is quitting is the last option!

Here is Why?

These days when there is actually a time of growth in online selling! a huge scope is waiting for you and for your product/service. You will be shocked to hear that the stats show many sellers are quitting. Why?, Are they bored, or is it really difficult?

Online selling these days is getting tougher n tougher. Not point of view from technology, am here talking from the point of view of rules and regulation. Every day, these giant marketplaces change their policy and make selling scope narrow. Although it also depends on what kind of online selling business you are in. As it is not applied to all types of online business.

Some common hinder are:-

1. Policy Control

For Market place sellers

Privacy and policies are messing up from the day when business starts in this world. The point of worry is that we always have a lack of understanding about this. Sometimes due to sudden changes, and sometimes we don’t care much about it. And both are crucial reasons.

But the key problem starts when we are aware of the policy and still facing issues WHY???. Here come up the 1st option (sudden changes) but who can stop it and how. Of course, the owner/company through which you are selling. It can be any marketplace like Amazon, Flipkart, Etsy, eBay n more.

unlike it doesn’t matter how much aware you are! you can’t cope with policy changes. Because you can’t glue your eyes on email for the next update. Unless you are a robot😃.

Because it took time to make changes in business, surely you feel stuck from both sides? The worst scenario came up when these marketplaces suspend your account and you were shocked. What suddenly happens to my happy business and then you received an email full of warnings. (that you can’t able to sell anymore, your payment will not proceed). And then you feel like why did I even start it and then the process of reinstating started.

I can feel it because I have faced the situation not one or two times even 10 times. And on different platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Etsy but the concern is not that. I know it took many days and struggle hours to make a sellable account on these marketplaces. But what happens is it suspend in seconds due to some policy changes which we haven’t even noticed. 

All of our toil in researching a product, imaging, competitor analyse, hours of brainstorming important $$ money. Our precious customer rating which we have earned after hours of chasing a customer. It flew away like a bird. And what we get, is stuck of at least 2-3 months of our precious money in someone else pocket. And after that, we have no choice to pay more money. To reopen our account or again mess up with documents to start business again.

Nowadays, many new businesses are dependent on these marketplaces. Because small shop owners and homemade peoples have no investment to get started with a website. I believe this is the advantage option overall and it also has a good impact on the globe. It nourishes many people’s life, even generate more self-employed ever generated by any industry.

When small sellers came up to selling on these platforms they gains a good starting. But after a period platform starts to show its colour. Different types of unlimited categories of problems will occur daily and occur that you can’t able to stop. Because you have to run a family or to pay employees. And when an account suspends for any reason these sellers loses HOPE. They not only lose belief in that marketplace even in the whole online selling industry. Because everywhere they go on any platform they get a similar experience.

For independent sellers

when somebody has the right knowledge, vision and courage to start their own website they become an independent seller they are those who can start anything like dropshipping on Shopify, launch a brand on a marketplace, own e-commerce or any type of online selling site. Now, you are thinking that it’s greater than having a mess on the marketplace selling.

But my friend it cost almost 200-400$ to start your own website. It is the real truth! if you heard online selling or opening a website is free. You heard a lie.

And if you jumped on that free news without proper knowledge you took a step to ruin yourself. Because it is impossible to get something for nothing in this world. 

Our concern is why these independent sellers are also quitting. There can be many reasons but some of the major issues are explained below, and here we talk about policy impact on these sellers.

Similar to marketplace selling policies are also here to follow, but here they have to follow the government policies although which have their own pros and cons.

The government timely update its policy on different business sectors sometimes these impacts are large and even cause the situation of shutting down, for eg. in India when Gst mandatory policy came up, the entire online business is affected, independent seller effect first because now they have to get software for calculation and track up of GST on their product and when its customer return the process became stiffer.

GST  created a tough situation for small independent businesses those who can’t overcome it with time, lost their business. However, GST is a good tax system but it launched with not enough awareness in people and created a babel.

2. Damaged Listing

This type of situation is commonly seen in non-branded businesses. On the marketplace, where other sellers are trying to map products your hard work created a listing.

See below one of my own products eg. I research in lockdown and find a high selling product and list it on Flipkart.

When I listed this product I am selling it for 400₹ and also gain good 5-star ratings. With the help of Reviewtestify, my product customers are genuinely liking it (see image below). But when my product started growing lot of fake sellers (who sell fake products) arrived. And mapped it & started a price war.

You can see they are selling it at a very low price than me.

Which is impossible if they have the original product. This causes damage to my listing bcz after so much fake product shipped customers are annoyed. And give so many negative ratings. Which cause a loss of my seller ranking.

