E-commerce is the future of business, there’s no doubt about it.
More and more businesses are making the switch to online customer interactions. Not only does e-commerce improve your reputation in terms of being eco-friendly, but it also allows you to reach a much wider audience than before! Most importantly, e-commerce can help save money in terms of marketing, internal operations, shipping costs etc.
However, if you’ve never done e-commerce before or have been doing it for a while now – then you will know that there are certain challenges that come with this new way to do business. Most notably among them are:
Finding products at reasonable prices to sell on your website keeping up with inventory Shipping costs and fulfillment issues
Finding products at reasonable prices to sell on your website
One of the major benefits of b2b e-commerce is that it allows you to be more competitive in terms of pricing. You can get great deals from suppliers, sometimes better than wholesale deals. However, suppliers are always competing amongst each other for your business. The problem with this is that they try to outbid each others prices and offer you their products cheaper than what the market value really is. This causes shipping costs to increase, or worse – product quality to decrease! These are not things you want when running an online store.
Fortunately there’s a solution that helps solve these problems – drop shipping! Drop shippers have been around since the beginning of ecommerce and will continue to be around for a long time. Drop shipping is the process of purchasing products from your supplier and placing them in a drop shipper’s hands (the drop shipper handles all order fulfillment and customer service). When the customer places an order, it goes directly to your drop shipper who then posts the order to you (seller) at zero cost!
Keeping up with inventory
Every online store requires some sort of inventory management system. Because ultimately, whoever owns the product that the customer wants to buy has to get paid for that sale – even if that means contracting out work or providing quality control. You need access to what you have sold and how much you sold so you can properly fulfill orders and not run out of stock before fulfilling other orders.
As mentioned earlier, drop shipping is the solution to this problem. The benefit of having your supplier handle all order fulfillment and customer service is that they can provide you with real-time information about their inventory levels. Not only will you know exactly how many you have sold but also who bought them – giving you more insight on what products are popular among customers!
Having a business without any financing plans in place isn’t very smart either. Make sure to read our previous article about merchant services . If your credit history or finances are not up to par to finance the e-commerce business you want like eWorldTrade, then look into alternative methods of financing by using personal loan services like Kabbage . This article gives some great tips on finding small business loans.
Shipping costs and fulfillment issues
Selling products online also means shipping the products to your customers. Unfortunately, every shipment business goes through will cost you more than what you might think! Shipping companies charge a fee for everything and it all adds up real quick – especially when you’re selling hundreds of items on your website. This has become such a challenge that some drop shippers have offered their own fulfillment services! Not only is this convenient but it does save money in the long-run.
It is very difficult for an online store owner to get into ecommerce without knowing how to do basic marketing. Be sure to read our previous article on search engine optimization . It’s no secret that Google dominates the market in terms of traffic, so if you want to get traffic off your website and into your store, be sure you optimize it for search engines like Google and Bing. Be sure to read the article and follow the tips mentioned!
One of the benefits of ecommerce is that it provides business owners with more flexibility. You can stay home while running your online sales or even take a vacation to Ibiza (if you want). This requires effective marketing techniques such as SEO to get buyers through the door. Once they’re in their looking at all sorts of products – including yours! Hopefully this article has given some insight on how entrepreneurs can overcome common challenges in ecommerce. If you have anything valuable you’d like to add I would love to hear from you below in our comments section! Until next time everyone, happy selling!
Shippers have been around since the beginning of ecommerce and will continue to be around for a long time. Drop shipping is the process of purchasing products from your supplier and placing them in a drop shipper’s hands (the drop shipper handles all order fulfillment and customer service). When the customer places an order, it goes directly to your drop shipper who then posts the order to you (seller) at zero cost!
Keeping up with inventory Every online store requires some sort of inventory management system. Because ultimately, whoever owns the product that the customer wants to buy has to get paid for that sale – even if that means contracting out work or providing quality control. You need access to what you have sold and what you still have made – regardless of whether another company fulfills the order.
Search engine optimization for e-commerce Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing tactic that involves getting traffic to your website by increasing its visibility on search engines. It has helped companies such as Dell and Expedia become successful at selling their products online without spending too much on marketing ! Starting your business with minimal cash means you will need to spend as little as possible on advertising and promotion. SEO can be done by yourself or through a reputable SEO company like Search Engine Optimization, Inc .