Top 10 pain points of ecommerce customers and their possible technology solutions

Every once in a while we hear in the news or read on social media about ecommerce horror stories and disappointments. Oftentimes it’s as small as incorrect descriptions or wrong items being sent, but sometimes it’s massive like how someone ordered an iPhone but received a brick instead. 

The ecommerce pain points don’t just end here. They can be anything from lack of sufficient payment options to a poor UI/UX and a slow checkout journey, as evident in the graph below.

But why are we talking about the ecommerce user pain points today? Well, it is estimated that by 2024, 95% of purchases will happen online, meaning now is the time for retailers to identify the pain points and find their ecommerce IT solutions.

In this article, we are going to dive into some of those persistent pain points and their technology solutions for ecommerce customers. But before we get to that, it’s critical to know how to identify the bottlenecks. The simple answer to that is to buy a few products off your app or website as a customer and talk to the support team to identify the customer pain points in ecommerce.

While this activity will bring issues specific to your platform on the surface, there are some bottlenecks that a number of ecommerce companies face, ones that ecommerce technology solution companies are called in to solve.

eCommerce customer pain points and their technology-driven solutions

eCommerce customer problems typically stem out of unplanned logistical and platform’s lackings. Now while the customer pain points in ecommerce can be varied – as we will see – they all can be summed into one happening – customers don’t get the expected experience they want from your platform.

Here are some of the ecommerce user pain points and their technical solutions.

1. Inaccurate product search

With the way digitalization has moved, especially around voice search and smart filtration and categorization, customers expect brands to know what they are looking for. Whether they are as high-level as a green vest or as specific as a lime green cardigan sweater, customers expect the platform to understand what they are looking for intrinsically, however this ends up becoming ecommerce pain points.

When building an ecommerce website or app, don’t hold your customers back with a tight navigation journey, give them the ability to carry out search by multiple parameters – brand, regional language, long descriptions, product purpose, product name, etc. The more smart an AI-based technology ecommerce solution you integrate in the search bar, the better results it will give to the end users.

2. Less attention to cybersecurity 

One of the primary elements that entrepreneurs look for in ecommerce solutions is data security. Showing that the website is safe to use carries the key to increasing sales volume. Now on the frontend there are multiple ways to achieve this – add trust seals like security certificates on the conversion pages of the app, give a money refund choice to the customers, or have a try first then pay option.

The real work, however, happens on the backend. It is critical that the features of the ecommerce technology app that you choose are built to be security-first. For example, there should be an option for multi factor authentication, ensuring that the customers who login to your app are actually the people they say they are. The more robust your app’s backend is, the better chances you will have at a hack-proof application.

3. Limited payment options

When it comes to shopping online, customers want an effortless payment process and a crucial part of that is giving them their preferred mode of payment. The right way to approach this is also probably the most impossible one – understanding the payment methods your customers want. 

So the smart idea would be to add in the most popular payment methods like debit and credit cards, Stripe, PayPal, and Square, etc. Another option you can go with is integrating Buy Now, Pay Later in the ecommerce technologies list enabling your customers to pay at a later date.

Ultimately whichever payment-based ecommerce technology solutions you plan to choose, know the factors to consider when integrating payment gateways in your app.

4. Lack of personalization 

The key to excellent ecommerce user experience lies in personalizations. With the way smart ecommerce solutions have developed, remembering customers’ names and birth dates will not be enough.

To solve ecommerce pain points it will be necessary to look into advanced features like creating a technical architecture where the customers’ buying journey aligns seamlessly across devices, using Artificial Intelligence capabilities to analyze customer journeys and where they left off – then using this information to build retargeting campaigns.

Showing that you really care about your customers through these ways and more helps create a speedy and hassle-free experience for them. 

[Read: How to create an omnichannel ecommerce experience]

5. Managing huge orders and their returns 

One of the biggest ecommerce user pain points that is prevalent in the industry is that of getting wrong orders delivered and returning them. The solution to this lies in investing in an order management system.

An order management system (OMS) is one of the types of e-commerce technology that manages the entire lifecycle of an order – tracks all the product information, manages inventory, tracks order fulfillment, and performs after-sales service. Ultimately, the OMS gives complete visibility to both ecommerce business and the buyers in terms of where their order is and its return journey.

Another way to approach this can be to use blockchain technology to track the supply chain and bring visibility in the logistical space. 

6. Poor customer support

With the number of ecommerce platforms increasing every day, it is getting difficult for customers to know which app or website is genuine. The way they seek out this information is by talking to the customer support. However, a major population of the customers end up feeling dissatisfied and uncomfortable with chatbots’ automated responses.  

The ecommerce solution to this lies in creating AI-based conversational chatbots. They are designed to understand context, jargon, incorrect spellings, sarcasm, and even multiple languages. An effect of this can be seen in better management of spike in calls, personalized conversations, and better sales count.