And I end up quitting this listing. Although I can easily remove these sellers but have to show a sample to you. That is what happens when you are a non-branded seller on a marketplace. In this situation, the valuable ‘customer thinking’ data provided by review testify about my product was also wasted. But I understand that the data provided is really worth it because it grows up my sales until mappers arrived.

(Regretfully apologise, currently, we are not giving this service.)

3. No or low results

Selling is the most rewarding thing. But it affects our mind subliminally if we are unable to control it, wondering how? Yes, it’s true that when we sell something and gain profit. Causes to release dopamine of selling more n more. But when we are unable to sell more. It impacts negatively on our subconscious mind, believe it or not, it will change your mind thoughts slowly.

It can make you compel to have negative thoughts which made you take wrong decisions and face a big loss, and after a big wrong decision, you will be full of negativity and thinking about quitting, this is the situation which has ruined peoples in abundance.

I’m not intending to disappoint you but it’s the reality observed by researchers. In online selling everything seems easy when we are generating profits easily over a period of time we started to think like, now I have nothing to worry about efforts my sales are good. But when the situation reverses due to any cause eg. a change in policy or account suspension. We got too much worried and start to flutter without thinking much about impacts and end up with wrong decisions.

And the second case is when you are a new seller and started an online selling business already with the wrong perception – that you gain a lot of profit easily in starting, it is not a time-consuming business, I never face loss or return of products, I can cope up with daily changes. You will end up in misery and quit because of no or low results.

4. Unlimited Returns

An email of return disturbs happiness. Return is that bitter juice that every seller has to drink whether you want it or not. It is one of the most powerful reasons for an online seller for quitting, am not only talking about market palaces am talking about the whole industry.

Check the mindblowing return stats infographic by invespcro

The losses face in returns made billion-dollar companies out of profit for many years eg. Even giant like amazon faces loss for years.

Why do we hate returns that much? actually, there is no specific cause but due to its side-effects, yes!

When we start an e-business, we have to agree upon the T&C of that company. Or own assumptions (if you are an independent seller). If returns are part of this business then why do we hate it? Because.

We haven’t the idea of Right Return Rate (RRR is an efficient way to analyze returns faced in selling).

New players predict it wrong from start they assumed that their product will not face a return or very low. But the truth is that more than 25-35% of purchase made online is to do return.

Yes-yes! you heard it right according to stats customers purchase products with confidence. Because they know that they can easily return the product without any questions asked. And since pay on delivery started in e-commerce the returns rate increased rapidly.

Although it depends on many factors, still, it became the favourite cause of quitting.

understand the right return rate to keep an eagle eye on returns. Check RRR.

5. Lack of Knowledge 

Knowledge is the key to success. Then why people don’t understand it because they are not interested in hard learning, bitter but true! well, anything we can’t understand causes failure.

Similarly in any business. The biggest mistake I observed and also did in my early stage. Is that I jump on the things I don’t understand because. I was attracted to the benefits it has given to others. Like when I don’t even know about amazon FBA properly. What I did is send my products worth around 10,000₹ to their warehouse and relax. Like the job is done.

And fool ‘me’ chilling daydreaming of automatic selling of products with fully unaware that FBA is leverage, not magic. I am curious to see the result on the 3rd day. And what I see is a big zero sale, I explained to myself maybe it will take time.

Then after a month same result and after the duration end. I end up with only 1000₹ sales and a loss of more than 10,000. Why? because I did the wrong calculation of fba charges. The product I sent has already have competitors even amazon is self-selling that & I haven’t tried to do marketing of the product.

Many sellers I see come into the online selling business just because of high returns. But they instantly see the mirror of truth. And they found themself in a trap. Many give up early and some people continue to face loss and shut down after a good jolt.

What should I do – Solution by experts

The points discussed above are threatening. But it is the reality, don’t be demotivated by them they are points that only an experienced can tell you.

Only 3 pieces of advice.

1st:- I had did many mistakes even more than I have mentioned above. But one thing I never did is stop learning. In every aspect of life learning from your own and others’ mistakes will advance you. If you found joy in learning, congrats, you are unstoppable already!

2nd:- I agree with the famous formula of (no learning = loss). But here we are in a new era where the customer is literate more than ever. And it will increase more n more. We should understand that now, the time is for thinking more about the value of the product instead of profit.

If your product is valuable. And if it meets the satisfaction status to its right user then none of the mentioned points is applied to you. Creating valuable products will give you Unimaginable benefits over profit.

3rd:- Winner never quits. the only point to close any discussion.

By Reviewtestify – Our mission is to show (reality as it is) so that anybody can take better decisions for himself.

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