The 13 Biggest Challenges of Ecommerce, and How to Fix Them

The era of ecommerce is one that we are all too familiar with.

Shopping online has become such a comfortable part of our lives, allowing us to find what we’re looking for quickly and conveniently from the comfort of our own homes. The growth in this industry has been stagnation-proof, with studies citing it as leading to an entirely new economy and industries around the globe.

Even so, plenty of challenges stand between a new store and a business that can sustain itself in the industry long term. Some issues with ecommerce are unique to selling online; others are ordinary business problems that just look different once your storefront is a website instead of a physical shop.

From cybersecurity to complex logistics issues, we’re going to cover the 13 biggest ecommerce challenges, and how you can tackle each one to run your business successfully and take it to a whole new level.

1. Cybersecurity

In the age of digital commerce, it’s never been easier for businesses to reach a global audience. However, with this increased connectivity comes increased risk. And since online stores deal with sensitive customer data, they are particularly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. That’s why cybersecurity has become one of the biggest challenges of ecommerce today.

Solutions:

• Ensure that your website runs on a secure server: Relying on third-party providers creates vulnerabilities. Thus, it’s safer to manage your own servers. But if it’s not an option for you, try your best to find a trustworthy web hosting service.
• Encrypt all customer data: SSL Certificates are one of the easiest ways to encrypt customer data. SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer, is a protocol that provides security for communications between a web browser and a web server. SSL uses encryption to protect data during transit, ensuring that only the intended recipient can access the information.
• Implement a robust authentication system to prevent unauthorized access: Two-factor authentication (2FA) is one of the most effective tools for protecting sensitive information. When 2FA is enabled, a user must not only enter their username and password but also provide another piece of information, such as a code that is generated by an app on their phone. While adding an extra step to the login process, 2FA greatly reduces the risk of account theft.

2. Intense competition

“Ultimately, you just need to give customers a reason not only to buy from you over other similar offerings, but also to be so satisfied with the products, brand and experience that they both purchase again and also convince others to do the same.”

BigCommerce

Anyone who’s ever tried to sell anything online knows that competition is fierce. No matter what you’re selling, chances are good that someone else is selling something similar. And if they’re not, they will be soon. This can make it very difficult to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by potential customers.

Solutions:

• Make sure your product is the best it can be: Poor quality is a major point of disappointment for any consumer, and nothing will make you lose more of them to competition than your inability to deliver a great good or service.
• Find a way to differentiate your product: With unique product features and value propositions, it’s so much easier to draw attention to your brand and keep customers coming back for more.
• Focus on efficiency: Efficiency is the use of resources in the most effective way possible. And when applied to business, it means reducing waste and maximizing productivity or doing more with less. This allows you to save money and reinvest it in the business or pass it on to customers in the form of lower prices. And at a time when consumers are more price-conscious than ever, low prices can be a deciding factor in whether they choose one business over another.

Pro tip: Looking for some workable methods to make your business more efficient? Try actiTIME: this time tracking software has plenty of features to help your business improve productivity and be more competitive.

It allows you to keep a detailed record of time spent on tasks, track staff-related costs and billable hours, and collect insightful performance data for more informed decision-making.

Besides, actiTIME has built-in automation that streamlines workflows, giving you that extra efficiency boost while running your ecommerce business.

3. Targeting

In the vast and ever-expanding world of ecommerce, it can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to finding your target audience. With so many potential customers out there, how can you be sure you’re reaching the right people? And even if you do find your target audience, how can you be sure they’ll actually buy from you? These are just a few of the ecommerce challenges faced by businesses when trying to find their perfect match.

Solutions:

• Narrow it down: Remember that it’s often easier (and more cost-effective) to target a specific niche market rather than trying to reach a large, general audience. Therefore, try to figure out the specific and unique needs of your potential customer and what type of person is likely to have those needs. Also, think about where your potential customers are located and how they like to shop. This will help you craft the best sales strategy and hit your audience in the right place with your product presentation.
• Conduct surveys: They help you gather real information about your customers’ needs, wants, and demographics. They also let you understand what motivates consumers to make purchases. Armed with this knowledge, you can fine-tune your ecommerce strategy and make sure you’re speaking directly to your target audience.
• Experiment: Test different marketing strategies, try out different tactics, and see what works best for your business.

