While no business owner would be surprised to hear that quality control is essential for long-term success, e-commerce businesses stand to profit from better quality control despite the higher costs.
Why is this the case? Despite having different operations or models, traditional businesses and e-commerce businesses strive for the same ultimate goal: to maximise profits and/or customer satisfaction. In both cases, the quality of products, services, and buyer experiences needs to be monitored and constantly improved for brands to scale in the long term.
Let’s take a look at why quality control is essential for an e-commerce business, as well as some potential consequences for its neglect.
E-commerce Businesses Have More Complex Fulfilment Processes than Traditional Businesses
The more complex fulfilment process of an online business – as opposed to a traditional brick and mortar business – is a significant reason that quality control is so vital for the former.
At a brick and mortar store, a customer might enter, browse through items, make a choice, pay for it at the point-of-sale area, and then leave with the product. The fulfilment process is essentially complete at this point, possibly within just minutes (unless the customer makes a complaint or returns the product after the sale).
For an e-commerce business, however, this process can get much more complicated. A customer might briefly browse available items in an online store, and then send messages or ask questions about them. After the customer’s inquiries have been answered and they’ve made a choice of what to buy, the online seller will initiate the shipping process.
Once the item ships out, it will need to be tracked, and the customer must be kept updated on its progress. And finally, the product reaches the customer, and the fulfilment process ends. Unless, of course, there are mismatched expectations, wrong orders or poor quality resulting in the dreaded refund.
Consequences of Poor Quality Control
In the event that bad quality control leads to the cancellation of a potential sale, a disgruntled customer could be just the start of your troubles. The customer may leave a bad review of your business, or tell their friends and associates about their negative experience. This would likely lead to further losses of trust and loyalty among your customer base, and ultimately damage to your brand’s reputation resulting in loss of future sales.
Protect your Brand by Selling only on Reliable Online Marketplaces
While comprehensive quality control will ultimately be up to the seller, using a reliable online marketplace with built-in protection is a great starting point.
Carousell can provide you with tools that protect you and your customers, keeping everyone secure and satisfied. InstantBuy is an e-commerce-like shopping experience with the assurance of inspected quality and post-purchase support from sellers. This makes it faster and easier for online consumers to buy with confidence on Carousell.
Carousell Protection also allows payments to be safely held until buyers receive their items in good condition – whether via delivery or in-person meet-ups minimising seller and customer disputes due to shipping issues.
Carousell also supports a large number of couriers, letting buyers keep track of their packages during delivery along with other features for safety and convenience, such as verification and user reviews.
As always, we also offer seller tools to help e-commerce sellers drive traffic to their listings, grow their reach, and increase sales.
Contact us today to learn about everything Carousell can do to maximise growth for your business.
