10 Problems Could Appears When Setting Up Online Business (With Solution)

With the advancement of digital technology, a lot of successful online businesses flourish every day. Online business is an easier and quicker way to earn money. It is also way more affordable than a brick and mortar establishment.

A lot of budding entrepreneurs go for starting an e-commerce to earn profitable returns. Now, every business, be it big or small comes with its own sets of challenges. It’s no different from an online business.

Online Business Problems and How to Avoid Them

When you start an online business, you may face some issues with it as well. Starting from setting up your business to gaining loyal customers to security measures, you need to pay attention to a lot of things to make your business a success.

To help you out, here we have listed down some problems that you might face while running an e-business and the best way to solve them.

#1. Not having a proper business plan

You have researched a lot about online commerce and you have decided to have an online startup of your own, and you’ve realized that there are things that you need to worry about when it comes to starting an e-commerce. You cannot go for a trial and error system neither can you go buy your gut feeling. This can be an unnecessary wastage of both your time and your resources.

Building an e-business requires proper planning and you need to have a planned blueprint of how to build this business. If you are not sure how to plan out your business, we have the solution for you.

Solution:

To create an effective business plan, you need to ask yourself a few questions. Start with who your target audience or buyer is going to be. It is very important to settle on a target audience. You cannot cater to the needs of all types of customers, so you need to figure out, who your target buyer is going to be.

Next, define a niche for your business. A field that you are expert in and the field in which you can progress most.

Define your unique selling proposition. What sets your business apart from the others?

Decide on a type of business model that will work best for you and finally think about the ways in which you will be able to monetize your business and find the best marketing strategy to promote your business as well.

#2. Identity verification online

Even though e-commerce businesses are way more affordable than other types of businesses, still, it’s a no brainer that you will need initial investment to start your business. You may not have the finances for that initial investment, so in cases like this, you can easily go for a loan. There are many loan plans for small businesses these days and you can easily find a loan that’s suitable for you.

But in some cases, you may not be eligible for a loan due to a bad credit a score. Thus, what should you do in case your credit score doesn’t want to cooperate?  Fortunately, there’s a solution for this problem.

Solution:

You can take effective steps to scrutinize information provided by the customers and find out if the information is correct or not. There are many software solutions in the market, which can identify if someone makes a fraudulent input attempt.

Their multi-layered security measures like electronic identity verification, identity checks, SSN verification and instant authentication can protect you against frauds and hackers.

#3. Financial Problems

Even though e-commerce businesses are way more affordable than other types of businesses, still, it’s a no brainer that you will need initial investment to start your business. You may not have the finances for that initial investment, so in cases like this, you can easily go for a loan. There are many loan plans for small businesses these days and you can easily find a loan that’s suitable for you.

But in some cases, you may not be eligible for a loan due to a bad credit a score. Thus, what should you do in case your credit score doesn’t want to cooperate?  Fortunately, there’s a solution for this problem.

Solution:

Many a times, people are not eligible for loans if their credit scores are not good, but credit score can be fixed. With a little effort on your part, you can fix these issues. Visit CreditRepairCompanies and get all the pieces of information you need know about repairing your credit score so that you can get a loan for your business.

#4. Competitor Analysis

It is no doubt that online businesses tend to be super competitive considering the sheer number of e-businesses in the market these days.

There are lots of businesses out there that deal in products and services similar to you and in such cases, it becomes quite difficult to stand out from the others, so what can you do to stand out from the rest and make your services unique?

Solution:

To stand out from the crowd and create an impact on your target audience, you need to conduct competitor analysis thoroughly. Get a thorough information on what your competitors in the market are offering and their product pricing. How are they connecting with their customers? How are they generating the leads for their businesses? What’s their promotion strategy? If you get a hang of how your competitors are operating in the market, you can formulate a plan to make your services better and more convenient than your competitors and thus attract more customers.

#5. Earning Customer Loyalty

Acquiring a new customer requires five times more cost and effort than retaining an existing one. Selling to an already existing customer is much easier than selling to a new customer, which is why retaining a loyal customer base is very essential to the success of an e-business. If you frequently find your customers slipping away, then you need to find ways to earn your customers’ loyalty. A lot of e-commerce fail due to the absence of loyal customer base.

