Are You  Ready for These 5 Challenges In E-Commerce Supply Chain?

Decisions must be data-driven and customers should be given full visibility of their orders. It becomes even more crucial when you are planning to venture into new geographies. Below is the elaboration of key challenges in e-commerce supply chain and how they can be overcome.

e-commerce supply chain

1. Are you good enough to localize in the global economy?

Gone are the days when businesses targeted specific E- commerce companies who had the ability to quickly expand in the new geographies if they were supported with a strong supply chain network. New age E-commerce players have diminished the traditional boundaries to reach the global customers. However the challenge that remains for the industry is to manage the cross-border government policies, taxes, economic barriers and so on. It’s highly recommended that to engage the professional and local experts who are specialized in the country’s policy & procedures can contribute in setting up the brand in the new market.

2. Differentiating your business and retaining customers

E-commerce is a different ball game than offline retail, where you get to see the customer face to face and have a realistic chance of creating an impact on his buying behaviour. In the e-commerce supply chain, your customer is at the far end of selling cycle. You must make a genuine effort in fulfiling customer expectations and creating an experience which makes them come back numerous times. You must make a conscious effort in creating a unique positioning of your brand. A highly professional logistic service partner enables you to bring data driven insight by consolidating the large amount of data generated across the e-commerce supply chain. This brings the quantitative results which assist you in making informed business decision.  

3. Do you have right technology and systems in place?

E-commerce business model in itself is based on technology that penetrates the evolving market and the consumer base. It is tough to sustain e-commerce supply chain if you do not have the best-fit technology for your business. Technology such as order management system for processing the order, fully equipped Warehouse Management System (WMS), delivery tracking system and if required, customer relationship management (CRM) tool for enable you to provide higher visibility in the supply chain and improves the ease of operations.

4. Personalized customer experience

You can add extra life to your e-commerce supply chain by providing personalized service to each customer. As mentioned earlier, each customer has different expectations; you must put yourself in the customer’s shoes so that you understand the expectations and how you can add extra value. How will you do this? At each point of the supply chain, there is data associated with the customer – be it buying preferences, pattern, brand liking/disliking and so on. Based on the analysis, you can surprise each customer with personalized experience across supply chain like sending across timely information on relevant sale offers.

5.  Are you playing the number game correctly?

As businessmen, you know how important is it to predict right. At times, there is a huge surge in the customer demand. But if you do not calculate it right, then it will be difficult for you to align the production or supply of the product with the customer demand. This is where an experienced supply chain expert assist you. Based on their experience and application of the supply chain analytical tools, you will be able to forecast the demand based on algorithms and historical data. This will further enable to you to be ahead of the market and get the desired results at any given time.

By now, you should be able to identify correctly how to manage these 5 e-commerce supply chain challenges. However, it is important to identify the right logistics partner who has the experience and ability to offer technology based solutions to enable you in achieving the desired goals.

Holisol is a leading supply chain organization providing solutions in retail (end-to-end fulfilment), Auto & Engineering (packaging & supply chain) and Consulting. Holisol works on the value proposition of Design-Implement-Manage to offer customers an experience of working like their own extended team, with affordable strategic and operational expertise.

Holisol has a workforce of +300 supply chain enthusiasts who are continuously building value through leadership, innovation and relationships.

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