, and your content can effectively spread in a geometric fashion.

    Cost Effectiveness

    The costs of running an advertising campaign on social media is not remarkably high when compared to offline advertising for example using a billboard or using printed material to highlight your business.

    You can also use Search engine optimized content to give Google search a reason to display your link when products related to your categories are mentioned. It is often almost like a free traffic. Once you create articles or tutorials that have value to your prospects and keeps them on the hook, you will be rewarded with repeat traffic from search engines, even when you are not actively managing any ad campaign.

     

    Competition

    There are big sharks in E Commerce space and trust me when I say that you can not outspend them in advertising. They have specialized team and unlimited budgets and can bury your E Commerce site under their advertising blitz. The internet however levels this by giving you a chance to showcase your expertise in your product. Big competitors often will find it difficult to create content for every category and product they are in. That means using social media you can always have a leg up over them. By smartly creating helpful content which is authoritative you can bypass heavy spends and yet shine on the internet

    Results analysis

    The biggest advantage of online advertising is immediate data analysis available for your campaigns. You need to add markers often in the form of URLs parameters to your product and share the URLs for a specific purpose. You can instantly find in your analytics panel if people are clicking on URL and if you are getting engagement that you thought you would get. In addition to your own analytics, there are analytics dashboards provided by social media companies as well as Google to help you measure effectiveness of your campaigns.

    Using this data, you can see if your campaign is working well or it needs some tweaking. You can respond faster based on the data and increase your chances at higher sales.

    Customer retention

    We all like to entertained from time to time. Some brands do it very well. They often share witty updates on your social media timeline. The engagement that it may generate helps social media companies to reward you with more eyeballs since your content helps user to stay on their sites longer which is exactly the metrics they measure and report to their shareholders.

    In case of Google search, results mean the search is actually being effective at getting results and google loves it when you deliver on that promise.

    Repeated content, which is of high quality, helps not only create engaged customer base but also helps increase sales over time.

    Often you may receive feedback from customers right on the social media. You should be ready to take that into account and incorporate it into your process.

    Photo by Kindel Media

  • Costs in starting an ecommerce venture

    Costs in starting an ecommerce venture

    E Commerce has a multiple number of costs associated with it. Let us take a look at some of them at the top level. We are deliberately not including the costs that are common to all businesses such as inventory costs and transportation and shipping

    Web Hosting and domain costs

    Every E Commerce project if hosted on its own domain would need a domain name and a hosting space. The domain name also needs to match up with the brand name that you plan to use.

    The hosting space is needed to host your product, customer and sales data. The hosting space usually is bundled with the domain name costs if both of them are purchased together.

    Software costs

    If you are planning to use free open-source software, you would not need to spend any money upfront as software cost. If you are opting for hosted solutions provided by providers such as Shopify or if you are hosting on large E Commerce portals you may need to pay fees related to listing of the product.

    In case you are using a hosted solution on your own, you might need SEO plugins, payment gateway plugins, email management, inventory management and other software. These may or may not cost money and you need to do your research to determine the costs associated with them.

    Technical support costs

    Even though your software may cost nothing, you may be lacking either in time or in skill to install and run it properly. You would also need to customize it to suit your brand image. These processes involve a consultant which can help you make these customizations. Based on the complexities of your need, consulting work may range from cheap to really expensive. If you decide to do it all yourself, you will need the time to learn them on your own. This may take your attention away from your main business.

    Digital Marketing

    Digital marketing includes running ads on Google and social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram.

    You would also need to pay influencers to help promote your products

    Also , if you wish that your customers discover your products when they search about it on Google , you would need to pay Google to run ads on your behalf.

    You would also need to create blogs and pay content writers a sizeable amount for writing posts about your products.

    Customer Support costs

    Customer support is an essential part of E Commerce project. You would need to be able to answer emails or calls from telephone. The internet users are often fickle and quick to take offense, so it is important that issues are resolved as soon as possible. You would also need to set up processes with your logistic providers as returns are a big part of your E Commerce system. These all need employees and thus may cost money.