Solution:

There are quite a few ways in which you can maintain your customer support. Always be transparent with your customers. Make sure that the contact numbers, addresses and website information that you provide to your customers are accurate and always have a great customer support to address your customers’ queries.

Send out emails to your customers. Many people out there like to communicate through emails. Sending personalized emails to your customers can be a great way to gain their attention, and it also increases the chances of your sales.

Also, blog regularly with business updates. Blogging provides a more human angle to your business and people do trust blogs. It can be an effective measure to set your business apart from others. Just make sure that your blog is well-researched and informative.

#6.Technical Problems

Since you have an online business, everything about your business is digitalized and sooner or later, you may come face to face with technical issues or errors. Technical errors can be of many types. There can be a compatibility issue or your program may not work well with the host provider’s server. There can be issues with programming of script, issues with site coding and such similar problems.

Solutions:

To deal properly with technical errors, you need to have a knowledgeable webmaster in your team and the site owner too needs to have an in-depth knowledge on coding and programming. The more knowledge they have on these things the more easy it is to fix the issues and save a great deal of time.

#7. Data Security

Data Security is of utmost importance when it comes to running an online business. In fact, it can be the biggest challenge in maintaining a business. A data breach can be highly detrimental to the running of your business and in fact it can be the cause for your business to fail.

When your data is breached, the hackers can not only get a hook on your customer data but they can also fill your website with viruses and malwares, not to mention the risks of having your personal data exposed.

Solution:

To protect your data from any kind of breach, constantly back up your data from time to time in case it gets stolen.

Also, make sure that security plugins are incorporated in your website so as to protect your website from hackers. There are lots of security plugins out there in the market like Bulletproof Security, Firewall, Wordfence and All in One WordPress security, etc. These will protect your data from any kind of threats.

#8. Poor Marketing 

You have started a great online business. You have researched well and you have set up just the right place for your target audience, yet you do not see a hike in your sales. Well, this may be due to poor marketing strategies.

Marketing is very crucial for any online business to succeed. Unfortunately, a lot of small business owners do not have the right strategy or platform to promote their products and services, so they are unable to see results.

Solution:

Now, when you are marketing for your business, you cannot just rely on a search engine to do the job for you. You need a well-planned out marketing strategy to boost your business. A good marketing campaign includes advertising, blogs, social networking and press releases. Your website needs to have adequate information on the products and services that you are offering as well as the right contact information and customer service.

#9. Server Reliability Issues

Server issues are quite common problems when it comes to e-business. No matter what server host you choose, even the top web host in the market won’t be able to provide a one hundred percent up time. At some point, a server crashes eventually, and your website goes with it. Now, a downtime can be because of multiple reasons. It may be due to heavy traffic or way too much bandwidth use, it may be due to unsupported website scripts or it can also be the server’s fault. Nonetheless, a long duration of downtime can be highly detrimental to your business.

Solution:

To prevent your business from loss due to downtime, you need to deal with it adequately. The best way to deal with such situations is to back up your website data on your computer or a third party storage and try to choose a host with a high rate of up time reliability.

#10. Product Returns and Refund Policies

According to many surveys performed on online businesses, it is found that about 60 percent of the customers make their purchases based on the return policy by the retailers. Also, a lot of people abandon their delivery carts due to delay in the delivery dates.

Now, from the data accumulated through the surveys, it is clear that the refund and return policies are very important in increasing the sales of an e-commerce. With a good return and refund policy, customers may buy more products from you, having the peace of mind in knowing that the products can be returned easily if found unsatisfactory.

Solution:

To build a great return and refund policy, be transparent with your customers regarding your terms and conditions of returning and refunding. Do not hide any details of the policy from the customers as hiding important details makes the customers lose trust in your business.

Also, make sure that the policy is easily accessible to all your customers and keep a spate section for it in your website. In addition, incorporate an FAQ page on your website, making it easier for your customers to understand the functioning of your business, and lastly, keep your return policy simple and do not incorporate difficult words in it. The aim here is to be accessible to your customer and not to look fancy.

Final Words

Gaining success in an e-commerce business is quite a challenge. There is a lot of competition involved and you need to have a great understanding of business and marketing strategies. Be prepared for all the challenges that come in your way while running an e-business and with a sound plan, you can easily solve these issues.