ECOMMERCE CHALLENGES

A particular challenge for online retailers is creating a positive shopping experience. As most of us will have some experience of shopping online, we can all relate to receiving a nondescript, brown parcel, containing nothing but the item, an invoice, and an alarming about of bubble wrap. This is perhaps where high street retail has an advantage over eCommerce. When making a purchase from a high street store the presentation of the item is immediately visible. High street shopping can feel like a more engaging, active process in which you as a consumer feel part of the brand. Conversely when receiving a parcel from an online retailer it is more passive, in fact you might not even be present when it arrives! To combat this, and help make her consumers feel more engaged with the process, Claire ensures that each item is in branded packaging, and that it is presented in an aesthetically pleasing way. She aims to ensure that each time a customer receives their order they feel part of the Fizzy Flower brand, and actively engaged with it.

While there are many positive aspects to running your business online, there are, of course, challenges that must be overcome in order to succeed. For Claire, one of the greatest challenges she has had to face in growing a successful eCommerce business is dealing with lack of face-to-face contact with consumers. She found that it made it harder to learn her market, and understand their needs as consumers. By having a website in between you and your customers it is far harder to build a relationship, and establish any kind of rapport with your consumers. As a result of this lack of interaction, as a business owner, you can feel distanced from your market and less integrated with their worlds. It is perhaps harder to get feedback, and therefore improve your business based on your consumers’ needs; and perhaps harder to react when things go wrong. As consumers, on average, we will tell eleven people about a negative experience of a brand, while we will tell only three about a positive one. When you then factor in the “ease of complaining” online, and how when we are not face-to-face with the object of our displeasure, we tend to be far more scathing, this can certainly be a challenge for eCommerce companies.

Fortunately for Claire, Fizzy Flower successfully leverages social media in order to nurture positive relationships with their consumers. For example, they have an active Facebook page where they regularly engage and interact with customers. This tactic helps humanise the brand, and provides consumers with a medium to express positive experiences of Fizzy Flower. This highlights the symbiotic nature of eCommerce and Social Media as a necessity for growing an online business, especially in the B2C arena.

Claire has also managed to turn this challenge into a positive element for her business. She has found that this constant challenge of increased distance between her brand and her consumers forces her and her business to be more active in fulfilling their needs. It has, in essence, reduced complacency and keeps the business on its metaphorical toes.

ECOMMERCE REWARDS

There are also many positive aspects to running an eCommerce business, and for Claire once of the main “pros” is her business’ ability to reach customers wherever they are. This ease of reach has benefits on both sides; for Fizzy Flower and its clients. For Fizzy Flower is deepens the pool of possible customers , widening their market and increasing potential growth; and for the consumers it facilitates an ease of shopping, they can react to an impulse immediately and complete a transaction in moments regardless of the time of day, or their location. This easy access shopping is perhaps the predominant reason that eCommerce has grown so rapidly in recent years, coupled with the increased reach of mobile Internet and smartphones.