Fighting Global Economic Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities for eCommerce Owners

Every major industry is suffering from the lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Even if the IMF didn't proclaim the fact, you would have been made the assumption. The world is facing the biggest global economic crisis since the great depression.

When people are forced to stay at home, the one thing that giving them hope is the internet. You can't get near to your friends but video calls saving the day. You don't go to a physical store but online purchases help the supplies coming. Teachers taking classes over Zoom or Google Meet. Streaming giants like Netflix or Amazon Prime seeing an impeccable rise of subscription.

So, yes, eCommerce becoming some sort of lifeline for now. And, maybe it beholds the future. Here in this blog, we are going to show you the challenges and possibilities do you have as an eCommerce owner during this Global economic crisis and so on.

How eCommerce is Fighting Against the Global Economic Crisis

Online sales in the US increased by 74% in the first quarter of 2020. Walmart's eCommerce growth alone is seeing a magnificent growth of 24%.

Why is this happening? You probably know the answers. People feel safe by shopping over your eCommerce shop more than ever. At first, they were confused. But the days went by, they are getting familiar with the online shopping process.

Therefore, “all works and no play” in-home turning them shopaholic. They are likely to keep good faith in health products, nutrition, snacks, and Gym instruments.

What happened in China during the earliest lockdown of the Coronavirus outbreak? Their eCommerce owners were sending daily supplies to people's doorstep. It inspires people to maintain the home quarantine. Furthermore, the economy keeps sustaining.

However, if something is doing better in this global economic crisis while others are depraving, it produces trouble. Many people want to take part of it and win success. So, you have to deal with several challenges to keep growing your eCommerce venture.

What Challenges this Global Economic Crisis Possesses to eCommerce Owners

Since the beginning, we are telling you that eCommerce is booming right now. But is it possible that every eCommerce owners gaining the same results? Not likely.

Only if you are careful and cautious, your business may prevail in this harshest times. So let's tale a look at some of the crucial ongoing and impending challenges you need to cope up with this global economic crisis.

Newly Increased Competition

It’s true that people are rushing towards online stores more than ever. But that doesn’t mean they start shopping randomly from any eCommerce website.

Already it was an established trend for the shoppers. They research a lot before buying something. Read reviews. Reflect on positive word of mouth. Almost 87% of customers trust good reviews so do they trust in the words of their friends and family. 

Therefore, people are fiercely careful to spend their money in this global economic crisis. That’s why eCommerce stores with a reliable brand value attracting more customers. Besides that, more parties are involving in the industry every day. New online stores are being open. Local businesses are also getting involved in this growing haul. 

So, as an eCommerce owner, your foremost challenge is to cope up with this huge competition. But don’t worry. We will show you the necessary tips to overcome the hurdles from your competitors.

Meet Up with the Excessive Demands

If demands become higher than the supplies, what else should you do? You need to find ways to balance them. As it is evident, more the customer feels insecure, more they tend to buy.

During this global pandemic, a lot of people face the need for the same product at the same time. For example, the healthcare sector impacted by the heavy demand for medical equipment, drugs, and sanitizer all over the world.

Hence, as an eCommerce marketplace owner, you need to be prepared for a lack of supplies. Even it may be necessary to upgrade your supply chain model. You should take orders only if you can deliver them. Unless it will cause customer dissatisfaction which led up to hitting your brand value.

Furthermore, a strategic plan for distributing supplies would suffice. That means you are going to sell limited units to each customer. And, put extra efforts and care to your suppliers. Make scientific assumptions and strategies about public demands to find out which products you should have more in your store.

Product Delivery is a Big Issue Now

Purchasing a product over the internet is easy. The real challenges begin afterward. Big eCommerce stores like Walmart or Amazon taking extra measures to deliver their products at consumer's doorsteps. However, the process seems full of hurdles and complexity.

The transport system becomes an obstacle. Apart from the biggies, most of the eCommerce shop don't have their own courier or transport arrangement. So, as an eCommerce owner, you should regulate a smooth delivery system. Managing courier services isn't that easy. Then, there are risks of losing manpower

However, it will be difficult to make deliveries in the Covid-19 infected residents or territory. So you must share gratitude with your customers. Tell them to have the patience for the delays or inconvenience.

Investing on the Proper Marketing Channel

Marketing is a foremost weapon for any business. It helps to establish your brand value. While the biggest challenges lie in competition, you must focus more on marketing.

You should know that people spend more time on social media platforms now. You can use this channel to spread the news of your multivendor eCommerce shop and exciting offers.

But as you choose social media marketing, your competitors also favor the same. Therefore, in the flood of advertisements, it is not easy to attract someone's attention. So you must find the most suitable marketing channel, and create social media ads and videos that convert. 

