By Presto
9 July 2022
A Booming World
If you haven’t already heard, the world of online retail is booming. Of course, every retailer wants to take advantage of the huge demographic, but that also means the world of online retail is more competitive than ever—and with that competition comes a slew of challenges.
Furthermore, new retailers are seemingly popping up every minute, and consumers have their pick when it comes to buying new products online. In this competitive landscape, online retailers need to find ways to work past these challenges to stay relevant and appealing to customers.
Read on to learn more about the top challenges for online retailers that every business needs to be aware of.
Customer's Exploding Expectations
Retailers worldwide are continuously trying to build their reputation and a sharp brand image with the promise of a great experience. It is challenging to match customer expectations in an era where experience matters the most.
From the minute they go to your website to the moment they unbox their delivery at home, customers have high expectations. They want a seamless ordering and shipping experience. If an online retailer can’t meet those expectations, they are the ones who will lose out.
One of the biggest challenges for online retailers is that they need to be on top of their game in all facets of business in order to stay competitive and keep customers happy. This means keeping items in-stock, providing fast (and ideally free or cheap) shipping, creating an easy-to-navigate website and checkout process, minimizing shipping errors, and having strong and responsive customer service.
Connecting With Audience is Key
Customers need to be able to communicate with businesses as easily as possible. Of course, this is particularly true for businesses with solely an online presence, since customers can’t physically talk to a sales associate.
This means online retailers have to create and maintain multiple channels of communication so that customers can reach out in whatever form is easiest for them—which can be challenging for online retailers to keep up. These channels include emails, phone calls, live chats on the website, and social media.
Additionally, online retailers need adequate manpower to handle these communication attempts in a timely manner to maintain customer trust and loyalty.
Loyalty Goes A Long Way
One of the biggest challenges for online retailers is earning and maintaining the loyalty of customers. With so many options available to them, it is easy for customers to abandon their favorite online retailer the moment they find another that offers something more—whether that be better customer service, better selection of product, better shipping options, or something else.
Customer loyalty is indeed a determining aspect of a business’s success, and even a minor glitch from the retailer can entirely ruin the brand’s reputation. The solution? Online retailers can create a loyalty program, offer birthday rewards, publish an “About Us” page with pictures of staff (to put faces to the business), and maintain extremely good communication and customer service practices.
A Mobile-First Approach
In today’s day and age, the desktop is no longer the primary online shopping portal. In addition to building a website, online retailers should strongly consider going mobile due to the fact that more and more customers have grown comfortable with their mobile phones for online transactions.
Retailers need to realize the importance of using a mobile-first design approach. It gives a better cross-platform customer experience and can better capture the imagination of the audience through a mobile-friendly user interface. Furthermore, it also ensures that your store is always fast, responsive, and reliable. All in all, a mobile-first design ensures that your customers feel comfortable with e-commerce transactions.
Choosing The Right Platform
To put it simply, if you don’t have an e-commerce platform, it is impossible for you to compete online. An e-commerce platform is the backbone of an online retail enterprise, and the RIGHT platform can help to streamline how your business interacts with your clients, customers and employees.
As e-commerce technologies continue to advance, on-premise technology is falling more and more behind, and an e-commerce platform such as PrestoDirect is taking a leap forward. PrestoDirect is a customizable e-commerce platform that helps to facilitate the management of a website, marketing, sales, and operations for any online business selling products or services—be it small, medium, or large. Online retailers can enjoy a full set of basic e-commerce services including online shops, payment gateways, logistics services, and even supply of goods.
Furthermore, retailers can connect with PrestoDirect suppliers and sell directly to customers at zero-inventory cost—meaning online retailers never have to handle the products or invest in any inventory space! With PrestoDirect, everyone can sell today!
Join PrestoDirect today to be part of the network and sell millions of SKUs directly from the factory!
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