4. Driving traffic

Knowing who your target audience is doesn’t automatically bring them to your store. Once you know who you’re selling to, you still have to get them to actually show up, and that’s a separate challenge with its own learning curve: organic search, paid ads, social media, email, and word of mouth all behave differently, and what works for one ecommerce business can flop for another with a similar product.

Social commerce, buying directly through a social media post or video rather than clicking through to a website, has grown into a real traffic source in its own right rather than just a place to post a link. It’s worth testing, but a platform’s algorithm and rules can shift quickly, so it works best as one channel among several rather than a business’s entire acquisition strategy.

Spreading a limited marketing budget across too many channels at once is a common trap. Without a clear sense of where your specific audience actually spends their time online, it’s easy to burn through ad spend on channels that were never going to convert.

Solutions:

• Test cheaply before you spend on ads: A post, an email, or a listing you can put out for free tells you a lot about whether an offer resonates, and that’s a much cheaper way to find out than discovering it after paying for clicks.
• Put money behind whatever is already working: If a specific product photo, message, or piece of content is clearly outperforming the rest, that’s the one worth turning into a paid ad, not a guess at what might perform.
• Pick channels based on where your buyers actually are, not where it’s easiest to post: A product that sells through detailed comparison and research calls for a different channel mix than one that sells on a strong visual first impression. Chasing every channel at once spreads a limited budget too thin to work anywhere.

5. Omnichannel selling

Your customers don’t just shop on your own website anymore. A good chunk of them will search for your product on Amazon before they even land on your site, and some will only ever buy through a marketplace they already trust and never visit your own store at all. Skip a place your competitors have already claimed, and you’re handing those specific customers over without a fight.

But being everywhere brings its own management problem: keeping inventory, pricing, and product information consistent once you’re listed across your own store, one or two marketplaces, and social commerce. A stock mismatch or a price that’s different on Amazon than on your own site erodes the trust you’re trying to build.

Solutions:

• Choose channels deliberately, not all of them: Pick marketplaces based on where your specific audience already shops, not just because a channel exists. A well-run presence on two channels beats a thin, unmaintained presence on five.
• Sync inventory and pricing across every channel you sell on: Whether through your platform’s native tools or a dedicated multichannel management tool, avoid the situation where a sale on one channel doesn’t update your stock everywhere else.
• Treat social commerce as one channel among several, not your whole strategy: Platforms change their algorithms and features quickly, so a business that depends entirely on one social channel is exposed if that platform’s rules shift.

6. Excellent customer experience

“…almost three-quarters of shoppers would likely decide not to buy from a store (whether using an ecommerce website or in-person) that provides a poor experience.”

Michael Keenan, Shopify

To understand why providing customers with an excellent experience is one of the biggest challenges of ecommerce, let’s consider the process of shopping in a brick-and-mortar store:

When you walk into a store, you are greeted by a salesperson who can answer any questions you have about the products. If you need help finding something, they can guide you to the right aisle. And when you’re ready to check out, they can provide personalized service and ensure that your transaction is quick and easy.

Now let’s compare that to the typical ecommerce experience:

When you visit an online store, there’s no salesperson to greet you or answer your questions. You’re on your own to find what you’re looking for, and when it’s time to check out, you’re often just a name and a credit card number to the business.

Yet this lack of personal connection is only one thing that makes it difficult to provide an excellent customer experience in an ecommerce setting. Complicated website navigation, inconvenient support channels, and slow product delivery can also easily bring your customers down.

So, what can you do about that?

