Many businesses blame the rapid increase in technology for creating more eCommerce challenges, but that isn’t correct. Because for every problem, there is a solution.
Yes, in the world of eCommerce things do change. New online markets, software, expansions, market crashes, profit surges and much more come into play. But that doesn’t mean it is impossible to make it as an eCommerce business.
More often than not, it actually provides opportunities.
Your business can regularly analyse and review its workflow, supply chain logistics, online presence and tools. These eCommerce challenges can drive you to make the best business management possible.
But we’ll give you a guiding hand along the way.
Your eCommerce challenges include:
#6 Increasing Sales With Amazon
Do You Have Any More eCommerce Challenges?
Before You Face Your eCommerce Challenges
Now, most of our guides follow a simple format. You have a question, query or challenge, and we answer it. We guide you through the nuance and help you arrive at a solution. However, this article is more less like a fairy godmother and more like a roadmap.
We’ll give you a brief overview of the issue you face, describe your business solution, and then help you into more comprehensive detailed articles if you need some extra support.
Just remember – all eCommerce challenges have a corresponding solution!
So without further ado, let’s break down the issues that businesses face today.
eCommerce Challenge #1 – Profitability
Profitability plays an unforgiving role in business. After all, if you miscalculate even the slightest, then your figures could lead you down a dangerous road. This happens especially with SMEs who believe that cutting profit margins will equal more business.
All it does is cut your profits and encourages other SMEs to do the same until it is an economic race-to-the-bottom.
Or, other businesses simply fail to take into account added expenses, such as Amazon fees. This can be one of the most enormous eCommerce challenges because it affects your financial forecasting and bottom line.
The Solution
You require a viable product comparison strategy.
This includes a tool such as Product Finder which is precisely designed for this kind of eCommerce challenge. With a comprehensive product comparison strategy you can find data such as:
- Amazon Specific Internal Number (ASIN)
- Brand (The one that Amazon associates with the identifier)
- Title (The description Amazon associates with the identifier)
- Buy Box Price (Essential to win the Amazon Buy Box)
- Amazon Referral Fee
- Amazon FBA Charges (Check out our Amazon FBA Guide for a full breakdown!)
- Product Sales Rank
You can use all of this profitability data to make the best decisions for your business. In just a few keystrokes, you can scan across thousands of businesses that sell products similar to yours, and out together your essential product comparison strategy!
eCommerce Challenge #2 – Multi-Channel Selling
Multi-channel selling is a great deal of work.
However, it is one of the most effective ways to build both your reputation and your products. By all means, sell on Amazon – they are an incredibly effective way to boost sales! However, make sure that you don’t forget your own eCommerce website.
That website becomes a cornerstone for your online reputation. It serves as a place where customers can discover and research your products and brands. They can browse your galleries directly.
And they can also order products without you paying extra commission!
But, like we said – it can be a lot of work.
The Solution
With the right eCommerce platform, it’s not a problem at all.
What you need is an eCommerce website builder that is user-friendly. An effective platform that doesn’t require an entire team to run. An online website that sells both directly and through social media marketplaces.
With eSuperStore it is simpler than ever to create and run your own online website. This tool:
- charges 0% commission
- offered international payment pathways
- allowed you to sell through Facebook and Instagram
- offered multilingual storefronts for international sales
- can be built with zero developer knowledge
It also comes with a friendly setup wizard that guides you through the 6-step process with ease.
Once you are up and running, you can run and receive orders straight through your phone – multichannel selling just became a whole lot easier!
eCommerce Challenges #3 – Complex B2B Sales
Certain businesses face an interesting challenge when it comes to B2B sales.
Communication and encryption.
Different operating systems, alternative languages, different decimal points all reduce the ability of computers to “talk” with each other. Means that the B2B process requires human intervention and often looks something like this:
It is a logical eCommerce challenge – this process takes time and manual processing to complete each and every order. If protocols were less stringent – you’d be sacrificing cybersecurity and leaving your business vulnerable.
The Solution
But what if you could overcome this eCommerce challenge by making the process look more like this:
Well, with an EDI Solution you can!
Electronic Data Interchange (or EDI) is a software that allows B2B companies to set up secure “conversations” allowing you to cut your bottom line on physical materials, and save time on the processing of each order.
Best of all, it’s now available for smaller businesses too!
With EDI you can experience:
- Greater accuracy
- Enhanced productivity
- Faster commerce
- And save on business costs!
Just check out our guide on “What Is EDI?” for a full breakdown of this B2B solution.
eCommerce Challenge #4 – Order Fulfillment
Order fulfillment is perhaps one of the best problems to have in online business. After all, what could be better than extraordinarily high demand for your products!?
