You’ve probably heard the phrase that business is about overcoming obstacles. Well, it’s dead on correct and no less true for e-commerce. But if you manage to pave your way through, you’ll be rewarded with a lucrative business that will unlock your financial independence and bring food on the table. The key is to not get discouraged straight off the bat and keep moving forward; most likely, the issue you’re dealing with is easily solvable. To illustrate the point, we’ll go over 5 different ones and propose a solution for each:
1. Improper inventory management or a complete lack thereof
Your day-to-day routine can become quite a challenge, if you’re trying to manage your Shopify inventory without the right tools and software. Make sure you choose the right one and that you will be able to easily keep track of your raw materials, finished goods, and orders. Without smart software, you could end up expanding your inventory too much, leaving you with insufficient finances to invest in other aspects of your business.
2. Not enough website traffic
You could have the best online shop in the whole wide universe, but if no one knows it exists, how are you going to make any sales? There are multiple ways to fix this. In essence, you could either go for paid traffic (instant results, but costs money) or organic traffic (no need to spend money, but it could take weeks or months before your efforts start to bear fruit). Each of these has its pros and cons, so pick your poison!
3. Shopping cart abandonment
In the world of e-commerce, there is nothing more frustrating than checking out your analytics and finding out that someone was on the verge of buying an item, then failed to proceed with the purchase. To make matters worse, there’s a lot of guesswork involved in determining the reasons for it. To keep it as simple as possible, there are 2 key principles to remember. First, make sure the order process works from a technical perspective. Then, try to tackle things from a designer’s point of view – is there any unnecessary clutter you can remove?
4. Data security
Hackers are always on the lookout for a new exploit they could take advantage of to get into your server and plant malware. Not only could this lead to sensitive data theft (think phone numbers and credit card details), you could also get penalized by the search engine algorithms if malware is detected on your website. Data security is a broad topic, so to make it short, make sure to scan your website for malware on a regular basis, encrypt sensitive data, make regular backups, and avoid logging in to it through unsecured Wi-Fi networks.
5. Staying ahead of competitors
The last thing you want to be doing is wandering in the dark and not knowing what products to sell. By checking out what your competitors are doing, it’s easy to identify what products are trending. Then, all you need to do is sell the same ones and do a better job at marketing them. While you’re at it, try to dig up their traffic sources as well. Are they using social media to drive more sales? If so, what exactly are they posting?
Conclusion
As you can see, everything discussed today is completely solvable, although it might take some additional research and education to implement. Are you level-headed enough to retain your calm even when the day gets tough and think your way to a solution? This is what will make or break you in this line of business.
Kidal Delonix is a contributor to Mr. Hoffman's blog. The views and opinions are entirely his/her own and may not reflect Mr Hoffman's views.
