After many ecommerce brands saw record sales in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many thought it would be more of the same in 2021.
事实并非如此，因为大多数品牌从销售，营销和客户服务到供应链和物流努力来雇用短缺的供应链和物流斗争都面临着许多挑战。
Of the 40 brands we reached out, the majority worked for B2C ecommerce brands.
In this post, we’re taking a closer look at the biggest ecommerce challenges that these brands faced in 2021.
根据B2C品牌，B2B品牌还是电子商务服务提供商，我们将这些挑战划分了。
B2C电子商务面临的挑战
Here are the biggest challenges experienced by B2B ecommerce brands.
更多竞争
根据我们的调查，B2C电子商务品牌今年面临的最大挑战是竞争增加。
“One of the biggest challenges that my ecommerce business has faced in 2021 is a surge in competition,” says Jessica Kats of肥皂。“The Covid-19 pandemic threw most companies in a flurried state. Many retail and brick-and-mortar companies shifted to ecommerce to keep their business afloat. The rise of literally thousands of new ecommerce stores caused us to face massive competition that we weren’t ready for.
Coupled with supply shortages, it became quite challenging to keep up. We upped our sales and marketing efforts with unique offers and loyalty rewards in the face of this crisis. We had to invest in SEO to get our brand presence and discount ads across more people and shifted to a heavier presence on social media.”
Stephen Light of诺拉床垫补充说：“我们在2021年面临的电子商务品牌面临的最大挑战是与竞争对手区分开来。在越来越多的数字世界中，每个人都抓住了最佳的在线实践，而且很难脱颖而出。我们所做的就是看看我们的竞争价格，确保我们的营销不断开车回家USP（独特的销售主张），优化了我们的网站以供移动使用，并增加了SEO。我们可以做的任何事情来推动我们提供的额外价值比竞争对手。”
Steven Walker ofSpylix同意：“作为一家小型电子商务业务，2020年的大流行对我们的销售产生了许多影响。即使我们的产品在网上上传，大型公司也接管了小企业。由于其他竞争对手也转换为数字平台，因此有很多竞争。
我立刻在我的销售策略和converted everything to online sales, payments, and delivery status. Things were pretty good even during peak covid times. However, I stayed behind the others due to my ignorance and lack of attention. While I was busy crafting for my sales, my competitors evolved their marketing styles. There was a visible difference between their and my work. Even though I had more clients, it was a sure deal for them to shift to other platforms. I took longer to deliver and had a normie website. And as I feared, a bunch of my clients switched to my competitors. It made me angry but also drove me to betterment. I also worked on my forums and designs. It was a bit of work, but I managed to better myself. I hired a website designer and hired more staff. It gave me enough time to Focus on other in-process developments. Finally, after three months of a bumpy journey, my E-commerce has got back on track and is on the way to more sales.”
竞争的增加使一些商人感到惊讶。
“ 2021年我们对ECOM业务的最大，最令人惊讶的挑战是突然的竞争。”猫头鹰。“由于大多数企业受到大流行的影响，我们已经预料到相反（竞争减少）。我们似乎忽略了这样一个事实，即由于对人群对身体接触的限制，越来越多的企业将转换为在线商店。
在2021年初，我们在线体验了大量的品牌。保持越来越困难，我们的市场份额也在受到侵蚀。我们的竞争每天都在增加，我们意识到，如果我们很快找不到解决方案，我们就有可能关闭商店的风险。
我们的解决方案是增强我们的营销策略来捕获新的潜在客户。我们选择使用搜索引擎营销（SEM）。我们研究了大多数用户在我们行业中网络上搜索的内容，并创建了一个针对性的广告系列，以向其推动广告。我们还优化了我们的网站以吸引更多的流量。随着我们的客户群的扩大并提高了转换率，这些方法是有效的。我们很幸运能比我们的竞争对手领先一步，其中大多数人首次加入电子商务领域，因此学习和应用SEM等高级营销方法需要更长的时间。”
有关的：Direct vs. Indirect Competition: Most Important Things You Can Learn from Monitoring Both
管理增长
Other businesses found themselves with more demand than they could feasibly handle.
“像许多电子商务企业一样，我们在使用网络平台的使用中经历了最大的增长。”Hicollectors。“People were shopping from home in large numbers than ever before in history.
我承认，我们措手不及，因为我们从未想到很短的时间内就有这么多的兴趣和增长。在一月份的前几周内，我们开始收到报道说我们的网站加载速度下降了，该网站的移动版本崩溃了很多，我们的库存很快就耗尽了。
我们通过升级网站的带宽来快速解决问题，以便容纳更多的流量。这也有助于提高我们平台的负载速度。我们还部署了IT团队来优化网站的移动版本，因为我们注意到大多数流量来自移动设备。
On the inventory part, we were limited in terms of options as logistics were also a problem due to Covid-19 restrictions which meant our stock took longer to arrive. To solve this, we took up Dropshipping where we marketed items on our site and when customers placed orders, we took our commission and got the original vendors to ship the items to our customers.”
Salva Jovells of霍克蒂adds, “For Hockerty, online tailor leader, 2021 was a very challenging year. Would people keep buying suits after the pandemic? Will the postponed weddings from 2020 take place?
幸运的是,2021年是一个大的增长having +70% sales already vs 2020 or 2019 and we managed to reach new audiences with messages aligned to the different situations all over the countries where we sell. In order to get adapted to the new reality, we also had to broaden our range of products, bringing the custom-made to measure concept to products that were not the ones that you would find in a traditional tailor. We released jeans, field jackets, and even boots and loafers.
