That so many e-commerce business startups fail (80% or more) should not come as a surprise since most business startups fail regardless of their type. However, e-commerce business failures happen because of reasons specific to the online world in addition to fundamental business oversights. The online business landscape has matured since the wild west days of the late 1990s and early 2000s. A great idea and a website with some traffic may have worked back then, but probably isn 't enough for success in today 's competitive online landscape. Here are five reasons why so many e-commerce businesses fail today:
The Low Barrier to Entry
Setting up an e-commerce store and filling it with products is simple to do. There are plenty of free open source
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These might include content writers, marketing people, SEO specialists, social media experts, and so forth. Of course, small businesses with limited resources do succeed but the lone entrepreneur is at a severe disadvantage. He or she would be hard pressed to do all the required activities at the same level as the competition.
Poor Inventory
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Let the customer see what your products look like with quality images. If the customer can 't get a good sense of a product with a single image, display the product from another angle with a second image. When a customer has a question in an offline store, she asks one of the sales staff. Likewise, include a frequently asked questions page and include a means of contact with yourself or your customer service.
Make your products easy to find with clear and simple navigation as well as a search bar. People who know exactly what they want typically use the search bar, while those who want to explore and browse use the navigation menus. Purchasing your products should be seamless and convenient. Give your customers multiple payment options and keep the purchasing process as simple as possible. The more steps required, the greater your shopping cart abandonment.
Trust and Credibility
The growth of online business has grown enormously over the years. Cliptomania is a family operated and owned small e-business that primarily sells clip on earrings (Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, & Perkins, 2012, p. 308). Cliptomania early developments were very modest, and as such the company experienced copious strategic dilemmas. An initial strategic dilemma that the company encountered when establishing and building their new e-business undertaking was to create a website for the business operations and essentially to have it fully operable. The owners, Jim and Candy elected to hire a vendor to host the website and additionally utilize the IT systems resources of the vendor to sustain their business. At the very beginning they exploited the offerings of the Yahoo Store. However, continuing down this avenue of using the services of the Yahoo Store inevitably became too costly. By using the services and business offerings of a vendor made it convenient and effortless for Jim and Candy to start their e-business store. Unfortunately the couple did not have much in the way of professional help, and so they had to create and put together the website by themselves. Additionally they also had to deal with establishing their online credibility as many customers preferred to call in their orders just to talk with a real person before being comfortable enough to place their orders via the webpage.
Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited is great book for anyone thinking of starting a business venture. Gerber describes how most businesses are started because people are fed up with their boss, or think they are doing all the work already so why not work for themselves. He states that every small business consists of three main characters the technician (the doer and builder), the manager (the planner), and the entrepreneur (the dreamer, visionary). There are life phases in a small business the infancy phase which is the technician’s phase, the adolescence phase which is when the business owner gets some help, beyond the comfort zone, and, maturity and the entrepreneurial perspective.
Building blocks of the competitive advantage is very effectiveness, worth, improvement and customer approachability. These particular building blocks in general have four common techniques in cutting down and getting excellence. Anyone can have the capabilities in implementing these.
First, when shopping, a big factor that will impact a customer 's experience is the customer service. Whether it’s from a simple “hello”, or an employee going out
Another method of distribution that we will use to sell our products and services is e-commerce. With everyone using the Internet and technology at an all-time high today, this method gives the company a strategic technique to help sell these items for consumption. It allows for them to reach all customers, any genders and ages. This is beneficial because customers are more apt to purchase these items when they are eased into it and it is very convenient. More and more people are interested in clicking on a link to go directly to our website, see our menu, and place their order. Adapting to this fast pace environment is a great benefit for our company, especially since we send the items right to the customers. This process is easy and
Customer service is valued as a competitive tool by many organisations. It gives you the ability to gain customer loyalty while meeting the customer’s expectations. Staff will have many skills and knowledge that will provide a competitive edge. Most organisations are known for the quality of their customer service. This means that they are known for good customer service or poor customer service. However, being known for good customer service will attract customers. It will also attract customers who are usually hard to reach.
In America eight out of ten small businesses fail in just their first year. Competition and lack of financing are two huge factors that lead to businesses failing. In 2009 more and more workers started to leave their more secure jobs to start their own business and become entrepreneurs. (Hannon 68) Over six hundred thousand small businesses were started, but that number means nothing if eighty percent of them (480,000) were doomed to fail in only twelve short months. (68)
Being able to provide exactly what your customers are looking for is one of the best ways to gain and retain customers. You will also begin to see that customer satisfaction is climbing, which makes it much easier to cross-sell and up-sell and thus increase your profitability.
N.D.) There are three things to know and do in order to capitalize on this, first know what motivates the customers from their behavior as well as their buying decisions. Second, is to uncover the true reasons the customers decided to buy your product or service instead of that of your competitors. Finally, put yourself in the customer shoes and ask yourself this question; what would make them come back to your store again? The answer to these could be the quality of the products and services offered, the friendliness of the employees, the customer service, the cleanliness of the store, and accessibility of the products (Staff, E.
Student Name ID Meznah Deaij Al-Otaibi 2140009626 Bayan Al-Kuwayti 2150010946 Hind Sultan Al-Khaldi 2140000885 Malika Al-Mohaimeed 2120007264 Content 1. Executive Summary: 2 2. Company Background: 3 2.1.
During the last decade, we’ve been to the top of the world—during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s—and back down again, when it all fell apart a few years later. But with the bad came the good: The Web forever changed the business world. The following small-business owners are shining examples of how Web-based technologies can be a businessperson’s best friend.
The Internet is rapidly becoming widespread and widely used as a tool for globalization across the world. As the Internet became more easily accessible by most people in the world, the web is bringing significant implications and changes to the way we live, including the way we shop. There is a rapid growth with e-commerce and moving businesses onto the web and retail success is no longer about stores and shopping centers. In developed countries, about two thirds of the population have access to the Internet making the option of online shopping is easily accessible to most people (Valerio). With the ease of shopping in your own home there are many benefits of doing your shopping online. Consumers can easily compare prices online, there is a larger range of products on the web, you can save time by having your shopping delivered right to your doorstep and it also overcomes physical barriers. Over the last decade online shopping has challenged and replaced the traditional means of physically going into shops as the digital world has provided customers with further convenience, flexibility and comfort from shopping from your own home.
Small businesses have been considered the mainstay in countries around the world. In many European countries for example, the small business has been considered crucial to the success and flourishment of the country in general. Most individuals start upon a small business venture in the hopes of realizing ownership, independent profits and personal success. Small businesses can prove extremely successful when planned properly. Studies suggest that several small businesses, however, close or fail within the first few years of operation. This failure suggests that a majority of small business owners may not have as yet realized the crucial success factors necessary for successful implementation of a small business.
...ount of untrustworthy and reliable sellers. EBay could counteract this problem by implementing a strategy where eBay would have the authority to terminate a user’s account if their rating in percentage dropped below 60%. This strategy may help the organisation to reduce the amount of unreliable seller resulting in a much more safer and reliable market platform where people would be able to purchase products at ease without any hassle.
In a simple way, the retailer needs to create a warm, friendly and an approachable retail space to attract consumers.The visual displays is an imperative element of branding of any store. If the stock is presentable, it is bound to appeal to the shoppers. If the shoppers appreciate the store layout and product, they are likely to spend more time in the store, and in return reward the store with sales. Along with the products for sales, the staff, the décor, the store interiors, the trial rooms arrangement, the lightings and music also form an inclusive elements boosting store sales. (fibre2fashion, 2008)