There are quite a few mistakes that unsuccessful e-commerce businesses have in common. The important among them are the following.
1. Poor Management
The main reason for failure of e-commerce is poor management. Many e-commerce business starts without planning and in many cases business may not be suitable for an on-line market.
2. A poorly designed website
A professional website needs to feature the items clearly with photos and descriptions. Another issue is too much color, flash animation or graphics that slowed down the downloading process.
3. Lack of marketing
Marketing of the site is needed for both on-line and off-line. Firms have to identify their competitive advantage, and to show the customers the best price that can be offer.
4. Selling the wrong product on-line
There are products that are not suitable to be sold on-line. Products which are inexpensive, and could be easily bought from the local store are not worth selling on the Internet. Products that need trying would be difficult to sell.
5. Poor order fulfillment
Information on the Internet spreads like anything. If words of unhappiness are being spread around to potential customers, the reputation would be damaged. Therefore, create a good impression on customers by fulfilling their orders according to their wishes.
6. Poor customer service
Poor customer service would send our customers running away. Providing excellent service would not only satisfy our customer, but also bring in potential customers.
7. Inadequate Resources
A majority of these companies were expecting to experience tremendous growth in the foreseeable future and when that did not happen they had no saved capital.
8. Poor Channel Integration
A common mistake committed by firms is poor channel integration. Some companies may just try to market their goods or services via the Internet and ignore the other channel such as catalogues and physical stores.
9. Ignoring Customers
Another common mistake that some of these companies have made is ignoring the customers. Some companies did not focus on customer fulfillment or product availability.
10. High Cost
Another major mistake is that some e-commerce companies did not pay attention to is costs. Most of the companies that fail fun through an enormous amount of money in a relatively short period of time.
11. Poor Planning
Lastly, and greatest of all, mostly all failed e-commerce companies have done poor planning. These companies have focused too much energy on low prices and not enough on product diversification and good service.