With those new products we were reaching a wider part of the population but we also gave chances to our repeating customers to buy also made to measure clothing for home office, after work or even weekends.”
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Adapting to consumer behavior changes
Most merchants also had to adapt to the new ways that customers were shopping since 2020.
“The biggest challenge was the change in consumer behavior online,” says Kelly Maxwell ofSeniors Mutual。“The pandemic really throttled some sales funnels we had and boosted others. We pivoted to what works. If it’s not working, stop putting money into it and move on.”
Andy Birks ofSimply Aquariumadds, “Without a doubt, the biggest challenge for our small content business in 2021 during the pandemic has been the ongoing effects of consumer uncertainty and supply.
虽然我们的是一家内容业务，而且我们不出售物理产品，但我们在很大程度上依赖我们的会员，而消费者行为的不确定性对它们产生了巨大影响。我们与几个大型和一些较小的宠物分销商打交道，过去一年，从产品的需求较低的时期到了比平常更高的需求。反过来，这影响了他们在需要时提供一些商品的能力。对我的业务的影响是，我们经常无意中推荐了很快停止或停产的产品。
我们通过仔细跟踪我们在网站上的所有产品并与我们的关联公司紧密合作以每天更新停产的链接，从而解决了这一挑战。我们还为我们的某些产品提供了新的分支机构和供应商，以使某些时期内的发展。”
有关的：Get the Most Out of Google Analytics’ Behavior Flow Report with These 6 Tips
管理客户的期望
This also meant having to provide a better customer experience.
“我的企业在2021年面临的最大挑战之一是消费者对交付和购买后服务的期望更高。”Alex Buchnev说Paddling Space。“在锁定和远程工作期间，电子商务企业蓬勃发展，因为消费者主要转移其交易。但随之而来的是突然的竞争和电子商务商店提供的服务改善的量子飞跃。解决方案是通过优化您的在线商店并添加插件来跟上不断变化的场景并升级业务，这些插件将帮助消费者选择购买产品，例如包括常见问题QS选项卡。这大大减少了我们在购买过程和之后收到的个人询问数量。”
Changing business models
其他企业发现自己突然不得不改变其业务模型或定价策略。
For example, Dustin Sitar ofBritecosays, “BriteCo switched from a b2b2c strategy to a DTC strategy. The website and marketing had to undergo massive shifts in a short amount of time to be effective in a new channel. We hired internally and outsourced to agencies to quickly scale the requisite skill sets for the new challenge. There were challenges in doing this fast. The team at BriteCo had to be agile and shift our mindset. Overall it was a huge success that increased our long-term potential.”
有关的：代理机构最有利可图的商业模式：根据20个机构
Paid advertising challenges
The recent Facebook ad and iOS tracking changes in 2021 also negatively impacted many brands.
“ iOS跟踪的最新变化使得以精确的准确性向潜在客户推销的市场具有挑战性，这曾经是最具成本效益的付费广告选择之一。”Private Label。“使用Facebook广告的客户重新定位是将初次访问者带回我们网站的关键驱动力。是的，您仍然可以在桌面用户和Android上执行此操作，但是我们的大多数客户都是移动设备上的iPhone用户。
As our ad costs rose, we decided to reduce our monthly ad spend and focus on conversion rate optimization. Finding the minor tweaks on our website has allowed us to convert more visitors quickly! It’s a long-term, ongoing process that takes experts and lots of A/B testing. Conversion Rate optimization should focus on store owners in 2022 and beyond.”
广告费用上升的增长是广告竞赛的增加。
“对我们来说，最大的挑战是增加在线广告的竞争。”Axon Optics。“许多企业在大流行之后于2021年在网上旋转，我们看到以每人获得的客户成本更高的形式增加竞争的影响，这使我们更加困难地在线宣传在线盈利。我们试图加强我们的其他收购方法，包括医师推荐和有机交通，并审查我们的漏斗。例如，关注更高渠道的人们的信息内容，然后通过开发的销售渠道捕获他们的电子邮件。”
有关的：16 Expert Strategies for Researching Your Ad Campaign’s PPC Keywords
B2B电子商务面临的挑战
B2B ecommerce brands faced many of the same challenges as B2C brands.
However, some also faced security challenges.
For example, Daniel Carter ofOffice Furniture Onlinesays, “I created my firm’s ecommerce website earlier this year. Since then, I’ve faced numerous challenges, but none has been more pertinent than cybersecurity issues.
在启动后的头几个月，我的网站面临多次分布式拒绝服务（DDOS）攻击。该网站的服务器充斥着来自无法追踪的IP地址的数百个请求，导致整个网站长期崩溃。此外，许多客户抱怨他们收到了我们网站的恶意电子邮件，表明该网站是恶意软件的目标。与我的IT团队一起工作，我采取了一些安全措施，以使网络安全风险上床睡觉。
这些措施是：为我们的网站创建独立的服务器，每天备份我们的数据，以定期对我们的平台进行定期更新我们的平台，以加密整个商店。”
在电子商务工作的机构或顾问面临的挑战
这些挑战不仅会影响电子商务品牌，还影响与这些品牌合作的服务提供商。
“2021 saw an increase in our ecommerce business,” says Sandi Legeman of301数字媒体。“As more retailers moved to online platforms as the Covid-19 pandemic continued, we saw an uptick in demand for support for e-commerce clients, both from a media and advertising perspective, but also in terms of technical and operational support. We were able to leverage our digital marketing knowledge and technical expertise to better serve our clients more efficiently and help them build engaging relationships with their consumers.”
Overcome Ecommerce Challenges with Databox
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