    Cost of product listing

    Product is not just a static thing. It comprises of text, images and manuals associated with it. To make product look interesting you would need to hire artists who can add a bit of design to the product details such as an explanatory graphics. You would also need to redesign manuals to make them fit the web standards. You would need to take good photographs of your product from different angles and different sizes/resolutions.

    These too cost money and thus they form a line item in your cost calculations.

    Photo by Yan Krukau

  • Starting a luxury ecommerce business

    Starting a luxury ecommerce business

    Luxury segment is a highly profitable, high margin segment of retail business. Luxury shoppers are spoilt for choices in offline world, and they will expect the same if you take your business online. The luxury buyers want a similar experience when they visit your online store. Here are a few things to keep in mind when starting or running your luxury online store

     

    Customer Experience matters

    They are here for the best of the breed product. Of course you cannot have a shoddy website. Your website should be clean and neat. It should be easy to navigate. The format should follow your brand style. The website should load fast. The images should load fast. The links should all be working. The layout is friendly and bold. Everything that you do at your offline store should be replicated to maximum possible extend here on the website.

     

    Personalization matters too!

    Personalization is necessary for your website. Just like as you walk into a luxury hotel or a shop, the manager of the shop often remembers you and greet you. That shows that you are exclusively recognized by the store.

    In the web world, there are many ways to remember your customers. You may use cookies to remember them or provide personalized service when they login. You may use an exclusive number or personnel only available to them. You may also show up products relevant on their past purchase history or upsell them new product lines.

    Visuals matter!

    Would you be interested in for example. buying a luxury watch, if there are shoddy display of the watch at the store front. Of course, not. Similarly, your web presence also should be full of images where you showcase your product just like you would in the offline world. And these images can be rotating to show the product in different perspectives. For example, in one image, watch should be shown in a case. In another, there could be a model shown wearing the watch. All these items should display exclusivity that only a few people in the world can afford.

     

    Exclusiveness

    The point of luxury store is exclusivity. If the product is available on every other online store, your buyers may feel that the brand is not catering to specific clients but to everyone in the world. Your products are costly for a reason and that is they are not available beyond select locations. And if you can create something exclusive to your web customers, you further add to the exclusivity. That would drive interests and make sales happen faster.

    Packaging and delivery

    Exclusive web stores need to offer exceptional packaging of the product and regular updates on delivery. They need to connect with the best of the breed suppliers and make sure their services are top notch. The notifications should be creative and should make the customer excited about the product they are about to receive. You may add personal messages and letters inside the delivery box thanking them for the purchase and place to call, in case they are not satisfied with the purchase.

    Post sales service experience

    You don’t just want buyers to feel exclusiveness just during buying. You want them to feel special all through the sales and post sales process. Your service line should be manned for all the shop timings mentioned. There should not be a sense of hurry in understanding customer issues. Urgency should be shown in handling customer complaints. Suggestions need to be honoured and implemented. Nothing speaks more to the buyers than the fact that their words are acted up.

    Photo by Kampus Production

  • How to promote your E Commerce Store?

    How to promote your E Commerce Store?

    E Commerce store is easy to start. But one needs to be aware of the extreme competition in E Commerce world and the need to stand out among the crowd. It is a slow, grinding path to the end. If done right, the rewards are plenty.

    Next, we list out some of important and useful ways to promote your E Commerce store.

     

    High-quality product titles and descriptions

    The first step to a wonderful experience to an E Commerce site is attractive product titles and descriptions. You can create product titles that are SEO friendly.  Your product description may de divided into sections organized neatly. It should be easy to read and should provide a professional look for your site. If needed, you can create tables or comparison charts to make a point in favour of your product.  You may add images and videos to further enhance the appeal of your product.

    Clean and bright images

    Investing a good camera, photographic equipment is necessary. Clean images form the backbone of high-quality product listing. You would need images in various resolutions that satisfy printing requirements, multiple browsers, and multiple screen sizes. They also need to be mobile friendly. They need to be shareable as well, as sharing gives an opportunity for your product to be marketed at no extra cost to you.