7. Cross-border ecommerce

One of the biggest eCommerce customer pain point examples can be seen in customers’ difficulty in buying products internationally. Factors like taxes, difference in prices, and shipping time deters them from making cross-border purchases.

There are three ways an ecommerce business can solve these ecommerce pain points –

• Partnering with a logistics provider who deals in international order fulfillment.
• Using AI-driven automation to give real-time conversions insight to the customers. 
• Applying blockchain technology in ecommerce solutions to power cross-border transactions seamlessly with complete transparency on the supply chain.

8. Better connection between offline and online shopping experience

eCommerce customers often face a challenge where they are unable to imagine how something they saw online would look on them in real-life. This instance either makes them go to the stores’ offline outlet or drop the idea of the purchase altogether. 

The technology solutions for ecommerce customers on this front can be two-fold: A. Using beacon technology to inform customers of discounts and offers through notifications when they are near the physical store and B. Integrating AR and VR technologies in the app to make it easy for customers to try on products while sitting at home.

9. Slow page speed

One of the biggest ecommerce user pain points that leads to cart abandonment and even app uninstalls is the slow app loading speed.  There are multiple ways to approach this – choosing a high-performing native application, image and content optimization, lowering the number of ads, selecting the best server and caching tool, or going with a content delivery network.

At Appinventiv, we use a combination of strategies and tools to keep the app and web page load speed to a minimum, almost instantaneous, irrespective of the network condition the user is in. 

10. Server overload 

One of the ecommerce pain points that affect not just the customers but also the business owners is the server overload issue. Poorly built eCommerce apps and websites are unable to manage traffic and multiple payments occurring at once, leading to slow checkout process and app crashes.

The ecommerce technology solutions to this issue lies in building a robust website or app server architecture that keeps high concurrency at the forefront. It enables high volume traffic management with the promise of zero glitches and crashes and also a seamless checkout process.

These are only surface level pain points and their technology solutions for ecommerce customers. There can be n number of other issues a customer can face during their buying journey. The more these minute-level or major issues come up, the better the role of technology in ecommerce gets defined as solutions.

[Also Read: How is Digital Transformation Advancing the Future of the eCommerce Industry?]

In addition to solving the pain points, these technology solutions for ecommerce customers also act as a beacon for the platforms to keep up with the ecommerce technology trends – something that helps businesses stay afloat even amidst turbulent economies.

While in this article we only highlighted the ecommerce user pain points that can be solved through technology, there are a number of other financial and marketing-based challenges that ecommerce businesses face which require tweaks in the business model and keeping on top of the ecommerce app features.

If you are struggling with maintaining your sales volume or facing unidentified issues bringing your customers’ interest down, it is critical to look at your ecommerce platform from all the standpoints. We can help you with this. 

How does Appinventiv solve ecommerce pain points?

At Appinventiv, in our role as an ecommerce app development company, we have assisted a number of ecommerce brands come on the best side of digitalization, helping them be on top of the new technology trends in e-commerce – all the while ensuring that the app is built with high quality at the center of the architecture.

Here are some recent eCommerce projects we have worked on keeping impeccable customer experience in focus. 

• Adidas – When Adidas came to us they were facing the issue of low market penetration owing to their major presence being on websites. Our business consultants sat with them to plan and launch region-specific mobile app rollouts, ensuring that they hit the millennial user base. 
• 6th Street – The eCommerce brand approached us after witnessing a spike in negative reviews highlighting issues in payment gateways, unfamiliar modules, and poor app performance. Our role was to solve these pain points by adding new features, modifying the product listing design and better the live influencer shopping experience. By the end of the project, our team made a comprehensible and intuitive application that was a replica of the 6th Street brand image.
• Edamama – The pain point Edamama was facing was getting an edge over the competitors. Our team of researchers and developers ensured that they got just this through a dynamic attribute management system that helped the product engine scale the product features and generate unique SKUs automatically. Additionally, we added innovative features like a detailed product category tree, a predefined flash sale timeline system as well as, a one-stop destination to book the best online classes, events, and activities for children.

We as an AI app development company don’t just help you answer what are some prominent eCommerce customer pain points specific to your brand but also apply next-gen technology solutions to solve them. Get in touch with us today to get technical support for your brand.

FAQs on pain points and technology solutions for ecommerce customers

Q. How to identify ecommerce pain points?

A. The simple answer to this lies in becoming a customer yourself. Go through a product’s buying journey, while also talking to the customer support team to identify the bottlenecks in the process. The other, more complex way to identify pain points would be to use analytics, heat maps, and AI-based reporting tools to know how the customers are using the app.

Q. How to address your ecommerce customers’ pain points through technology?

A. For solving issues through technology, you would need to relook at your backend and frontend architecture. The more robust they are, the more issue-proof your app will be. Additionally, you can plan investing in next-gen technologies like AI, Blockchain, Beacon etc. to make your app more personalized, intuitive, and transparent in terms of user experience.

THE AUTHOR

Nitin Soni