Solutions:

• Offer multiple ways to reach support: Live chat, email, and phone each suit a different kind of question, and giving customers a choice means fewer of them give up on a purchase over an unanswered question.
• Ensure an easy buying process: First, make sure that your website is easy to navigate. Customers should be able to find what they’re looking for without difficulty. Second, provide clear and concise product descriptions. We all know that fine print can be a pain, but when it comes to making a purchase, customers need to know exactly what they’re getting. Lastly, offer multiple payment options. The more options you provide, the more likely it is that customers will find a method that works for them.
• Speed up shipping: Take a look at your shipping methods. If you’re still relying on ground shipping, it’s time to upgrade to a faster option, like expedited shipping or even overnight shipping. Some customers will be willing to pay a bit more for faster shipping, which will make a big difference in how quickly you can get orders out the door.

7. Mobile commerce

Most ecommerce browsing now happens on a phone, but plenty of stores are still designed and tested primarily on a desktop screen. That gap shows up exactly where it hurts most: a checkout form with fields too small to tap accurately, a page that takes too long to load on a mobile connection, or a navigation menu that made sense on a wide screen and falls apart on a narrow one.

None of this is unique to any one platform. It’s a design and testing problem: a site that looks fine on a laptop during development can still be genuinely frustrating to buy from on a phone.

Solutions:

• Design and test checkout on mobile first, not as an afterthought: Buttons, form fields, and payment options need to work for a thumb on a small screen, not just a mouse on a large one.
• Add mobile-friendly payment options: Digital wallets let a customer check out with a tap instead of typing a full card number and address on a phone keyboard.
• Test load speed specifically on mobile connections: A page that loads quickly on office Wi-Fi can lag badly on mobile data, and slow load times are a common reason shoppers give up before checkout even starts.

8. Customer retention and loyalty

In the world of online shopping, customer loyalty is hard to come by. With so many options and so little transparency, it’s no wonder that shoppers are constantly on the lookout for a better deal.

However, some ecommerce companies have managed to build a loyal following among their customers regardless of that. How have they done it? By creating an exceptional shopping experience that is tailored to the needs and preferences of their target audience.

These companies understand that customer loyalty is not something that can be bought; it must be earned through hard work and dedication. By consistently delivering on their promises and going above and beyond to meet the needs of their customers, these ecommerce companies have built a loyal following that continues to grow with each passing year.

Here’s what you can do to boost customer loyalty in your own business:

Solutions:

• Offer loyalty programs: Rewards incentivize customers to keep coming back. And they can take a variety of forms: anything from giving points for every purchase to offering discounts for referrals.
• Stay in regular communication with your customers: Whether you’re sending out a newsletter or just connecting on social media, staying top of mind and listening to customers’ feedback is essential for keeping them loyal and making sure they feel valued.
• Implement a personalized recommendation system: By understanding the preferences of individual customers, you can make tailored recommendations that are likely to be of interest. This can help to increase customer engagement and boost sales.

9. Shopping cart abandonment

A shopper adds something to their cart and then leaves without buying it: on average, that happens to around 7 out of every 10 carts. Some of that is unavoidable window shopping, but a large share comes down to friction you can actually fix: a shipping cost that only shows up at checkout, a long or confusing checkout form, or a delivery estimate that’s slower than the customer expected.

Solutions:

• Show shipping costs before checkout, not at the end: A surprise fee at the last step is one of the most commonly cited reasons shoppers abandon a cart. Making costs visible earlier removes that last-minute reason to bail.
• Streamline the checkout process: Every extra field or required account creation is a chance for someone to give up. A long, complicated checkout is a well-documented driver of abandonment, so cut it down to what’s actually necessary.
• Set up abandoned cart recovery emails: A simple reminder email, sometimes paired with a small incentive, recovers a meaningful share of abandoned carts that would otherwise be a lost sale entirely.

10. Logistics

There’s a lot more to shipping than just sticking a label on a package and sending it off. To succeed, ecommerce businesses need to carefully consider everything from the type of packaging they use to the route their shipments take.

Unfortunately, even the best-laid plans can go awry, and delays are all too common. This is why logistics is often referred to as the “last mile” of ecommerce: it’s the final step in getting products to customers, and it’s also the most challenging. But with careful planning and some effort, even the most daunting logistics challenges can be overcome.

