Thursday

The 5 Challenges of E-Commerce for Small Businesses


As the founder and CEO of a provider of shopping carts for small businesses, I am in a privileged position to witness and analyze cases of success and failure in the implementation of e-commerce sites on a regular basis.

Based on my experience, I have been able to identify five challenges applicable to most cases. Store owners can usually arrive at the same conclusions through trial and error, but in e-commerce the long way is always the expensive way. The best option is then to learn from the success of other on-line stores.

1. Your potential customers DO NOT trust your site



The Internet allows mom-and-pop websites to look just as good -maybe even better- than the websites of large corporations. All potential customers are well aware of this and they will be unimpressed by a sophisticated layout and a professional logo. Potential customers DO NOT trust the site they have just arrived at, and it must be your conscious decision to do what it takes to make them change their minds. Start by displaying a physical address, a telephone number, and a list of people behind the site. Consider joining forces with other websites that will create legitimacy for your own. If you can get your suppliers and distributors to mention you on their websites, this will surely make your business appear more trustworthy. Join a best practices organization such as the Better Business Bureau, or a privacy certification program such as Truste. Encourage and provide the means for your customers to review your products or services under their name and company. Publish success stories, always making sure the author is clearly identified. And most importantly: answer all pre-sales questions fully and in a timely manner. Many potential customers will contact you with very basic questions, or for information already provided in your FAQ section, just to test your company's responsiveness. Allocate the necessary resources to assure quick, personalized and courteous responses to all pre-sales inquiries. Read Full Story

1 comment:

  1. The challenges we want to overcome which is very much useful to get targeted within your posting. Thanks a lot for the share. Best e-commerce service provider in coimbatore | Online shopping solutions in coimbatore

    ReplyDelete

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