The challenges I faced when I started my business

 

When it comes to creating your own business, it’s always a challenge to get it off the ground and generating those first few sales. The problems don’t stop there, since you will be facing all sorts of challenging situations. But it’s all a part of the process, and also the reason why not every business is a success. Yet if you stick to it and work hard, then it will pay off. You just have to stick to your guns, focus on the best possible experience, and the payoff will be amazing.

Find a good teacher

A lot of people start their eCommerce business without a lot of ideas. They rely on courses and all kinds of other sources. That’s the issue, there’s too much information and it’s hard to get started. You will end up wasting time if you don’t know the characteristics of a good teacher.

What I learned from this is that you should always go for a teacher that has experience in this field. If they were successful, they are the right person to teach you how to start a business and reach success. I also relied on books, they can give a lot of insights and ideas, so you should definitely consider reading some books too, because it will help quite a bit.

Not knowing if you should start using a platform or create your own website

The truth is that it will differ based on a variety of platform. If you start with a platform, you start the business, work on it and you also have the necessary tools to grow and expand the way you want. With that in mind, experimentation is key. You can use multiple different platforms as a test to see which one fits your needs the most.

The thing I learned through this is that having your own website is always the better option. But you do need to experience by yourself and try as much as possible. Another lesson I learned is that you should never place your eggs in a single basket. Platforms will change their algorithms and their rules too. So even if you fit now, you might not fit later. Having your own website helps remove some of the potential challenges and it will convey a much better result.

Selling physical products

If the COVID pandemic has shown us one thing, that’s the fact that physical sales can sometimes take a hit. That’s especially true if you want to sell stuff internationally. What I had to do during COVID was to increase prices due to the more expensive shipping. You either do that or wait until things get back to normal.

My lesson in this case was to understand how the shipping agency works and what I can do to help make the process smoother. However, you always need to be honest with customers. The last thing you want is to lie to them or add in hidden fees. That will not be OK and it will make customers angry. So, make sure you always stay honest and if there is a slight price increase, then let them know beforehand. Believe it or not, your clients will appreciate it.

Pricing your product

At least in my case, setting the right price was difficult because I had no idea how to set up a price that would be OK for my customers. What I did was I checked my competitors and then priced according to them. I believed that was the ideal way to figure out a price, but that didn’t get me more customers. When I did that, people were choosing competitors instead of me.

Why did that happen? After taking some courses and reading multiple books, I realized one thing. Reputation matters, and you also need to work on the product, while also delivering a very good customer service. If you work on delivering the ultimate value for the customer’s money, then they will appreciate it and your results will be amazing in the end. You always want to work on value, since that’s what gets you return clients.

Multitasking

The problem with multitasking is that if you overwork yourself, it will get to you and you become burnt out. I worked on everything from listing items to managing messages, shipping products and marketing all the stuff on my website. I soon realized that outsourcing some of the tasks made things a whole lot easier. At first you will not have a lot of money to spend, so asking family or friends can help quite a bit. You can also hire freelancers if you want, which is a very good idea. Try to avoid burnout, I ended up in that situation and it was a complete nightmare So, instead you want to ask for help, it will be a whole lot better.

A lack of patience

The truth that most of us don’t have patience and we want sales right away. But in the business world things won’t always go the way we want. What we need to realize is that we need to continue developing our skills. I made the same mistake, I became frustrated when there were not a lot of sales. Imagine that your business is a baby, it can’t walk right away. It needs nurturing and it will eventually grow. I started using this mindset and guess what, it does pay off very well. The same thing can be said about the bamboo tree.

As you can see, there are plenty of mistakes I made as a small business owner. Especially in the beginning it can be very hard to figure out how to avoid mistakes and you do need to avoid any rush. Rest assured that it will take time and effort to achieve those things you have in mind. But if you work hard and remember that running a business is a journey, things will be a whole lot better. Yes, there are challenges, but it will also be rewarding!