You’ve spent countless hours getting your eCommerce business off the ground, but for some reason, sales have peaked or are not coming in at all. Why?
While there could be a number of valid reasons why your ecommerce business isn’t growing, here are five of the most common – and the ways to fix them.
1. You Don’t Have the Right Products
The first question you should ask yourself is this: Are you selling the right product(s)? After all, you’re not going to make any money if you’ve invested in items that aren’t in demand. Using a product market research tool like Algopix can help ensure that you choose the right products, so you not only make sales but also double your margins and increase your bottom line. Algopix uses a proprietary analytics model to gauge the viability of a certain product and will tell you whether or not it’s worth selling. Not only that, you’ll get tips on where to sell, which leads to our next point…
2. You Are Only Selling on One Marketplace
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Selling on one marketplace limits your reach to potential customers. Buyers might be loyal to a particular retailer, like Amazon or Walmart, for example, while others might shop around from one marketplace to another looking for the best deal. Whatever the case may be, it’s in your best interest to list across multiple channels: You’ll ultimately reach more eyeballs and increase your chances of making sales. Just make sure you also have a robust inventory management system so you can keep track of all cross-channel sales, inventory and more.
3. You Aren’t Marketing Your Products
With so much competition these days, it’s imperative that you market your listings — both on your marketplace(s) and off. That means investing in sponsored listing campaigns to increase your SEO, launching social media campaigns to drive people to your listings, or even setting up a dedicated website to further educate potential customers on your brand and product(s).
4. Your Suppliers Aren’t Reliable
Your suppliers could make or break your business’s ability to grow. On one hand, if you build a relationship with them and negotiate margin-maximizing terms, you’ll be able to turn inventory quickly and increase your bottom line. On the other hand, if your supplier doesn’t stay on track and sends you a defective or late inventory order, you risk losing a lot of money or stocking out.
When you’re looking for a supplier, make sure you do your due-diligence so you know you can trust them before you actually make a big investment. You can do this by ordering product samples and requesting factory audits, or you can use a sourcing agent or online sourcing platform. Either way, you’ll get valuable information that will help reduce risk when it comes to getting your inventory.
5. You Don’t Have Enough Cash Flow
In order to grow, you have to invest in certain areas, like new product launches, bulk inventory purchases, marketing campaigns and more. But you also have to have the right cash to make such investments — which, as an ecommerce seller experiencing ongoing payment delays, can be very difficult. Fortunately, companies like Payability exist to solve these cash flow problems so you can take your business to the next level.
Payability is a financing company designed specifically for marketplace sellers, and they offer a variety of solutions depending on your cash flow and growth needs:
- Payability Instant Advance: Get a large lump sum of cash to invest in large inventory orders or other big opportunities. How it works: Payability buys a certain amount of your future receivables at a discount, giving you the proceeds all at once.
- Payability Instant Access: Get paid daily so you can continuously reinvest in your business, in real time and as you need.
- Payability Seller Card: Get access to your marketplace income 24/7/365, including on weekends and holidays. How it works: Use wherever Visa is accepted and earn up to 2% cash back plus other rewards.
Since 2016, Payability has helped more than 2,500 marketplace sellers grow their businesses 2.5x faster than their competitors. One such seller, Gina Goldring, boosted her Amazon sales by 50% in one month after her first Instant Advance. To learn more, visit http://go.payability.com/Algopix to get a $200 sign on bonus. High volume sellers may qualify for reduced rates.
Bio: Victoria Sullivan, our guest writer, is a Marketing Manager at Payability. She has over eight years of social media, copywriting and marketing experience. Prior to joining the Payability team, Victoria developed social media content and strategies for top technology brands such as Skype and Samsung. She holds a degree in Advertising from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She can often be found in a yoga class or working on her fashion blog.