The problem doesn’t only show up on the last mile, either. A single delayed shipment further up the supply chain, from a raw material shortage or a supplier issue, can hold up sales before a package ever reaches a warehouse.

Solutions:

• Invest in a good warehouse management system: It will help you keep track of your stock and make sure that your products are being shipped out on time.
• Use a reliable shipping company that offers parcel tracking: This way, you can keep an eye on where your products are and confirm they’re being delivered as promised.
• Work with more than one supplier for key products: Relying on a single source leaves you with no backup plan when that one supplier has a delay; a second option, even a costlier one, keeps you from being stuck entirely.
• Keep your customers informed: Communication is key when it comes to logistics. Thus, ensure your customers know when their order will be shipped and provide them with tracking information so they can follow its progress.

11. Product returns and refunds

“85% of shoppers say they look for and read the return policy before purchasing. And 72% of shoppers are more likely to buy from you again if they had a good return experience with you in the past.”

ShippyPro

In ecommerce, the process of returning or refunding a product can be complicated, time-consuming, and costly. And it’s a pain for everyone involved: the customer is disappointed that the product wasn’t what they wanted, the business has to go through the hassle and expense of processing the return, and it often takes weeks for the customer to get their refund.

That’s why ecommerce businesses may be tempted to avoid offering returns and refunds altogether. But while returns may be a headache, they’re also an important part of doing business online. And in fact, you can use the product return process as a means to build customer loyalty.

Solutions:

• Create a policy: Make it easy for customers to return items. Provide clear instructions on how to return them, and consider providing pre-paid shipping labels to make it even quicker for customers.
• Offer refunds + exchange: Most customers just want their money back when they return an item, so it makes sense to use refunds as the default option. Yet if you’re unable to issue a refund, offer an exchange instead. This will show customers that you’re willing to cooperate with them to find a resolution.
• Use data from returns to improve your business: Returns can actually show you what customers want and don’t want. So, use the collected data to inform your product development decisions and make changes to improve the overall quality of your products.
• Build in safeguards against repeat abuse: A generous policy builds trust, but a small share of returns are attempted fraud (a customer claiming an item never arrived, or returning a different or used item). A clear, consistently enforced policy protects margins without punishing honest customers.

12. Resource management

Any business that deals in physical goods knows that resource management can be a challenge. It’s one of the more persistent ecommerce problems precisely because it touches inventory, budget, and staffing all at once, and for an online business specifically, it can be even more complicated.

First of all, there’s the issue of inventory. Keeping track of what you have in stock, what needs to be reordered, and what’s selling quickly can be a full-time job in itself, and as your catalog grows, so does the question of where to put it all. You can calculate your warehouse space needs before committing to a bigger facility or a 3PL. Then, there’s the need to manage your team well. And when your employees are spread out around the globe, it can be tough to keep everyone on the same page, not to mention make sure they’re working efficiently day to day.

Solutions:

• Establish an effective inventory management system: This involves a good understanding of your sales cycles, which is important for forecasting product demand, and avoiding overstocking or running out of popular items. Moreover, you need to track your inventory levels closely and set up reordering thresholds so that you can restock quickly and efficiently.
• Control your budget: Have a clear understanding of your sales volume and margins: this will help you to know how much money you need to bring in to cover your expenses and turn a profit. Track your spending carefully and set aside a portion of your revenue to cover unexpected expenses. Besides, don’t be afraid to invest in tools and resources that can help you save money in the long run.
• Hire the right talents and track staff availability: People are the most important asset in an ecommerce business. After all, without employees, there would be no one to run the website, fill orders, or provide customer service. That’s why it matters not only to hire the right people for the critical roles in your company but also to make sure they are present at the workplace when needed and do their jobs well. Working with an ecommerce recruitment agency can save you a lot of time by bringing you candidates who actually know the industry.

Pro tip: actiTIME’s progress tracking compares estimated hours against actual time on each task, so you can see whether a project is on track without needing anyone to write a status update.

