The year is almost over! What should be the number one ecommerce business problem every online store owner should take care of this coming year? In terms of business expenditure, where’s the best place to spend your company’s ecommerce budget next year? The answer may surprise you!
Some in your company may talk about upgrading your accounting system or get that long-desired customer relationship management application. Perhaps put more money into marketing campaigns or social media ads.
Below are the list of some of the most common problems ecommerce business owners and managers usually care to talk about.
-finding the right product. Sure an ecommerce needs to sell the right product.
-attracting the perfect customer. May not be THE perfect customer, but an ecommerce should be attracting the RIGHT customer.
-generating targeted traffic. Absolutely!
-capturing leads. No question we need to capture leads.
-nurturing ideal prospects. Agreed.
-sales conversion rates. Couldn’t agree more!
-retaining customers. Need this to grow loyal customers!
-profitable long term growth. Right on the money!
-right technology and partners. Couldn’t go wrong here!
-hiring the right people. Crucial.
And I ABSOLUTELY agree with all of these 10 issues. Every single one of these problems are crucial to your ecommerce business, but the number one ecommerce business problem that one should take care of when the new year comes rolling around is not one of those!
The biggest challenge every small business should take care of this coming year is SECURITY.
Here is what they say about it,
The risk of an attack is getting worse. In just the past few weeks alone, we’ve seen brands such as Macy’s, T-Mobile and restaurant chains like Moe’s, McAlister’s Deli, and Schlotzsky’s all suffer data breaches, and these are just the recognizable companies that we read about. Most small business owners know that no organization can confidently claim that their customer, employee and company data is 100 percent secure. But there are practical steps to take to decrease your odds of falling victim to a cyber-attack.
“Backups! Backups! and Backups!” Chris Stafford, another local technology consultant, adds. “Every small business should have both onsite and offsite backups with version control. Malware like ransomware can cripple a business without the ability to “go back in time.”
Check this out from techrepublic.
Based on a survey of consumers and small businesses, Bank of America Merchant Services’ third-annual Small Business Payments Spotlight found that 21% of SMBs reported a data breach within the last 24 months, up by 17 percent from two years ago. A full 41% of small businesses said they were hit by a breach that cost them more than $50,000 to recover. Further, almost 30% of the consumers surveyed revealed that they would never return to a small business that suffered a breach, up from 20 percent two years ago.
According to a new report from Bank of America Merchant Services, 30% of consumers would never again use an ecommerce business website that suffered a data breach.
What is the real cost of Ecommerce Data Breach?
Data breaches and cyber-attacks can endanger an ecommerce business in three ways.
- Financial costs of hiring security specialists and engineers to seal the breach and repair the damage that has been done.
- Jeopardizes Consumer trust. 30% of customers will decide to flee to a competitive alternative.
- A breach also brings unfavorable press coverage, damaging a company’s brand reputation.
How to minimize the cost of security breaches and cyber-attack on your ecommerce website?
To minimize the cost of this number 1 ecommerce business problem, every ecommerce businesses must invest in infrastructure that protects the data of its customers. Two things you can right away:
Firstly. Find a stable and robust ecommerce solution.
I have been involve in hundreds of website development in the last 15 years. I have never seen a system that is 100% hack-proof! No system is invulnerable! Even the giants facebook and Google has been hacked from time to time. Big brands and corporations such as Macy’s, T-Mobile and restaurant chains like Moe’s, McAlister’s Deli, and Schlotzsky’s all suffer data breaches.
But what i can say is that, there our systems out there that are really good at preventing these kind of attacks. Thirtybees is one of them. This light but robust ecommerce system, although new to the market is just efficient in blocking security breaches. The worst system and is easily hacked is woocommerce. Sorry for the woocommerce enthusiast, but until these vulnerabilities are resolve, I wouldn’t enthrust our clients data to woocommerce.
Shoptech media has been slowly developing our own ecommerce system in the hope that one day we can provide a better alternative for people to do business online without thinking so much about security breaches!
Better Safe than SORRY!
And secondly. Install an SSL Certification
Linking your E-commerce website to an SSL certification results in superior security, data integrity, and data protection of your website.
These certifications are a quite simple and inexpensive way to ensure the protection of your website, as well as the confidentiality of customer details.
You could check out and buy Cheap SSL certificates from cheapsslshop.com, which sells some of the best certifications at low rates.
Apart from ensuring 100% data security, an SSL certification also increases customer trust, reliability, and provides you enhanced data encryption so that sensitive data is never compromised.
In conclusion
Security is one of the hardest, if not, THE hardest challenge every ecommerce businesses face. If your ecommerce system is not strong enough to handle brute force attacks, you are going to lose money and customers. Take action immediately by installing SSL certificates and finding or migrating your ecommerce system to a more reliable system. Let us know how we can help you using the contact us page.
Additional Resources:
4 Ways To Start 2020 Strong With a Good Ecommerce Business Model
3 Biggest Ecommerce Business Growth Factor Every Merchant Should Learn