5 Common Challenges of Ecommerce and How to Overcome Them

Ensure your store is mobile-friendly because over half of online users use their phones and tablets for shopping.

Make sure your web hosting provider has strong uptime rates and guarantees high page load speed. If you don’t know how many visitors your website can support, use a load testing tool like JMeter.

Conduct A/B tests to see how you can improve the interface and increase user engagement.

Run website surveys to better understand your customers and make informed decisions. Use pop-up forms to survey both returning buyers and abandoning customers.

3. Shopping cart abandonment

Whether you’re an ecommerce start-up or a well-known retailer, shopping cart abandonment is likely to cause a lot of headaches.

Studies show that online shoppers abandon products in their carts more than half the time.

At some point, you may feel that no matter what you do, there’ll be people dropping off halfway through checkout. This is akin to consumers coming to your physical store, bringing the desired item to checkout, and changing their minds.

Sometimes, cart abandonment has nothing to do with your store, as it’s purely behavioral. Other times, the reasons might be hidden in your shipping policy, the lack of trust, your payment options, and other factors. Your job is to figure out what these factors are and eliminate them.

How to overcome this ecommerce challenge

Shopping cart abandonment is a complex problem, and it requires a set of tactics to be resolved. Let’s have a look at some of them.

Eliminate the guesswork. Specifically, conduct an exit-intent survey to pinpoint the reasons why people abandon their carts. You can do the same for any other step of the funnel including checkout abandonment and product page abandonment.

If you’re feeling hesitant about using exit-intent popups, you can also survey those who spend a certain amount of time on a product page without moving to checkout.

Test your checkout process. One of the common reasons for cart abandonment is complicated and tedious checkout, and if this is the case, consider simplifying it.

Implement a live chat. For those customers who leave because of the size, quality, or delivery speed concerns, having a chance to chat with a salesperson might be sufficient to follow through with a purchase.

Launch a retargeting campaign. If you have social media pixels installed on your website, you can run a retargeting campaign on Facebook and Instagram to remind people about the products they’ve left in their shopping carts.

Create an abandoned cart email campaign. If an abandoning visitor was logged in during their visit, you can reach them in their inboxes by setting up an abandoned cart email campaign. Such emails typically include a reminder about the products left in the cart and an incentive to drive customers back and encourage them to finish checkout.

4. Customers’ fear of purchasing online

Although online shopping has become the new normal, some objections aren’t new. Among the biggest ones is the lack of confidence that the product will meet customers’ expectations due to the inability to see and feel it before buying.

This challenge is especially relevant for new merchants whose online reputation hasn’t been fully established yet. If this is your case, you want to give your customers peace of mind and alleviate their concerns from day one.

How to overcome this ecommerce challenge

The best strategy for alleviating customers’ fears is to provide guarantees. The guarantees most people are looking for are related to money and satisfaction. Here are the steps you can take to provide them 👇

Include high-quality images and videos of a product. Having a detailed product description is important, but without high-quality visuals, it’s not enough. Take a page from Amazon’s book on that and don’t limit yourself to still images. Consider adding videos of the product, including those where it’s being used.

Use social proof. No one wants to be the first person to buy a product. That’s why most people are looking for customer reviews. The best practice is to showcase them right on the product page, however, you can also use your social media pages or other platforms. Don’t know how to ask for customer reviews? Learn from our detailed guide.

Implement a clear return and refund policy. Returns are inevitable for most ecommerce businesses, so you need to prepare a straightforward return policy in advance and make sure it’s easily accessible.

Apart from being a good business practice, it’s also a proven way to alleviate one of the most common customer concerns. Knowing that they can easily return an item if it doesn’t meet their expectations helps customers shop with you more confidently.

5. Proper identity verification

When a customer visits your physical store, you have a chance to deal with them face to face. However, if you own an online store, there’s no easy way to identify a customer and ensure that the information they provide is legitimate.

The lack of a proper identity verification system can be a challenge for any ecommerce start-up, however, it’s especially risky for those providing a cash-on-delivery (COD) option, which is still common in about 30% of European countries. Identity theft isn’t just an ‘unpleasant event,’ but it can easily lead to revenue and reputation losses.

How to overcome this ecommerce challenge

In addition to the safety measures we talked about earlier, it’s crucial that you also implement identity verification in your store. Below are the key steps to do it.

Send an automated verification link to those who have created an account in your store to validate that these customers are genuine. This is usually done via email or SMS.

Consider using a one-time password (OTP) feature to add another layer of security and confirm purchases.

For cash-on-delivery purchases, call the buyer to validate the delivery address before processing it.

Be on the lookout for signs of suspicious activity: unusually high volume of orders or any change in the usual purchasing behavior.

Use captcha plugins to spot fake users.

Wrapping up

Starting an ecommerce business requires courage, determination, and a good understanding of the market. However, even if you’re certain about the products you’re selling and your marketing strategy, there might be other challenges you’ll have to overcome along the way.

With this article, we’ve only scratched the surface and covered challenges related to security and customer expectations. You can learn how to boost sales, drive traffic to your store, and grow an audience of email subscribers from our blog.