Ever heard from anyone. I would have definitely won. Only if I had known this or that ‘thing’ in advance. Maybe from a friend or elder. But in an e-commerce business, you should understand the obstacles of eCommerce before entering.

‘The uncertainty of problems is clearly unpredictable’ but as true as universal truth. Well with the experience of past pro players. We can identify the issues and its solution.

We cited experienced people as previous players or experts of eCommerce game. Why? we are calling it a game. Because there are numerous levels, challenges, fun, rewards in online selling. Just like a game but it is good addiction as well as necessary.

Now back on the obstacles and problems which a noob player will face in his early stage and even when climbing to the pro level. We’ve identified some of the common problems with solutions.

Problems with an expert solution.

Wrong Understanding

We’ve understood online selling wrong from day 1, we see it as leverage of a new era that will give us quick results but we proved wrong when we met our 1st failure, bcz its the game of patience-learning and implementation.

 And that’s why we fail, online selling is not magic that will burst money on you. It is a skill to learn, with more practice and implementation.

Had you started! just seeing some youtube videos, influenced by friends or family and jump in the well, if yes! well done”-this well is really deep.

Before starting any new business research is mandatory, of course! we should. And the most important thing we forget is to listen to an experienced person in that field. It will sound a bit clumsy that only a failure can teach you. How to ‘not fail’? think it.

Understanding the experience of existing players is like getting cheat codes of the game, knowing the lack already. Cheat codes mean tips at least don’t take it wrong.🤣

They will teach you about the latest changes and how to cope with them, you can also take help from them occasionally, but if the person is not your acquaintance I suggest you, create a bond of friendship with them. Don’t be a crybaby, do not disturb them randomly or with each time for your concern.

There is nothing wrong with making friends and it’s good if somebody can be your mentor, just give respect, love and loyalty. It can help you stay away from small hurdles that force a noob player to quit.

Fail to manage returns

In the online selling world there is a silent money reaper named – “Returns”. The process is part of the daily business but sellers don’t like it and why they should!

It burns $$ in no time, excessive of it can cause deactivate your account, performance down, wrong impact and loss of toil.

Many sellers are really failing to cope with returns, they don’t calculate the right return rate of business, and sometimes don’t even care about returns because they think they are in a good position to sell all these returned products back to another customer, this is where they lack.

Yes, it’s good if your return is in good condition you can sell it back to another customer but what if your return is a customer return, not a courier?. it has already cost you for delivery charges and customer dissatisfaction.

If you see your online business as a long term business this is not good for you to do!. you need a better and more reliable solution for returns, some tips that will help are:-

• Always maintain manifest ( even if there few order )
• Find out the right return rate.
• Track your return ( set a specific day for it in a week)
• Always file safety claim even it is courier return
• Learn proper safety guidelines and provide image according to them, many company want return label image as primary.
• Keep record of all returns at least for past 6 months.

Sometimes sellers fail and even quit because they face returns a lot, they sell products in thinking of no or low returns but eventually, they got returns. Actually, the giant e-commerce companies in the sector have spoiled the habit of the customer.

By offering super-easy returns without even checking what the customer is returning, they only felling sellers at loss,bcz they don’t have to pay delivery and product charges!.

But here is a twist, that’s why I love it. Recently from (2021) Amazon and (2022), Flipkart has started a verification process in taking returns to the customer, now their delivery agent has the original image of the product which is to be returned back and they can’t accept a return from the customer until they don’t return an original product.

for the independent sellers- I suggest you implement this in your return system it will save you.

Although market-places offer return claim amounts if they found a genuine fault. This is not applicable for all at least this time, I think only amazon and a little bit of Flipkart have good safety claims back for sellers, others I don’t trust, I had tried almost every platform.

I agree that we can’t eliminate it with any tool or magic, but the only thing we can do is to do some good practices to reduce it to the level where it is unreachable of our profit treasure.

Read the full blog on Right Return Rate to understand clearly.

Money burner trap

What is the money burner trap?

Money burner means when you have utilized your money for a better return on investment but it goes in negative, in easy words you used the money to bring more sale but now you are using money to bring that money back, complicated enough!

It happens with almost everyone in the e-business. It is common, like drinking water. But it became difficult to come back. Once you fell into this trap, many online sellers are falling, mostly in the early stage.

Usually, when someone brings up a new product they have already burned money to come till here. Now they burn more money to bring sales on that product via ads or promotions. But what happens if ads or promotion doesn’t meet the expectations.

