27 reasons why your e-commerce may fail

This article analyzes the causes why some electronic stores who had everything in their favor, have not succeeded and have been forced to "close their doors".

Following research for my doctorate, I'm now analyzing the failure of some electronic stores that failed to survive. For this I analyzed some 15 businesses that know positively that they have failed and have been creating a model that explains why the failure.

Classifying all causes of trades that I have analyzed, I have finished ordering into 6 groups: related to the selected technology, with the person who manages e-commerce, with the product, the market / environment, with the financial management of trade mail, and promoting trade itself.

In total, 27 variables that have influenced the death of these electronic commerce. Here the classification ...

technology related causes:

• The platform chosen not integrated with management tools of the company and therefore requires a lot of dedication in product management (estocs control, entry of new products, etc.)
• The platform chosen is too complex and very difficult to manage.
• The platform creates a website with a bad usability.
• The platform is not intended to be indexed naturally in Google and to position itself well.

related causes the person who manages e-commerce:

• The person is not dedicated 100% to the management and promotion of electronic commerce.
• The person is not able to properly manage and promote electronic commerce (missing training).
• The person does not have the personal skills necessary to manage and promote electronic commerce (tenacity, empathy with customers, dedication to service, etc.)
• The person is not motivated and not managed with the necessary enthusiasm.

Causes related to how to display product we want to sell

• Product descriptions published on the web are the same as in accounting program or the estocs management, ie, have no soul and do not provide additional information about the product.
• The images of our product are amateurs and have the same quality as that of our competitors (or even worse, we ourselves have made photos with the mobile).
• The product does not have the quality required by users.

related causes market / environment

• The price of our products is out of the market (too high).
• There is no market for our product or is not connected to the Internet.
• We are not specialized.
• Our target audience does not see clearly what our value proposition.
• Competition is fierce and we do not differentiate us from it.
• At present our customers have no money and our product is not necessities.

related causes financial management of e-commerce

• We have not successfully completed an estimate of expenditure and income.
• Expenses and income are out of balance for too long and is no longer capital to maintain salaries.
• Instead of making replacement of products sold, we have spent the money to pay salaries or promoting electronic commerce.
• The salary of the person responsible is not an entrepreneur salary and has a variable part.
• We paid too much for the maintenance of the technological platform.

Causes related to the promotion of e-commerce

• Our website does not convey trust (the "who we are" is "cutrillo" the web is "sketchy" do not have user reviews, not part of any association ...).
• We do not know how or Google or SEO works in general.
• We do not use other forms of promotion and rely only on the "word of mouth".
• We do not use social networks to interact with our customers, provide additional information, tips to better enjoy our products, etc.
• We do not have a newsletter.
• We make no promotions (in fact, we do not know the difference between "promotion" and "advertising").

This investigation is still in progress and before start working on how to combat the causes, I would like to enlarge a little more, so if you know any e-commerce has failed grateful to help me improve this article by answering the following survey : survey on the causes that lead to failure of an electronic commerce. (It's super simple and will not take more than 2 minutes of your time).

Many thanks.

When you have a point, I will publish the results here.

Note: If you have not yet responded to the survey on the characteristics of managers of companies that implement e-commerce, please, I will thank you responsa also this other survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/57WC9JC