E-Business assignment

1. Analyse the main challenges the retail organisation faced in adopting a

multichannel approach to its online and offline business operations.

 Cross-Channel Messaging & Branding

When it comes to multi-channel marketing, one of the most difficult challenges most
ecommerce business owners face is keeping branding and messaging consistent across
different channels.

It's much easier to control and keep track of the messages and branding you're using to
compel people to buy when you only sell your products through one channel.

When you start investing in multi-channel, you're forced to keep your message and branding
consistent across multiple channels, each with its own set of requirements, nuances, and
best practices.

When presenting your products to new audiences through new channels, you must ensure
that you create the same first impression that people get when visiting your website and
purchasing products from your online store.

When it comes to incorporating more channels and marketplaces into your selling strategy,
keep in mind that you only have one chance to make a good first impression. When creating
and updating product listing and brand pages for each channel, keep messaging, branding,
and consistency at the forefront of your mind.

 Inventory Management

Another significant challenge that most ecommerce business owners face when selling
products across multiple channels is inventory management.

Overstocking & Overselling:

When investing in multichannel, it can be difficult to manage supply-demand and estimate

how much product you'll need to keep on hand in a given month. Having too much inventory
on hand can be costly, but not enough can prevent you from growing and serving new
customers.

Lack of Visibility Across Multiple Channels & Multiple Warehouses:

To be successful with multi-channel, you must track, understand, and leverage inventory and
customer data. You must understand how inventory fluctuates over time, how demand
changes over time, what demand will look like in the future, when to reorder products, when
to reduce product quantities, and where breakdowns in your processes occur.

 Customer Support & Experience

When you only sell products via your website and store, managing the right customer
experience is relatively simple.
However, when you start selling on sites like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Facebook,
Alibaba, and other online marketplaces, it becomes much more difficult to support
and nurture customer relationships.

To be successful in ecommerce, you must prioritize serving your customers.

That includes understanding their pain points, providing value, selling high-quality
products, providing world-class support, and creating delightful unrivalled experiences
for them.

Your business will grow if your customers are satisfied.

That's all there is to it.

 Shipping & Returns

Shipping is another issue that ecommerce business owners face as they expand their
product offerings across more channels and marketplaces. Again, the main issue is
that when you're small and only take and fulfil orders through your own website and
store, shopping is a lot easier to manage. When you begin to add more channels to
the mix, you must be prepared to scale; otherwise, you risk. Otherwise, your
customer relationships will suffer, causing your brand's reputation to suffer and you
will lose future sales.
 The takeaway here is that you shouldn't wait until you're overwhelmed to figure out
how to ship for your business. Create a strategy ahead of time and begin putting it
into action before you need it.

 Growth Challenges

As you expand your ecommerce business and introduce your products to new
channels and marketplaces, you should anticipate a number of other growing pains.

As you grow, you may need to change your product to ensure that you don't lose
product quality. Be obsessive about it and don't let your partners cut corners. Set
clear expectations and cut ties with anyone who fails to meet them.

Even a few seconds of slow website page speed can have a significant impact on
sales. Work with your web developer, contact your hosting provider, and use tools
like Google Page Speed Insights to ensure that your website can handle sudden
increases in traffic and activity.

2. Examine the range of marketing approaches and techniques that have been
used by the organisation to promote its products to both existing and potential
online customers, identifying THREE (3) that you believe have been
particularly successful, giving your reasons for your choice.

Today's consumers are multichannel shoppers, and retailers must understand

each channel type to determine its value, as some channels work better for
different stages of the buyer's journey.

 Social media channels:

People can learn about new products and stores by using social media platforms.
Every day, influencers share their experiences, and sponsored posts could drive
traffic, if not sales.
 Sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest allow users to tag products for
purchase — a trend that is already paying off — while others, like TikTok and Twitter,
feature branded channels where customers can advertise and interact with them.

BigCommerce allows you to increase brand awareness and drive both offline and
online sales on the most popular social platforms such as Meta, TikTok, and others.
Using Feedonomics, you can ensure that your listings exactly match the requirements
of each social channel.

In the last year, two out of every three global shoppers made a purchase via social
media. Regardless of whether you are

 Your website and shopping cart

Web stores and built-in shopping carts are important for retailers because they allow
you to customize and personalize the shopping experience. You can use a custom
website to create educational content to answer user questions and attract new
visitors. Email marketing can also be used for lead nurturing and brand advocacy.

Building a mobile-friendly, user-friendly website and application is critical in today's

world, allowing businesses to expand into a larger market and capitalize on the
browsing habits of millions.

 Comparison shopping engines

The two most influential factors in purchasing decisions are price and convenience.

Search engines play a role in this process by influencing what customers search for
and how easily they find what they need.

Comparison shopping engines, such as Google Shopping, Shopzilla, and

PriceGrabber, recognize this and provide shoppers with quick and convenient pricing
information.
 As a seller, you can leverage the built-in convenience that customers have come to
rely on by bidding on traffic as part of your paid advertising strategy.

When you use BigCommerce's solution, you gain instant access to powerful
enterprise integrations and ecommerce platforms ranging from Google Shopping to
Storefeeder.

 Marketplaces

Online ecommerce stores are perhaps the best for buyers in the consideration and
decision stages, when they intend to purchase and have already decided on a brand
or product.

These marketplaces are able to create a centralized, yet simple, buying experience
by selling from third-party vendors to consumers.

 Brick-and-mortar stores

Of course, many shoppers still prefer to shop in physical stores rather than online.
When developing business models, it is critical that companies do not overlook their
oldest and most reliant channel.

Organizations can make the most of their products by integrating both offline and
online channels, while also providing their customers with more options when making
purchasing decisions.

With BigCommerce, you can easily integrate multichannel ecommerce into your
existing brick-and-mortar business.