“You caught it right! they burn some more” until their cost of investment does not return properly or their inventory did not get stock out. But do you think it is profitable, definetly not! as far I think?

Don’t do the same, never burn on ads for a product that does not deserve.

Follow these steps to keep yourself safe from the money burner trap.

• 1st- Product research should be in-depth.
• 2nd- Always launch never list the product.
• 3rd- Ads are good but work only with proper use otherwise it is the trap base.
• 4th- Ads are for brand awareness more over profit.
• 5th- Pre-test your product potential before start burning the money.

Read more about the money burner trap to understand clearly ← click it.

Choose – Launch over listing

What do you do daily- list the product or launch the product? if you are smiling by making you catalogue fat by daily listing more n more products my friend be ready to fall on the mouth.

We focused on listing more and more products but we forget that others are doing the same.

Do you know around thousands of products are uploaded daily on e-commerce platforms across the world and under them around less than 25% of sellers are actually launching the product if we talk about really genuine and new product launches the figures are less than 20%. So, how can you think you can grow in this industry by just listing products that are already on the platform.

Don’t confuse listing with mapping, mapping product is worse than listing, it also brings account suspension on many marketplaces. But no worry for independent sellers like drop-shippers they are doing on their own platform.

If you are a drop-shippers or website owner the launch thing should be the priority for you. As I am taking in terms of universal online selling.

Okay, why I am focusing on launch too much? this is because when we started to launch a product we are already on the best track of cracking sales!.

Tough Product Research

As above mention, you should launch the product, not just list, and in the launch, the very first crucial step is the product research.

What is product research in online selling?▬ Finding or creating a product, which customers desire but can’t able to find online.

We can say it in a line but it’s a long process even I can say it is a journey that every online seller has to go through.

Be optimistic, if product research is tough then it is an advantage for you because many sellers won’t even try it because of failure, but you should have courage. Some good steps to follow.

• Observe & analyze the market eg. check suitability of season ,uniqueness & customer behavior for your product.
• The product should provide much value to customers that you can sell it with good margin.
• What are you bringing, new or innovative or good deal or a combo of ultra value.
• There should be a strong supply of the product you want to bring.
• Calculate the cost-profit-margin to take before launch is pro step.
• Take good time in keyword research, photography and branding.
• Launch it with 4 or more campaign by targeting on different keywords and area.
• Must update keywords that you find out in campaign results on every week.
• Must get ratings and review as soon as possible to improve credibility of your product.

Why are sellers afraid to launch products?▬ Because many sellers think that whatever we will create or sell is already listed online. They think that nothing is left. But don’t know, there are 7.9 Billion, people in the world. With different desires and tastes which is endless.

And when sellers are ready to find or build something to launch. So a big problem which makes their mind tingle. Will customers like our product? Will they buy it or not! And more questions related to customers’ understanding. But you should not worry.

People say understanding customer thinking is complex, but it is now history. Now we have Reviewtestify you can easily find out what is your product potential, what customer thinks, whether they buy or not.

Regretfully we are not providing this service for now.

Never bring the repeat product and don’t enter in a loop of listing mappers (a seller who only map their product in other seller products). trust me if you do this you can’t climb high in the online selling world.

Stopped learning

I saw many and even myself in starting, when we got rewards of online selling we forget by whom we got that. but a person who believes in learning by mistakes never forgets the last mistake he did.

once when I got a profit of 37,000₹ in just 1 week, I reached on 7th sky and thinking, is it that much easy all I just have to make a few clicks and shipping of the product to earn that much. After that I stopped reading emails, notice and content on online selling.

Later on when I found that this thing is not repeating again, and I got on my actual position of average sales. And understood the time I wasted in overconfidence, I again started learning more and now seeing profits just as extra money to launch a new product.

Vikram singh

but even those people who never learn from their past mistakes -> stop learning when they got rewards it is happening with both types of the seller – 1st the one who got results in a short span of time and 2nd those who got in a long period of time.

when we got overconfident after tasting rewards we stop thinking much about taking more knowledge in that field, and competitors took advantage of this and after loss, we wonder where I am wrong.

you should understand that one can’t sustain long in any business or life if he can’t learn from his mistakes.

Take-away advice.

The above-mentioned thing comes from my own experience in online selling, and am someone who belive in learning everywhere from everyone.

Online selling right now is just a light coming from a future door that is slightly opened. It has a vast scope in future thus I want that the mistakes I did should not to be repeated.

Because they had brought me losses and if a new player faces defeat early, he may quit easily.

That’s why I want you to keep these things in mind and learn more.

Thanks for giving your time.

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