Top 5 Challenges of Digital Commerce in 2023

The introduction of hybrid working models has improved job satisfaction and minimized risks. Backup plans have been developed for significant commitments, the room has been made for a pandemic or weather-related contingencies, and much more. Particularly in recent years (2020 and beyond), businesses have been on edge as they try to adjust to unforeseen events.

However, there are silver linings to such challenges – Worldwide eCommerce sales saw a surge of 15.9% in 2022 as compared to the previous year. Consumers have quickly adapted to the digital commerce trend (and brands have only started to keep up).

While the COVID-19 crisis had far-reaching consequences, disruptions are commonplace in the business world. Every year brings with it specific complex barriers of digital business that need to be overcome.

Though highly functional and convenient, technology is only beneficial when business leaders have learned to deploy it correctly. So, what new challenges await in 2023? We discuss them all in this guide and more.

Top Challenges to eCommerce Success in 2023

From a business viewpoint, eCommerce sales are expected to account for nearly 20.8% of total retail sales worldwide. The numbers are appealing and even indicative of the penultimate fact that more and more businesses worldwide will take strides to mitigate upcoming risk in digital commerce.

But the road to growth is not always a linear path. Below, we have discussed the top five challenges every eCommerce business must overcome in 2023 to be successful.

1. Keeping up with Customer Expectations

The number-one challenge digital businesses will face in 2023 is keeping their operations abreast with rising customer expectations. With giants like Amazon and eBay making the online shopping experience extremely streamlined, convenient, and personalized, all businesses will feel pressured to come to par.

Post-modern customers are accustomed to a highly engaging shopping experience online. This involves receiving near-accurate product recommendations, the ability to track orders, real-time updates, and accessibility to multiple channels for purchase.

At the least, small and mid-sized business owners must develop a digital marketing strategy that anticipates customer expectations. As paid advertising and SEO practices become more competitive, we would not want you to waste even a single keyword. So, what’s a business to do?

Our Take on the Solution

Growth Jockey works with the conviction of being as customer-centric as possible. The existing customers are the best judge when it comes to matters like areas of strength, areas that need improvement, etc. This, coupled with indirect research on the current market, will offer much-needed direction.

So, what would such a digital marketing strategy look like? For example, our team would conduct after-sales surveys and ask customers to share their honest reviews. Also, monitoring social media to know more about customer grievances, happy stories, and expectations is a bonus move.

Based on honest feedback, solutions can be implemented. They would involve some or all of the below-mentioned strategies –

• Self-Service Options – In today’s day and age, offering 24x7 support is necessary. So, we believe in providing Chatbot service to answer customer queries on time, deal with grievances, and offer order-related support.

• Varied Payment Options – Not every customer would be comfortable using their credit or debit card for eCommerce purchases. This makes it crucial to include various payment options such as cash on delivery, wallet payments, etc.

• Differential Logistics Options – Even in terms of shipping and pickup, every customer's preference or needs differ. While some may require urgent same-day delivery, others may wish to pick up the products from a nearby store. This makes it essential to include various shipping options.

• Easy Checkout Experience – More often than not, customers abandon their carts last minute simply due to a tedious checkout process. This can be easily avoided by offering them an easy checkout experience that does not involve entering numerous data fields every time.

Growth Jockey’s digital marketing services are especially beneficial for businesses participating in global eCommerce, which is a whole different ballgame. Devoted to helping small business owners in their customer value creation journey, the team will curate a strategy unique to the business’ needs to grow at scale.

2. Barriers to Cross-Border Trade

Today, eCommerce is not limited to buying and selling within a particular country or continent. As technology has increasingly made the world a small village, products and services can be availed at any time, from anywhere.

We believe cross-border has numerous benefits, including increased business revenue, accessibility to a broader range of products, greater brand awareness, and worldwide expansion. However, it may be challenging to implement for many small to mid-sized enterprises.

