An example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

The attempt of Levi's, one of the world's most recognisable and well-financed brands, to develop a Web retail presence ended in failure last month. So what is the key that unlocks the secret of a successful ecommerce strategy? At the
end of last month, jeans manufacturer, Levi's, announced it was ending a year-long 'trial' of selling its clothes online.

The heat is on: Levi's faces its third year of declining sales this year and is expected to suffer its first net loss in more than a decade.


Like most of its attempts to sell clothes through its own brick-and-mortar stores, Levi's e-commerce effort was not implemented effectively. Sales at http://www.levi.com/ and http://www.dockers.com/ have been dismal and costs have been extremely high, industry sources said.

The jeans giant claimed that "the cost of running a truly world class ecommerce business was unaffordable". From a company that turns over $6bn, this sounds a bit rich. So what is going on here? Is ecommerce really too pricey? Selling over the Web is supposed to reduce costs - that's one of its major attractions. It cuts out the middleman. It dispenses with the expense of having to set up a nationwide or worldwide chain of retail outlets.

Amazon.com has a physical presence in three countries but it claims to have customers in 160. Setting up a chain of physical retail outlets with access to customers in 160 countries in the time it's taken Amazon to achieve this online is quite well-nigh impossible. In these terms, ecommerce is clearly not just cheaper, but gives businesses access to markets which were previously out of reach.

• Fails to Understand Customer Needs
• Fails to Research Competitors
• Fails to Design a Usable Site
• Fails to Design an Attractive Site
• Fails to Provide Customer Service






Fails to Understand Customer Needs
-To knowing the target market and need to know equally as much about the customers’ needs. Understanding customers needs can be important if hope to develop and improve the products or site to cater more towards a specific group or demographic of customers. Researching consumer markets and knowing about the target can be the difference between eCommerce success and failure.

Fails to Research Competitors
- Knowing as much about the competitors as possible will help to understand what will need to overcome in order to remain in a certain market and sell competitively. Learn about their marketing initiatives, who they target, what makes them successful and anything else that can use to learn from their time selling Online. Knowing about competitors can be the difference between eCommerce success and failure.

Fails to Design a Usable Site
- Try to consider as many eCommerce design and usability best practices as possible. Create a site that is simply laid out, easy to use and easy to navigate. Display the items that customers want in the places they expect to see them and make it easy for them to buy from there. If customers cannot use the site, or if the design a site that is difficult to navigate, it may be the difference between eCommerce success and failure.

Fails to Design an Attractive Site
- Once the site is usable, you’ll want to include aesthetically pleasing graphics and other design elements that make the site pleasing to look at and attractive to the customers you target. Use vibrant colors and branding elements within your design, keep up on new graphic design trends like gradients and reflections often found on Web 2.0 site designs. Not building an attractive site that looks pleasing to your customers can be the difference between eCommerce success and failure.

Fails to Provide Customer Service
- Many merchants succeed at launching their retail business but end up shooting themselves in the foot later by not providing adequate customer service. Some merchants do not plan the time required to deal with customer issues brought up during the Online buying and fulfillment processes. Leaving phone calls unanswered for days, not responding to emails and keeping customers out of the sales or shipping loop can be devastating to any Online business. Be sure to provide quality customer service from the very moment your store launches, it could be the difference between eCommerce success and failure.