8 Huge Challenges Facing Global Retail Ecommerce World

Before the early nineties, online retailers faced inadequate supply chains but, as the eCommerce industry started evolving, supply chain solutions underwent a shift through automation and streamlining of operations. Recently, the ecommerce world has brought a revival in the global retail trade. Online buying has helped savvy customers explore the easy way of purchasing by transcending the barriers of location and time rather than taking the pains of buying from a traditional brick and mortar store. 

With plenty of time-saving features, online retailers offer these buyers with seamless customer experience during their shopping. Timely delivery combined with real-time tracking, order processing, fulfilment and shipping, everything works as a customer desire, which further boosted global ecommerce growth. Every process gets implemented in a few minutes and, it improves the shopping experience of customers. No doubt, automation plays a decisive role in facilitating the eCommerce business. 

For a customer, the ecommerce world is full of possibilities because it is the most affordable platform for shopping, while the retailers, on the other hand, face several challenges when they implement international shipping because there are a lot of complexities involved. The operational challenges include order processing, picking, packaging and fulfilment. It is not as easy as we think. Even though automation in the ecommerce world helps a lot, handling these operations in house and meeting shipping and delivery as per the customer requests requires careful consideration. Customers wish to get their products within no time once they finish placing an order from online stores. 

1. Price and Customer Availability Constraints

With same-day and next-day delivery solutions, courier companies are helping customers to receive goods within hours of order placement. When a customer opts for fast delivery, there are two challenges. One is the price for doorstep delivery and, the other is customer availability during the delivery time window. Several options are available, but cost reduction is a pain point in most cases. Today, the global ecommerce market is highly competitive. Customers want the best services at affordable rates while finding a balance between cost and convenience is one of the pestering problems a retailer has to confront during the delivery of orders.

2. On-time Delivery Challenges

We have witnessed the growth of international retail eCommerce ever since the 1990s. Along with technological advancements, retailers in the global ecommerce world enjoy finding more business opportunities. The smartphone penetration and the internet age give a boost to eCommerce. Hence online shopping websites and marketplaces have become a favourite place for buying and selling for consumers. The same-day delivery within a few hours of purchase makes online stores function on par with their brick-and-mortar counterparts.   

Ask global ecommerce consultants, and they say prompt delivery is one of the prominent factors ruling the success of any online retail store. However, more sophistication implies that the entire process goes through more complexities. For instance, guaranteed delivery in two hours to any location within a country attracts a plethora of challenges. To be more precise, behind the scene, the retailers in the ecommerce world have to complete many processes for order management and fulfilment, starting from order processing of orders, picking, packaging, shipping and preparing for delivery.

3. Finding Reliable Transport Partners

Further, they have to find a trustworthy shipping partner who can meet the order delivery requirements as per the choice of customers. Apart from this, the cost is also a concern. The faster the shipping, the higher will be the cost. The shipping rates for express shipping is more than standard shipping rates. Similarly, bulkier packaging also leads to added shipping costs. The retailer has to consider packaging and fulfilment before preparing shipments for delivery. Partnering with the right courier company helps online retail shops a lot. Even if customers opt for same-day delivery or delivery within two hours, a reliable courier partner keeps the delivery schedule without escalating the shipping rates. Such courier partners ensure a win-win situation where neither the retail business owner nor the customer suffer because of shipping prices. 

4. Establishing Warehouse Facilities

Also, setting up strategic warehouses in significant cities across a country would help diminish the cost (shipping) impact to a great extent. However, this is not always possible for small and medium retail shop owners. We have seen that big retail giant like Amazon is setting up new hubs to speed up the fulfilment process to hasten shipping and delivery. Therefore, in the ecommerce world, establishing hubs and warehouses in central locations within a country calls for heavy investments that all small and medium online retailers find hard to finance.

5. Language Barriers

Another challenge is the language barrier where retailers sell globally is to consider the languages spoken in the countries they serve. While translating a product tagline or message, businesses need to look for its actual meaning. It is always better to invest in interpreters or native speakers especially, for customer support, to avert any untoward incidents when it comes to any issues with the language while serving the customers spanning the world.

6. Monitoring Global Workforce

In addition to the above, retailers have to manage the workforce who function from global offices. These employees need to operate as a unit. The barriers regarding language, different time zones and culture, reliance on technology impacts a lot. It requires to have proper monitoring to check if all members of the team function coherently. When distance makes team members work from different parts of the world, retail business owners should ensure that communication is intact that every player is motivated and occupied.

7. Changes in Trade Policies

Also, the changes in foreign policies and laws governing trade, labour laws, taxes, transportation affect global online retail business. Retailers need to check the new law and rules to keep their business operations flawless. They have to closely watch what is happening in the trade and related scenarios in the country they implement business. It would help tackle any issues arising out of changes in trade and related policies. Retailers should keep themselves informed and make decisions appropriately as per the new rules.

8. Exchange and Inflation Rates

Another challenge is a currency exchange and inflation rates. Online retail businesses have to closely look into the exchange rates between the country they are operating and the prospective international markets they are targeting to expand their business. The value of a currency is not the same when you compare it with a legal tender used in another country. It fluctuates over a period; hence, retailers have to monitor the exchange rates regularly. The same is the case with the inflation rates. Inflation measures the general price levels in an economy and differs between several countries. It directly impacts the pricing of products and the cost of labour. Hence retailers in the ecommerce world have to consider both the rates to know the value of the products they sell in each country. 

ECommerce Delivery Solutions from Boorna Freight 

Boorna Freight, one of the leading freight transportation companies and global ecommerce solutions provider in Europe, provide eCommerce delivery solutions for online retail businesses and business to business eCommerce. With plenty of courier partners to its help, Boorna Freight offers real-time shipping rates, intelligent tracking, proof of delivery and many more. Also, provide an e-fulfilment service; boorna.com connects your website with it to access the order processing and shipping, tracking and delivery information in real-time from a single dashboard. Communicate in real-time with your customers regarding the status of transit, provide them with estimated delivery date and time and, get seamless conversions through customer satisfaction derived from prompt, on-time delivery service and many more services for the ecommerce world; from Boorna Freight.