From what we’ve observed, brands face the following common challenges to cross-border eCommerce –

• Currency Differences – When businesses decide to take their operations on a global scale, it's not just language barriers they need to be careful of. In many scenarios, vast currency differences can complicate price calculations and payment processing.

• Language Barriers – The language barrier has been an ongoing problem of the human race since the Tower of Babel. More so for digital commerce in 2023, as it can lead to issues such as delays in resolving customer queries and complaints.

• Cross-Border Delivery – If third parties handle the logistics, cross-border delivery becomes challenging. Some significant areas to overcome are tracking orders, meeting the specified delivery timeframes, rising customer expectations, and calculating in-transit goods' liabilities.

• Lack of Proper Knowledge of the Local Markets – In many cases, retailers do not do their homework correctly. Meaning, they do not understand buying patterns, payment modes, and other aspects of the foreign market they hope to target. Misalignment with consumer demand can lead to a significant backlash.

Are you also planning to scale your business worldwide in 2023? Then, you must consider whether you're prepared to face these challenges head-on.

Our Take on the Solution

After considering each of the challenges involved, it’s time to map out ways to overcome each for successful international trade. Growth Jockey’s expert team has a tailored solution for each challenge, which may be further personalized based on your unique needs.

• Partnering with a reliable payment processing provider will help avoid consumer dissatisfaction regarding currency differences and keep price calculations reasonable. Such providers can support multi-currency transactions and help you with cross-border trade requirements.

• As for the language barrier issue, we suggest investing in multilingual customer services. Offering customer support in multiple languages will improve customer experiences and expand the client base.

• Shipping and logistics is the central aspect of a successful cross-border business. So, instead of having a main headquarter, we believe multiple local warehouses will help to streamline shipping. This will reduce costs and minimize the risk of loss of goods in transit or otherwise.

• Finally, we cannot stress enough the importance of a solid digital marketing strategy to attract foreign customers after clearly knowing their pain points and requirements. Conduct thorough market research, offer your potential customers surveys and feedback forms, etc. Also, understand the competition to make yourself stand out.

3. Security of Data

One of the biggest challenges of digital commerce is protecting vital data, especially consumer data. The world of eCommerce is built upon data. This data helps brands with multichannel approaches, retail inventory management, shipping and logistics, etc.

But, the data produced daily is enormous, gathered from multiple sources such as purchase histories, customer profiles, web analytics, inventory and supply chain data, etc. Businesses have the massive responsibility of protecting this data against security breaches, and hacking attempts, among others.

If proper robust infrastructure is not in place to handle gargantuan volumes of data and safely transfer it, not only will vital information be lost, but this could lead to customer outrage. Since your brand's reputation is at stake, overcoming the data security challenge becomes a priority.

Our Take on the Solution

In our practice, we’ve found that most data and security breaches happen concerning payment processing. So, when it is time for you to choose a payment processor, we suggest focusing on the Payment Card Industry Security Standard. Compliance with this standard is the minimum security level needed for successful and safe payment processing.

Besides that, you can also seek the help and support of payment service providers. They will help you in the following areas –

• Tokenizing Payment Credentials – Credit card users often rest in the fact that their data is encrypted and, therefore, inaccessible to unauthorized users. Though true, you can walk the extra mile by asking your payment service provider to tokenize the credentials. This way, even if the CC information is stolen, it becomes useless.

• Data Encryption – Our team undoubtedly pays close attention to strong encryption. Hackers are becoming smarter and smarter each day. A single loophole leaves valuable data vulnerable to misuse. This can easily be avoided by introducing algorithms that protect sensitive personal data, especially when shared over the web.

• Onsite Fraud Detection – Conduct thorough testing of products onsite to ensure no risks are involved. Not only that but investing in AI-powered software that scans the items and predicts any future threats is a must. This offers onsite workers the peace of mind that no sensitive data is compromised.

