Ecommerce is growing at an unprecedented rate. According to the U.S Census Bureau, there are now more than 3 million online stores in the United States alone! That's a lot of competition for any business, but it also means that there's plenty of opportunity too.
Here are some common challenges that ecommerce brands faced. Maropost, leader in ecommerce and multi-channel marketing software, predicts that these trends will probably continue even beyond the pandemic.
Extremely Rapid Growth
McKinsey research stated that we’ve fast-forwarded 5 years in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of months. This means that every ecommerce merchant needs to move really fast, adapt to constant changes and evolve all the time.
Here’s how you can do it:
- Test and learn all the time
- Encourage and reward experimentation
- Always focus on delighting your customers
Inefficient Operations
Unfortunately, marketplace sellers engaging in traditional wholesale practices receive no protections against unverified buyers, making the payment experience unreliable and potentially uncertain. Dealing with old practices also means having inefficient invoice and payment processes.
Perhaps you’ve outgrown your warehouse and now have multiple. Maybe your product turnaround time is long. Or what if your fulfillment accuracy could be better?
Managing it all better comes down to the processes and the software you use to guide you. When you have to work with too many platforms, connect them all and ensure they integrate well, it’s easy to lose track. In contrast, having it all in one place would save a great deal of time and help stay organized no matter what. This directly affects the revenue in the long run too.
Complicated Tech Stack
Inability to manage ecommerce and marketing automation in one platform. Having too many platforms leads to lots of manual work, unnecessary costs and headaches.
It is common for marketers and ecommerce store owners to spend a lot of time manually performing repetitive tasks. It's also common for these same people to be the first to complain about how little free time they have. There are several tools that can automate some (or all) of your marketing and ecommerce activities, and save you significant amounts of time. Some examples include marketing, email and ecommerce automation.
Email automation is a must-have for any ecommerce business. The ability to automate your email marketing campaigns will help you grow your customer base and increase ecommerce sales over time.
Lack of Understanding of the Customer
When consumers are shopping online, it’s even easier for them to switch to a competitor when something is off. Not enough shipping options, product variations, payment methods, and the customer is gone. Understanding the market and customer expectations is key.
This needs to start with deep ICP analysis. Everything about them – demographics, psychographics, preferences, buyer behavior, lifestyles, likes and dislikes – all of that should be carefully considered. Only then you can speak their language and make your offerings feel like they were tailor-made for them.
Do you want to keep your audience interested at all times? Send tempting deals that are unbeatable by your competitors. Dynamic content boosts email engagement, according to our customers' analytics. This is due to the fact that dynamic content allows you to send content that is tailored to each individual user. You can send customized content to your subscribers based on user behavior or data you have about them.
Here are a few examples:
- Age, gender, location, and other demographic data
- Preferences of subscribers
- Subscribers' interests
- Subscribers who open and click on specific types of content (e.g. infographics, blogs, videos)
Consider delivering personalized Christmas gift ideas based on each recipient's preferences. That's real "personalization!”!
Going Against Big Players
Managing inventory efficiently enough to meet increasing demands is enough of a challenge. Now also try matching Amazon’s 2-hour delivery and offering “buy now pay later” options and it’s easy to get discouraged. But don’t! Powerful automation platforms can help you become just as competitive, showcase your point of difference and appeal to your dream customer in the best possible way.
You can cooperate with a custom packaging company like Arka, and create unique custom boxes for your brand. This will hugely impact customer behavior and help increase brand loyalty. Go ahead and check out Arka's custom gift boxes or shipping boxes. If you have a beauty-related e-commerce store you can create luxurious cosmetic boxes with Arka's help!
Plus, the trend towards local and small business shopping, sustainable operations and packaging is on your side!
Not Mobile-Optimized Site
This is probably self-evident at this time. According to a recent report, almost 60% of US shoppers used their mobile phones for their shopping experience last year. To put it another way, more than half of emails are opened on mobile devices and nearly 70% of mobile users delete emails that they can't read on their device.
As a result, even if your holiday promotions are eye-catching and distinctive, if they aren't mobile-friendly, a large portion of your subscribers are unlikely to click on them. Make sure you design your Christmas emails, ads and overall campaigns with mobile in mind, and you'll see an increase in consumer engagement and purchases.
Sending Too Many or Too Few Emails
Email is an amazing ROI-driving tool that has proven to convert much better compared to other marketing tools. It’s easy to get very excited and start sending an email about your special offers every day. While there’s no universally right cadence when it comes to emails, staying quiet for the majority of the year only to bombard your audience with daily emails during the holidays isn’t ideal. That’s why you definitely should include email in your strategy, but do it wisely.
- Segment your audience
A well-targeted and tailored holiday email will receive far more opens and clicks than a generic broadcast email. Our customer data bears witness to this.
The most effective strategy to personalize communications to clients' individual interests and purchase patterns is to segment your subscribers. To increase engagement and conversions, you can develop subscriber personas (such as frequent purchasers, infrequent buys, past holiday shoppers, and so on) and design separate holiday advertisements for each of these categories.
- Wisely Expand Your Audience
If you want to email subscribers that aren't in your usual engaged segment, you should do so in stages.
If you usually email subscribers who have opened your emails in the last 30 days, start with 45 days, then 60 days, and so on. Opens, clicks, spam complaints, and unsubscribe rates should all be closely monitored. When you notice an increase in spam complaints and a decline in open and click rates, stop increasing the segments. If you increase volume by more than 10%-12% of your typical email list size every time, you risk triggering throttling filters on your ISP's end.
- Keep Tabs on Your Progress
Last but not least, keep a watch on bounces, spam complaint rates, unsubscribe rates, and your overall reputation. If you're getting a lot of bounces and spam complaints, you might want to suspend your marketing campaigns and reconsider your sending approach. Alternatively, reduce your speed until your indicators return to normal.
These challenges may seem daunting, but the right tools could help manage all of this and help businesses stand out. Also, the correct and balanced mix of marketing efforts will help get the message across, but also not spread yourself too thin.
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