    If you can’t take quality photos yourself, invest in a great photographer who can help you in this endeavour.

    Great content on the website based on Keyword research.

    In addition to the product titles, descriptions, and images, you may also incorporate blogging into your website. Blogging which is search engine friendly and which has an option to share the posts, helps people share information about you with their friends and provides you with free marketing (except for the expense of writing a great blog post).

    In addition, it helps you trigger word of mouth promotion which is radial and free.

     

    Use Social media!

    If you have budgeted money for advertising and marketing, use some part of it for social media marketing. Large companies such as Facebook, Pinterest and X have a sizeable population which is also engaged in their subject of interests. You may find groups of people whom you can target or also do interest based individual targeting. The ad should lead to your website and there should be a clean way to make the purchase.

    Influencer marketing

    Influencer marketing has become infamous for the actions of a few annoying influencers. However, in this age, one cannot wish away influencer marketing. An influencer may have fans who are eager to give a try to the product because the influencer has recommended it. This works great for electronics, restaurants and beauty industries. Strategic partnerships with influencers can help your brands go places you can not reach easily organically.

    Email Marketing

    Email Marketing is one of the most powerful methods to market your products. If an interested party (your lead/customer) has given you a permission allowing you to send them emails about your product, consider it is a privilege. People read their emails very seriously and will act on your recommendations. You need to make your emails readable and interesting.

    Also do not spam. You could be unsubscribed and even fined for spamming.

    Time sensitive discounting and promotions

    In marketing terms, marketeer creates the urgency when they can show that either prices are going to rise or stocks are going to zero in a certain time. Real Estate industry has shown to utilize this tactic very effectively. You may also use time sensitive discounts or discounts based on festivals or events to drive sales. This tactic is meaningful though when your E Commerce store has achieved certain level of virality.

     

    Photo by Pressmaster

  • How to successfully compete with E Commerce Giants

    How to successfully compete with E Commerce Giants

    So, you have decided to venture into your own E Commerce business. Welcome to the world of possibilities. There are more opportunities than even before in this area. However, you also need to know in this sea, there are giant sharks. Large E Commerce companies with huge marketing budgets and often predatory tactics can reduce your profit margin in a straightforward way to causing your venture to shut down at the extreme.

    Here are a few ways, your small or medium size E Commerce venture can compete against these sharks in the E Commerce world.

    Planning

    E Commerce startups often underestimate the importance of planning. You are stepping in a place where there are giant sharks waiting to eat you for lunch. You need to be able to find out how you are going to out compete. You need to do thorough research about their marketing and their strategies. It is similar to guerilla marketing tactics where you are the nimble task force fighting a mighty army. Planning at the strategic level as to what things you would compete upon (like offering/ price / customer experience) and then at the tactical level such as what steps would you take to make your offering better w.r.t. to your large competitors. It needs careful considers and market research.

    Local flavor

    Your large competitor is stretched thin. The segment they are in needs to be profitable enough for them to give you competition. They will find it difficult to conduct operation in every local segment. You may leverage your knowledge of area, local product, local language to create a strong offering that your competitor simply cannot match without devoting substantial resources to achieve similar results.

    Strong niche

    Your enemies i.e., the giants of E Commerce are often stretched. They have cost structures and often optimize for sales and cost. It is impossible for physical reasons for them to focus on every segment of the market and yet win profitably. That is where you can shine. You can determine the areas where you are strong. It could be your price because of sourcing, or it could be quality of your product or patents that you hold.

    If you perform well and deliver value, it will be difficult for the large competitors to dislodge you.

     

    Personal Connections to the shoppers

    E Commerce giants provide services that are automated. One needs to go through multiple levels of chatbots conversations, and AI provided answers which causes dissatisfaction. On your website on the other hand, you can provide a work phone and /or a WhatsApp number for rapid answers to your customer’s questions. You customers may like such levels of personalization.

    A thank you note to the buyers and if possible, a call asking them about their satisfaction of the product is how you build a long-term relationship with them.

     

    Your personal story

    If there is a business, there is a story. Is there a story for your business, a customer can instantly connect with and identify with?