In addition, the software lets you log where and how people are working, office, remote, or a scheduled shift, alongside their time off. And by integrating it with actiPLANS, a dedicated leave management and PTO tracking tool, you can handle different kinds of employee leave with self-service requests and manager approvals, plus get an in-depth insight into team availability and absences.

13. Pricing

Pricing is a delicate balancing act. If you set your prices too low, you may struggle to cover your costs at all. But if you set them too high, you risk chasing away potential customers and losing them to the competition. So, how can you find the sweet spot?

Not all customers place the same value on your products, either. A price that works for one segment can be too high for a price-sensitive shopper and too low to reflect the value a loyal, high-intent customer already sees, which is why pricing tends to need regular adjustment rather than a single number set once and left alone.

Solutions:

• Know your costing inside out: If you don’t know how much it costs to make or source your product, then you can’t accurately price it for sale. Thus, before you proceed to price your goods or services, take the time to calculate your all-in costs for each unit of inventory. Include everything from the cost of goods to shipping and packaging costs, as well as any overhead costs associated with running your business.
• Understand what customers are willing to pay: Use competitor analysis and customer surveys to get a sense of the going rate for similar products in your industry. Remember that price is not always the only factor that influences customer behavior; in some cases, customers may be willing to pay more for a product that offers better quality or features than its competitors.
• Test, test, test: The best way to find the perfect price point for your products is to experiment with different pricing strategies and see how they impact your business. Try testing different price points on a small scale before rolling out any changes across your entire store. That way, you can minimize any negative impacts on sales and profits while still learning what customers are actually willing to pay.

Conclusion

Not every one of these challenges in ecommerce will hit your business the same way. These 13 cover most of what trips up a growing ecommerce business, but the specific mix that hits you will depend on your product, your team size, and how you sell. Start with whichever section matches the problem you’re actually dealing with right now, rather than trying to fix everything at once.

As an integrated project and time management software, actiTIME offers ecommerce businesses a comprehensive solution to streamline their daily operations, boost productivity, and stay competitive in an ever-changing industry. With its help, you can easily manage your employee workload, track project progress, monitor task completion, and optimize resource allocation.

actiTIME also includes a Chrome extension called Time Management Assistant, an automatic activity tracker with a one-click timer. It captures work hours without anyone needing to remember to start a manual timer, and turns that data into personal productivity reports, useful both for keeping payroll accurate and for spotting where your team’s efficiency can be improved.

On top of that, actiTIME includes reports and charts that turn tracked time into a clear picture of your operations. Staff performance, cost of work, and estimated versus actual time are all reports you can pull with a click, so you can figure out how to cut costs, optimize your work processes, and increase profitability.

A free actiTIME trial is a low-risk way to see whether it fits your operations before you commit to it, and you can sign up in a couple of minutes.

FAQ

Which of these ecommerce challenges should I tackle first?

Start with whatever is actively costing you sales right now, usually cybersecurity gaps, checkout friction, or shopping cart abandonment, since fixing those has an immediate, measurable payoff. Longer-term plays like omnichannel selling or building customer loyalty are worth planning for, but they pay off over months, not days, so they shouldn’t come at the expense of the challenges already costing you money today.

Do these challenges hit small ecommerce businesses differently than large ones?

Some do. A small store usually feels resource management and pricing pressure first, since one or two people are often handling buying, marketing, and customer service at once, and there’s little room to absorb a bad pricing decision. A larger business is more likely to feel omnichannel selling and logistics as its main pain points, since it’s managing more channels, more SKUs, and more moving parts at once. The underlying challenge is often the same; what changes is which one becomes the bottleneck first.

How does time tracking help with ecommerce challenges specifically?

Several of the challenges above come down to not knowing where time and money actually go: is your team spending most of its hours on fulfillment, support, or marketing, and is that split actually paying off? Time tracking software connects hours to cost and profitability, which helps directly with resource management and pricing, and indirectly with almost everything else on this list, since most fixes require knowing where your team’s time is currently going before you can redirect it.