The future of digital selling with effective eCommerce platforms
The impact of technology has drastically transformed the way businesses connect with their customers. In recent years the way people shop has immensely changed. Shopping malls being flooded with shopaholic men and women on holiday sales have become a thing of the past. Ecommerce stores like Amazon and eBay have become the new shopping destinations for the Millennials. It is researched that 40% of Americans purchase online on an eCommerce store at least once every month.
This massive increase in global eCommerce sales in recent years has revolutionized the B2B and B2C commerce scenarios.
With an incredible user penetration of over 46%, the eCommerce space is expected to house over 4000 Million users in a couple of years. While these figures are promising on one hand, on the other hand, there’s a lot of challenges in store too.
The eCommerce industry is growing rapidly and becoming an increasingly competitive marketplace. The trends are not only fast-changing but also very difficult for businesses to keep up with. Unforeseen challenges, increasing complexities, bottleneck competition, and vividly expanding marketplace make eCommerce selling a more daunting task especially for startups and small & mid-sized businesses.
Challenges in store for eCommerce businesses:
This article will walk you through different eCommerce challenges and effective ways to overcome those challenges.
Numerous shopping channels
Unlike earlier days, customers these days are empowered with an extensive choice of shopping destinations apart from the eCommerce stores (say, web stores, people-powered selling communities, social media platforms, other marketplaces, etc.) A recent survey revealed that more than 70% of online shoppers choose to shop from multiple channels. This necessitates the businesses to bid goodbye to the conservative single-platform approach and deploy channel-specific and omnichannel approaches.
Inventory management challenges
It becomes humanly impossible to maintain, manage, and handle volumes of products manually. When inventories grow and numerous products are onboarded, it becomes inexplicably complex to access, handle, and manage humongous volumes of data. Without an effective eCommerce platform that lets businesses manage their inventories and handle their orders like a pro, on the go, it is not only challenging and difficult but also prone to human errors and irrecoverable business consequences.
Complexities in collaboration
It takes painstaking effort for the product managers and stakeholders to collaborate across numerous teams that operate in silos. Multiple departments like administration, supply chain, customer service, procurement, sales, logistics, accounts, shipment, marketing, etc. need to work seamlessly and effectively to deliver a frictionless shopping experience to the customers. This isn’t possible without a robust eCommerce platform.
Addressing customer complaints
The onset of the Internet has democratized the digital space like never before in history. The Internet has empowered users with unconditional freedom and unmoderated power to buy/return products with no obligation. This entails the businesses to give customer service a main focus on par with the price and quality of the products. The future is here to witness an increase in customer complaints, negative reviews, and disputes that businesses are going to find extremely challenging to address.
Syndicating the right product information
Product information can make or break a brand. There is nothing that can put down a customer like inaccurate or obsolete product information. When more products and inventories are onboarded, it becomes daunting for the eCommerce stores to update frequent and rapid changes in the product information and to keep up with the real-time.
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How to choose the right eCommerce platform that helps you overcome these challenges?
The following is a short checklist of key parameters that you need to consider while choosing the best digital platform to build your eCommerce store:
- Integrations with external shopping channels
- Scalability to meet dynamically growing inventory sizes
- Proper and appropriate information architecture
- Foolproof system to track, handle, and manage customer complaints
- Enhanced data visibility and control
Other key factors include –
- Marketing capabilities of the platform
- SEO-friendliness
- Ready-to-use themes
- Intuitive dashboard
- Mobile-friendly templates
Along with these factors, ensure that the platform you choose is customizable to meet your unique business requisites. Because eCommerce platforms are a lot more than colorful themes and visual gimmicks. If there is something more challenging than running an eCommerce store successfully, it is choosing the right platform keeping in mind factors like flexibility, adaptability, and modularity.
Wondering how to get started? Get a free consultation with our eCommerce experts.
With in-depth knowledge and understanding of the eCommerce industry and years of hands-on experience, TheCommerceShop houses an amazing team of certified eCommerce specialists, business consultants, and experienced professionals who work hand in hand to help eCommerce stores sell more easily and quickly.