It could mean that you need to raise your prices, but that’s a conversation for the profitability section. Instead, let’s talk about how you can more easily manage order fulfillment.
Order fulfillment is especially an issue with smaller businesses that simply do not have the space to maintain an extensive inventory – and it happens more than you may expect. If you have the space for inventory – no problem. If you don’t, then you are forced to maintain an extremely fragile supply chain all the time.
The Solution
Fulfilment by Amazon is an excellent solution for these types of eCommerce challenges.
Amazon FBA gives you the freedom to expand your inventory and more effectively manage your production and times. While you may need an Amazon FBA guide to help navigate the particular vagaries of the system, it offers so much more than just one solution.
With Amazon FBA you gain even more, such as access to millions of Amazon Prime members across the globe, and a share of the Brand Trust that Amazon maintains under their name!
eCommerce Challenge #5 – Amazon Fees
Once you work with Amazon as a Seller, you discover that it can be as confusing as it is profitable. There are so many different add-ons and personalisations that revolve around your business, you might be asking yourself if it’s worth the hassle.
The truth is that it is worth the hassle, if you know how to use it.
When businesses don’t manage their accounts properly, they can certainly end up paying more Amazon fees than they should. For example: Why pay for a large amount of inventory storage at an Amazon warehouse for a product that isn’t selling well?
When you put it simply like that, it makes sense. However when you’re running an entire business – things can get a little more clouded.
The Solution
Seller Central Connect is the tool that makes the complicated, simple.
This is a single tool that works with your Amazon Seller account, and it cuts through the unnecessary confusion. You can:
- Bulk upload your entire catalogue and inventory
- Synchronise orders, metrics and customer data seamlessly
- Automate repricing optimisation with a minimum price line to maximise profits
- A full product-by-product breakdown of Amazon Seller and FBA fees so that you know exactly how much and what you are paying for.
eCommerce Challenges #6 – Increasing Sales With Amazon
Amazon is a confusing place when it comes to increasing sales. There are forms of fees including Market Development Funds for Vendors, or access to Amazon Vine and many more options.
All in all, there are a great deal of options and it never feels like there is enough time to analyse each one!
For the vast majority of Amazon Sellers, they will end up simply using Amazon as an average retail channel. If anyone orders their products, great! If not, then it is what it is.
The Solution
The Amazon Buy Box is potentially the greatest way to increase sales as an Amazon Seller. Winning the Amazon Buy Box, even for just a day, can radically alter your business potential and it’s not hard to see why.
Because 82% of all Amazon purchases are made through the Buy Box. On mobile devices, that figure shoots up to 90%.
So, owning a share of that Buy Box is essential – but how is it done?
Our guide on how to win the Amazon Buy Box gives you a full breakdown of the performance metrics and ratings required to win the Buy Box. Every piece of information that you need, all in one place.
Spoilers ahead – Amazon Seller Connect and Product Finder are extraordinarily helpful in the process, but if we go into detail here, this article will turn into a full dissertation, so simply check the link and compare the metrics needed!
eCommerce Challenge #7 – The Right Market
Every business has their own unique selling point (USP), the only issue is that customers know your USP better than you do.
It seems odd, right? But the truth is that what you see in your products is not necessarily what your potential customers see. That can leave you with two options:
- Is your target market correct?
- Or are you selling on the right market?
Maybe your intended audience is not who you think it is, or perhaps your current market is simply oversaturated with similar products.
Regardless of which of these reasons is correct, you need to commit to some analysis if you want to benefit your business.
The Solution
If your target market is incorrect, then you need to commit to some serious market analysis to analyse the issue.
- What are your competitors selling?
- How are they selling it?
- What are their websites like?
If your target market is correct, then it could be a simple marketing issue – are they seeing your products in the way that they need to see them? Or perhaps your website SEO simply isn’t up to scratch. These are some simple eCommerce business strategies.
Or, perhaps your current market is oversaturated. There is one easy way to solve this…
Product Finder (yes, the same one from earlier) can make distinctions between foreign markets. You can select alternative markets to analyse the competition there and find the ideal time and place for market expansion opportunities.
Too many similar products are sold in your market? Not a problem, just use Product Finder to analyse where there is less competition, and expand. These are business opportunities that are so valuable, you can’t afford not to seize them.
Do You Have Any More eCommerce Challenges?
We love to help businesses. After all, SuperDisty was founded after 20 years of personal experience working in the IT distribution industry. We’ve witnessed businesses overcome their struggles and we work every day to ensure that you don’t have to face them alone.
Make sure to check out our resources section to find the guides that are pertinent to your business. Or, feel free to get in contact with one of our professionals who are more than happy to help!
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