4. Delivering Consistent Experiences across Channels

As a business willing to grow, you should and should not be all over the (virtual) space. What do we mean by this? Today, customers browse through brand websites and shop across various platforms and devices.

These include the heavy use of social media, email, mobile phones, tablets, etc. Is your brand visible across each of these channels? More importantly, can you deliver consistent, streamlined experiences across each? The Harvard Business Review found that 73% of customers use multiple platforms to shop.

Digital commerce in India landscape is rife with brands establishing themselves through omnichannel marketing. From the channels to the content and graphic elements, you will only create a lasting image of yourself in your customers’ minds if there is consistency in identity.

What should you do if you have yet to experience the growth you should as a result of an omnichannel digital marketing strategy?

Our Take on the Solution

Growth Jockey always starts by evaluating the competition, especially if the client brand is also embarking into the unchartered territory of cross-border trade. Ask yourself - Which channels are your audience groups most active on? What competitor posts do they most engage with (blogs, infographics, videos, etc.)?

Answering these questions will give you a good head-start. Next, we highly recommend being consistent with producing valuable content. Never let your social media profile become a promotional account. Choose the subtle route of posting inspirational or funny content that your viewers and followers can interact and engage with.

Also, be consistent in sending social signals to your audience. Many online marketing platforms exist but are you doing your due diligence to make your presence felt? We have observed positive outcomes with existing customers who share honest feedback and reviews across Facebook. Moreover, you can link to other review platforms as well. Add a link to your Facebook page if your products are also selling on Amazon.

Finally, if all of this seems a little too overwhelming, ask for expert support from the team of Growth Jockey. Well-versed and up-to-date with the latest industry developments and trends, such digital marketing services can level up your business. What's more, is that each solution is curated to match your business needs.

5. Fierce Competition from D2C Brands

D2C or Direct-to-Consumer brands do not use distributors or resellers. Though these brands have always been a part of the global eCommerce, they especially gained precedence during the pandemic.

Given the challenges of 2020 onwards – order delays, in-person retail shutdowns, supply chain slacking, and we are not surprised by the rise in such brands. Even consumers are fond of D2C brands because their products are cheaper.

Just take the example of the SaaS industry. With the introduction of subscription-based models, even customers with modest budgets have access to otherwise expensive software. Not only that, but D2C companies also opt for creative marketing tactics, relying heavily on content and influencer marketing. Some even have online communities to enable customers to share their buying journeys and experiences.

However, this can spell real trouble for online retailers like yourself. So, what can you do to face cut-throat competition from D2C?

Our Take on the Solution

To combat the fierce competition from D2C brands, Growth Jockey believes in building a solid online brand presence and creating a detailed and eye-catching product catalog. This would involve making your website captivating, user-friendly, and streamlined.

We would then develop a solid email and social media marketing strategy. This would naturally entail creating content your audience enjoys the most – videos, social posts, blogs, etc. Other than these, strengthening local SEO strategies and paid advertising is also necessary.

Once the content marketing strategy and formats are settled, post periodically to keep customers engaged. Another good digital marketing strategy would be to repurpose old content into various forms – blogs into infographics, videos into eBooks, etc.

Finally, it always pays to go back to the basics - ensuring the online shopping, payment, and checkout experiences are thoroughly convenient. We also encourage utilizing opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling to increase sales and revenue.

Looking Forward to a Brighter Future

In 2023, digital commerce in India is expected to grow like never before. The same is expected to touch $60 billion as discovered by ET! And just like any other growth process, this will naturally involve the quick adoption of technologies, rapidly changing customer demands and many other challenges.

We are convinced that the boundaries separating digital and traditional commerce are blurring by the day. But this means data breaches and chances for customer dissatisfaction linger on the horizon. Businesses that smell the danger of neglect beforehand and implement a solid digital marketing strategy will not just survive but thrive.

Will you be among them? Growth Jockey supports seizing the opportunity to increase brand equity, sales, and revenue! Get in touch with us today to scale your business to new heights !