Is Online selling worth taking all the risks?
Online selling, as lucrative it sounds, is definitely not foolproof, it comes with a lot of risks which should be considered before making a move towards online selling. A good planning and prediction are mandatory to save the online sellers from facing losses. Online selling is also worth taking these risks, as brick and mortar stores are slowly being replaced by online selling, so having a strong hold in e-commerce websites is important. Turning a blind eye towards the risks is not recommended! The e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay come with these risks:
- Customers using products for a week and returning them.
- Product damages, the products which are usually returned can be claimed for damages but this seldom happens.
- Product returns –the products are returned in a condition, where resending them becomes hard to other new orders. Most of the covers, boxes of brands are damaged.
- Reverse logistics charges when the buyer, the seller pays the return logistics charges.
- Marketplace commissions when the buyers cancel, despite this the seller is charged with a commission.
- Product Cancellation, despite cancellation the seller has to pay charges to the payment gateway making it a loss for seller despite customer ordering the product.
Taking careful measures is advised to new sellers, not just these issues but there is more that a seller has to face. Working with these e-commerce sites the problems take a new shape when a negative feedback is given. eBay is known to block its seller just on the ground of poor feedbacks and large chargebacks, your doors will be closed and your items will be delisted in such scenario.
Another thing you stand a risk of is online phishing and spoof emails. These mail appear to come from eBay or Amazon but is actually not. The purpose is to get you to think that you have received an email from any of these e-commerce websites and ultimately make you login by stealing your password and start selling as you or try those passwords to empty your bank account, the result in either way is not pleasant.
Having spoken about few of the many risks involved all we need to be is informed and prepared for what might happen. Customer’s behaviours are unpredictable so are the behaviours of e-commerce sites, but on the contrary, the seller has many options to choose from. Depending entirely on one or two companies like Amazon and eBay could put you in a lot of risks. At any moment they can cancel your account for many reasons! It is very important to diversify your sale channels, being too dependent on one or two sales channel is not a good option.
Great businesses come with risks that need to be measured calculated worked upon and continue doing your thing!
We encourage you to sell on as many sites as you can, so if you eventually get banned on one, you will be able to sell on others thus reducing heavily losses and risks to the online sellers.
