Malaysia's $4 billion ecommerce industry is well known for growing in recent years. Annual sales have drastically climbed since 2015, climbing 47.8% in 2017. The market will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 24% by 2021.
Businesses are always dynamic and growing. Digital transformation brings consumer engagement that has advanced globally, especially during the pandemic Covid-19 and until now. Even some traditional wall retailers are expanding into the online marketplace. As a result, competition has been steadily growing.
As they adapt to the most recent ecommerce trends and work to build a digital transformation that meets customers' growing demands, ecommerce businesses are facing new challenges.
Some of the most significant ecommerce challenges for brands and merchants were also pushed on by this growth. Customer behaviour is constantly changing, there are always new competitors entering the market, and data protection rules are getting harder to understand.
These challenges offer strategic companies and retailers chances to improve their positions and expand their consumer bases. Here are seven common challenges for ecommerce.
Top challenges of Ecommerce business
1. Cybersecurity
The ecommerce sector faces many ongoing challenges in 2022, including cybersecurity risks such as account takeover (ATO), credit card fraud, web scraping, API abuses, Grinch bots, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that threaten online sales and customer experience.
One article from Security Magazine showed that cyber dangers to online merchants were discovered via a 12-month investigation for the State of Security Within ecommerce 2022 report.
The retail industry continues to face a commercial risk from attacks on retailer websites, applications, and APIs throughout the year and during the busiest Christmas shopping period. Hence, ecommerce needs proper cybersecurity in place.
2. Higher competition
Ecommerce companies also face the challenge of too much competition from online retailers that offer lower prices but worse customer service than their brick-and-mortar counterparts.
One way for them to overcome this obstacle is by partnering with independent merchants who can help promote and sell their products online and in physical stores.
Many people have noticed a sharp increase in ecommerce sales. Even so, there are still ways to get a competitive edge despite the daily opening of new stores.
It is difficult to differentiate your company from other online retailers because the ecommerce market has become so large. You must set yourself apart from your competitors to stand out and draw in new clients for your company.
3. Omnichannel shopping
Consumers are becoming more selective about the information they get, and this extends to how they make purchases online. They must choose where to look for the information, where to make payments, how to make payments, etc.
If you want your brands to be successful in the omnichannel journey, you must not only be present on as many channels as possible but must also provide a smooth experience from one channel to the next.
Whether a sales channel is a website or mobile app, social network, or marketplace, the product details, customer support, and purchasing alternatives must be consistent across all of them.
4. Customer Experience
Spend money on staff members and technology that will help you deliver good customer service. Make sure your customer has the best relationship with your business, from help desk software and addressing customers' frequent ask and questions to providing promo delivery.
This also refers to their interaction with your website and online business, routinely reviewing your checkout procedure to look for errors or delays. Making customers feel valued may be achieved with even the smallest improvements.
5. Website quality
Make sure your customers are accessing your ecommerce website. Consult website experts for advice on how to make your website flow better. You can use this to identify and close difficult communication gaps.
Using the SEO strategy is important to improve your website traffic. Analyse the traffic, and reading behaviour on your website. These will help you determine which areas of the website are most popular with your audience and where they lose interest.
You'll know that the checkout page needs to be improved if you discover that many visitors quit the website after reaching it.
6. Refund Policy
Almost all ecommerce companies provide free or extremely affordable return and refund policies. However, not every company has a free return and refund policy with hassle-free transactions. You can make a statement there.
Create your policy with the least amount of work for those who need to return items in mind. Customers may find tactics like giving shop credits for refunds and asking them to repack things and pay the return shipping expenses to be overly demanding.
7. Market Dynamic
The fastest-growing and most dynamic business model is ecommerce. Many lists discussing the newest ecommerce trends can be found online, which puts pressure on businesses frequently.
However, not every idea will apply to you or your company. Find strategies to filter out the distraction so you can focus on the changes that matter most to your customers.
8. Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things (IoT) market is dominated by ecommerce, which is also a significant user of connected devices and uses a large number of IoT application developers.
To operate the tools and evaluate the data it produces, you also need specialist software, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, inventory management software, predictive systems, etc.
Because few businesses have the necessary internal resources, there is a need for ecommerce web development services.
Conclusion
Understanding some of the challenges in ecommerce is an essential first step in resolving them, especially if you're a new ecommerce business or have just decided to spend more extensively on your online strategy.
The lines between in-person and online buying will become less distinct as consumer behaviour changes, data security risks increase, and so on. However, companies who follow these trends will be able to make use of chances to increase revenue and boost sales.
Our software development professionals are here to help you in learning more about the difficulties and growing pains that ecommerce businesses are facing. Book a call now!
