As the eCommerce market grows and evolves, different challenges will arise for both new and established etailers.
Here are five challenges etailers will need to overcome in 2014 to have a successful year.
1) Offering Personalization And Customization
Customers have come to expect a personalized online experience, and providing that customized experience is a challenge for many etailers because it requires designing an increasing number of online campaigns to appeal to different audiences.
Email marketing is the easiest place to start customizing. Segmenting customers into more specific groups will be a necessity this year.
2) Standing Out Visually
While 2013 was the year of sleek simplicity, 2014 is going to demand more creative webpage layouts to attract attention.
Web developers need to get innovative and start developing out-of-the-box ideas to provide new online experiences for users. Good content now has to be paired with great design. Higher importance has to be placed on differentiating yourself visually.
3) Integrating Experiences Across Multiple Channels
Mobile is taking over, and optimizing your mobile user experience is a good first step. The second step is making it easy for customers to find, share, and store information across multiple devices and applications.
4) Using Big Data
Data drives the eCommerce industry, and more robust data collection systems are being developed. Data is piling up, and it only makes sense that etailers are stressing about how to use it to their advantage.
The challenge is finding people who know their way around big data and can use it to develop new marketing solutions.
5) Competing For Clicks
Competition is fierce. To continue to have success, finding the right niche market for your company is going to be even more critical. You can’t appeal to everyone. You need to make sure you’re focusing your efforts on the right people.
Try offering more advanced online features like in-depth customer reviews and product comparisons, and continue to provide great customer service. Customers won’t hesitate to move on if they have a bad experience that isn’t addressed.
I look forward to seeing how etailers innovatively overcome some of these challenges this year.
What challenges are you anticipating in your industry this year?