    For example, often stories talk about how founders struggled through their life experiences and then stepped up to provide you the best of the breed solutions. A personal story helps a customer relate to their own experiences of struggles.

    You need to make sure that you have genuine reasons behind your story as your honesty will be rewarded with free advertisement and sales later.

    Unique marketing techniques

    Giant e commerce companies use billboards, big festivals and big ad spends to attract eyeballs because they have big budgets to spend.

    To counter, you can go low cost, high impact tactics such as surprise gifts, detailed content videos for example tutorials/ how to use your products. You may utilize humor to craft engagement that suits your product line and not cater to whole market that your large competitor needs to cater to.

    Leveraging social media to the maximum

    Social media is easy and cheap medium to get famous. Create and share posts and ask your friends and family to share them on their timelines. It instantly builds up the trust without need to spend additional money. You can also create product pages and share helpful content and updates. You can create group where you can share your expertise and even others can chime in too with their opinions. Keep an eye open for the feedback and respond personally and constructively.

    Image by Waldryano from Pixabay

  • Why E-Commerce businesses fail?

    Why E-Commerce businesses fail?

    It is said that build and they will come. Unfortunately, it is often the case that after building, one needs to do a number of things to attract them.

    Like any other business, E Commerce too is prone to failures. E Commerce projects are often brittle because they have a number of components that need to be glued together in perfect synchronization or they might fail to give the optimal result.

     

    Here are a few reasons any E Commerce business may fail:

    Competition:

    E Commerce is usually a business that can be started in a few clicks. Unlike other businesses, which need a shop with physical and also licenses to run it, E Commerce businesses are virtual. You sign up, list the product and you are live. But if you can do it so cheaply and easily, so can anyone else. And if your product is generic, it is possible that people might not see your product over those already listed by others in highly competitive marketplaces.

    The competition for E Commerce is global and if your product can be purchased cheaply from locations around the world, it will be.

    Discoverability

    It is hard to rank for keywords related to your product, if your product is generic or very commonly sold. However, even if your product is exclusive, it may take days before your links are recognized by a top search engine and given its due in their search pages. Often to get discovered, you will need to pay to search engines and social media giants.

    Getting discovered organically is hard work and it needs sustained budget and work. A one-or-two-person team may suffer burnout just to market the product on web.

    Customer feedback and issues

    A big problem with E Commerce project is that it is hard to meet the expectations of customers that purchase online. In a clothing store, for example, the size or the colour of the clothing may not match the one that is shown on the website. So, the dissatisfied customer may expect a return or refund. In some cases, they might leave a bad review or file a legal complaint too.

    Customers may fraudulently return used articles with damage done to them. This lowers the possibility of having a good margin and increases chances of failure of your E Commerce project.

    Supply chain issues.

    In a physical shop, a customer comes to you. In an online store, you ship the products to the customer. And that has its own set of issues. You need to negotiate shipping conditions with your shipping partners. The more customization you do, the more you need to pay. You also need to factor in the pickup costs in case of returns or damages. This makes the costing process go haywire.

    Website problems

    There could be plenty of problems with your website starting from poor response time to broken payments integrations, errors in software etc. The website software needs to be continuously updated and monitored for issues. And that costs money, time or both. You will need to connect with vendors to provide the necessary support. It may exceed your budget provisions.

    Fees and charges

    Hosting of website or listing your products on a large marketplace looks easy at the first glance but there are charges to keep things running. A large marketplace may charge you list your product, may take a cut from your sales and force you advertise of their website.

    If you run your own website, you need to pay for domain and hosting provider. You may also need to pay for the tools related to complaint management, marketing and email automation. The costs can add quickly.

    Insufficient budgets

    This all leads to the most important reason an E Commerce project may fail. Insufficient provision. Even though, E Commerce is relatively easy to start but often the hidden costs add up quickly. If you don’t provision enough money, then your project runs the risk of failure. Always make sure to think of all the aspect of an E Commerce costing before you start an online store.

     

    Photo by Benjamin Farren