Overcoming E-Commerce Challenges When Building Your Online Store: COVID-19 Edition

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the shift to ecommerce into overdrive, with 44.5% year-over-year growth in the second quarter of 2020. Small businesses are taking note, moving retail sales from brick-and-mortar to online stores in order to keep cash flowing through the pandemic. But while ecommerce has helped retailers stay afloat, it’s not without challenges.

As we explain at eChannelHub, retailers going digital must contend with technical glitches, supply chain disruptions, and customers accustomed to two-day shipping. These challenges lead to higher costs and reduced customer satisfaction for businesses, so it’s important to get ahead of them when setting up your online store.

Common ecommerce problems and how to avoid them

On average, users spend less than 15 seconds on a webpage. If shoppers encounter poor web design, slow loading times, or confusing navigation, they’ll click away even faster. Capturing shoppers’ attention long enough to close a sale requires an online store that looks good and functions seamlessly.

Some of the most common problems new ecommerce retailers face include:

• Slow speeds: A slow website is the fastest way to drive shoppers to a competitor. Keep page load times under two seconds by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights to test website performance and resolve problems.
• Awkward navigation: Is it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for? Sticking to ecommerce conventions for navigation and shopping cart placement reduces customer confusion and improves abandonment rates.
• Poor images and product descriptions: Customers feel more confident making a purchase when they understand what they’re buying. Images that showcase products from multiple angles and meaningful product descriptions are a must for any online store. It’s also important to avoid stock images and instead, invest in photography that accurately depicts your brand.

Fast (enough) shipping for online retailers

Customer expectations around two-day shipping have relaxed during the pandemic, which has seen a variety of supply chain and shipping disruptions. However, customers still prefer fast shipping when they can find it, and retailers that can fulfill orders quickly gain a competitive advantage.

Fast order fulfillment during the pandemic requires efficiency in three places:

• The supply chain: Supply chain bottlenecks have made it difficult for online retailers to keep goods in stock. To manage these disruptions, retailers should diversify suppliers, search for domestic suppliers, and increase safety stock.
• Inventory management: Preventing supply chain problems requires keeping a close eye on inventory to prevent stockouts. For multichannel merchants, this means turning to an inventory management system that lets you track and sync inventory across all online channels.
• Order fulfillment: It’s also important to streamline the order fulfillment process to mitigate the impact of staffing shortages during the pandemic. Retailers can do this by optimizing warehouses to keep fast-moving inventory accessible, automating manual processes wherever possible, and improving last-mile delivery through collaboration with carriers and 3PL service providers.

Customer service for ecommerce: How does it differ?

E-commerce doesn’t just change how you get products to buyers. It also transforms how small businesses interact with their customers. Paired with problems caused by shipping delays and staffing strains, the shift to digital customer service has some small businesses struggling to keep customers content.

To keep up with the increased demand for customer service, online stores should utilize self-help solutions like help centers and chatbots and push customers toward chat and email over phone calls, which can be difficult to coordinate for remote employees.

It’s also critical to be honest and up-front about lead times, shipping delays, and customer service wait times during the pandemic. Prominently display important information on your website’s homepage and use email marketing to keep loyal customers updated. Proactive communication not only reduces ticket volume, it lowers the odds that employees have to contend with unhappy shoppers.

Ecommerce can help retailers survive the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to thrive long after it’s over. However, shifting brick-and-mortar business to online sales isn’t a one-to-one conversion. Succeeding in ecommerce during the pandemic requires different tools, skills, and strategies than selling face-to-face. By heeding this advice, your small business can overcome ecommerce challenges and build a profitable online store.

Look to eChannelHub to seamlessly automate your ecommerce business across multiple channels, plus provide the tools and support you need for growth.