Infographic: Challenges E-commerce Merchants Face

As an eCommerce merchant, whether a complete newbie or seasoned veteran, there will be hurdles to overcome in your quest to become a successful business owner.

According to stats, about 50 percent of startups fail in the first four years. It is therefore imperative for starters to learn about the mistakes of existing startups to avoid them, while veteran companies need to talk about what they wish they had known when starting out.

E-commerce challenges will continue to emerge as you strive to put your business on a good footing. Therefore, you should appraise yourself with some of these challenges — that might be lurking underneath, waiting to sink your business — so that you can avoid them. This article will highlight some challenges that e-commerce merchants should consciously work to avoid.

Some stats about web design to keep in mind;

88 percent of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.
75 percent of consumers admit that they judge a business’ credibility based on their website design.
79 percent of shoppers say they would not return to purchase from a slow loading website.
The overall aesthetics of website’s credibility judgments is 75 percent.
Around 51 percent of adults now make purchases on their smartphones.

Stats about inventory management to note;

Over 70 percent of online shoppers would search for an item elsewhere if it was unavailable, rather than wait any length of time for it to come back in stock.
47 percent of shoppers who engage with retailers across 10 or more channels make purchases from their favorite retailer’s website at least once a week, compared to just 21 percent for those who engage across one to four channels.

Some stats about SEO;

93 percent of all traffic comes from a search engine.
An estimated 61 percent of marketers believe improving SEO is their top inbound marketing priority.
81 percent of shoppers do a quick search online before buying a product.

Stats about content;

Using videos on landing pages increases conversions by 86 percent.

16+ blog posts per month get almost 3.5 times more traffic than companies that publish zero to four monthly posts.
Posts with photos generate 53 percent more likes and 104 percent more comments than the average post.
Improvements in content have been known to increase blog traffic by as much as 2,000 percent.

Some stats regarding customer service;

Customer service interactions are four times more likely to prevent losing a customer than they are to create customer loyalty.
69 percent of Americans would recommend a brand to others after positive customer experience.
Poor customer service cost US companies more than $62 billion annually.

2.77 billion social media users in 2019.
E-commerce orders from social media in 2014 reached 202 percent.

Some stats about cybersecurity;

69 percent of Americans worry about their credit cards being hacked.
62 percent worry about the theft of data from their computers

A stat about high bounce rate;

A bounce rate below 20 percent or over 90 percent is a bad sign

To sum up

Growing an E-commerce business takes considerable time, money and effort for it to grow. Merchants need to embrace every challenge and find the right solution to help them continue to grow to become a voice of authority. Not fixing the challenges means giving away loyal customers to competitors which will cripple the business to its knees.