Overcoming E-commerce Challenges: Five Key Questions for a Business Owner
A seamless e-commerce experience is essential to satisfy customer expectations in 2024, but it’s not always easy to deliver.
A seamless e-commerce experience is essential to satisfy customer expectations in 2024, but it’s not always easy to deliver.
Australian business owners often face a common set of challenges when they take their businesses online — from ensuring transaction security to managing complex supply chains. Yet, with every challenge comes an opportunity for growth and innovation. By answering these five questions, business owners can start to overcome these hurdles and set themselves up to achieve e-commerce success.
1. Are your digital payments secure?
In an era when online transactions are commonplace, offering shoppers a digital payment method that is both convenient and secure is crucial. Checking out should be fast and easy for your customers while also keeping them safe from potential security risks. Ignoring digital payment security can lead to data breaches, and potentially damage customer relationships and your brand’s reputation.
Look to make sure your business and chosen payment gateway vendor follow the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which helps protect your customers’ data and ensure secure payments. Being PCI-certified builds confidence and trust, which can make your customers want to come back and buy again.
2. Does your supply chain have any weak points?
Supply chain agility is critical today in an increasingly uncertain world. Neglecting supply chain resilience can result in significant delays or the inability to fulfil orders, leading to dissatisfied customers and lost revenue.
Understand every step in your supply chain, from where you source materials to how you fulfil orders. Assessing risks and identifying any weak links can help you develop backup plans and prepare for any situation. One of the ways to prepare is by diversifying your supplier base to include a mix of major and local partners to give you the agility you need to react to changes and unexpected delays. Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) can help predict delays and track your shipments through the supply chain. This visibility through real-time or near real-time data can help improve decision-making when things change quickly. Building supply chain resilience is an ongoing process. Be sure to conduct your supply chain due diligence from time to time.
3. Can you deliver to your customers fast and on schedule?
Getting your products into the hands of your customers on time is one of the most important factors in e-commerce fulfilment. Delivery times can have a real impact on whether or not people will continue to shop with your online store. Partnering with a reliable logistics provider that offers flexible, time-definite door-to-door delivery services is essential. Such a partnership can give a small business access to tools and services that improve efficiency, such as digitalising the manual customs clearance process.
With the right partner, your products can reach your customers on time, delivering a great brand experience and helping grow customer loyalty. And happy customers are more likely to tell others about your business.
4. Why are abandoned carts getting in the way of completed sales?
If you want to optimise your conversions then it’s important to understand why your customers are abandoning their carts. Some of the things that often get in the way of completed online sales include the requirement to create an account or fill out complex forms, limited or slow shipping options, coupon code issues, difficult return processes and limited payment options.
A seamless, user-friendly checkout process that includes transparent pricing, easy navigation, automated forms and multiple payment options, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, can help significantly reduce abandonment rates.
Plus, timely retargeting of shoppers who have dropped off with personalised cart abandonment emails or ads, can bring them back with reminders or incentives to complete their sale.
5. Are you prepared for the complexities of customs clearance?
Taking your business global brings with it the challenge of navigating a varied set of customs regulations. Every country has its own customs regulations, so each time you ship to a new market, you’ll have a new system to learn. Preparing for customs clearance can help avoid international shipping delays, increased costs and even legal complications and penalties.
One of the ways you can prepare is by working with an experienced logistics partner with a global reach like FedEx, who can simplify the customs clearance process for you and ensure a smooth delivery process to customers worldwide. Digital tools like Electronic Trade Documents can help you prepare your customs documents online easily, taking the hassle out of international shipping.
Turning e-commerce preparation into business opportunities
With adequate planning and preparation, and enabled by the right partner, your business can navigate common e-commerce challenges and tap into new markets. This can help you stay a step ahead of changing trends and provide a shopping experience that delights your customers.
Read now: How to ship internationally with customs confidence