Furthermore, it is a wise thing to start selling through social media platforms like Facebook, and YouTube. According to a study by CSOINSIGHTS, 31% of B2B professionals believe social selling helps them to build better relationships with clients. 

The same thing is true for your eCommerce store. You don’t need to sell through social media channels, yet it’s highly effective to engage consumers directly from your social media campaigns. 

Your Opportunities as an eCommerce Owner in the Global Economic Crisis

Now that you’ve known all the major challenges, let’s talk about the possibilities of eCommerce. As most of the eCommerce store notices a surge in sales, you need to nurture all these immense opportunities. Moreover, it is the right time to grow your eCommerce store within your social commitment.

Take Part in the Sales Boom

Look at this graph below created by Emarsys. It shows how the U.S consumer behavior changes drastically. The sales have started to going up since mid-March 2020 when the lockdown started mostly all over the country.

The same thing is happening everywhere. People are buying more. So you must take part in your side. When every other business is suffering, you can assemble the most convenient plan. Conduct market research. Try to keep the supply flow going.

In this hard time, you must redesign the sales strategy of your eCommerce shop. Keep selling limited units of a product to certain customers. This policy will let you serve more people.

On the other hand, your supply chain may have facing trouble. To lessen this issue, you can engage more reinforcement to collect goods and stock them within your own initiative rather depending on the suppliers to deliver to your store.

Help Local Vendor to Sell from Your Online Store

Local vendors who used to sell through their brick and mortar store are in big troubles. Most of them don't have any process to sell their product online. And, people are not coming to them. But if you have a WordPress multi-vendor marketplace, you can solve their problem.

Therefore, when your local vendors sell through their store, you can save their venture to near losses. Also, it will increase your brand awareness, and profit nonetheless.

Here we are mentioning some of the best tips to inspire local vendors to use your multivendor marketplace.

• Inspire Referrals for New Vendors to Your WordPress Marketplace
• Offer Extra Benefits to Local Vendors
• Social Media Campaign for Your WordPress Marketplace
• Email Campaign Centered on Pandemic
• Organize Virtual Events for Your WordPress Marketplace Marketplace
• Making Phone Calls Not Dead Yet

You need to redesign the process of your eCommerce shop. Make changes to your vendor policy. Be more open and flexible to the people who use your store to sell their items. As well as your consistent vendors, you should focus more on your local sellers and suppliers.

Create Long-lasting Bond with the Customers

We believe and pray that this lockdown may stop as soon as possible. The world must cope up with the pandemic. We should fight back and try our best to reduce the loss we've all suffered. To this extent, many countries are already easing down the lockdown and start to do things as we do before.

Hence, when the lockdown will over people are likely to begin shopping from physical store again. So the surge in online store may also come to a stable rate.

But, in the mean time, you can establish your brand value more profoundly. You can offer discounts, good advices, send products with care. If you develop this culture, people will be more reliant in your service. They won't forget what you have provided during the hard times.

So, inevitably, all the successful eCommerce owners are doing this job fine. They are establishing a long-lasting relationship with the customers. So, in the long run, people will be dependant on eCommerce like never before they have.

Digital Transformation is the Key to New Age Business

Businesses that can shift technology capacity and investments on digital platforms will mitigate the impact of the outbreak and keep their companies running smoothly now, and over the long term.

Sandy Shen, Director of Research at Gartner

You are already on the side of the winners. Digital business and cloud platforms are the front-line arsenals who are fighting most against this ongoing economic disaster. Most of the office go remote. Many organizations executing their activities over the internet.

If you follow a dynamic business model, you can turn your eCommerce store into a place where everybody may get a resolve. So, grocery and daily supplies are popular items nowadays. But you can sell almost any type of product to help other businesses to cope up with the situations.

That means, as an eCommerce owner, you are not only helping yourself. You can also aiding other entrepreneurs to sustain and grow. And from any point of view, this is the biggest opportunities eCommerce is gaining. Thus establishing the industry as a front runner.

Fighting Global Economic Crisis: Build Your eCommerce Store with Dokan

So here we are going to put a primary end to this discussion. We think you have now learned all the risks and opportunities of eCommerce during this global pandemic.

Can you see that already? the eCommerce industry is prospering because of its distinctiveness and multi-layered prospects. Therefore, if you want to sell across all the product types, you need to create a multivendor store.

WordPress is powering all the cloud-based websites worldwide. It is easy to use and highly affordable. So you can turn your WordPress based eCommerce store into a multivendor WooCommerce shop anytime with a powerful WooCommerce plugin like Dokan.

Now tell us, how you are doing with your eCommerce shop?