Sometimes, it’s hard to get far in life without making some mistakes. What’s good about making mistakes is that your business can learn from them and move forward. To help you out, we thought we would put together a list of common problems people working in the electronics industry encounter.
Pointing out things that could be going wrong with your company can be helpful. However, it’s much better if you can also learn how to solve these problems and strengthen your business at the same time. This is why Trade-In Tech is taking the guesswork out of solving your company’s potential problems.
Here’s more information about common problems electronics companies go through and how you can avoid them.
1. Your Order Process Has Too Many Steps
One of the most important things for your website to have is a simple ordering process. Your business can have the best electronics in the world at the lowest prices. But, you’re not going to make a lot of sales if no customers understand how to order something from you.
If you want to avoid this problem, utilize a tried and true process for completing orders. Understandably, you're first going to need to have items (in this case, electronics) for your customers to buy.
On the next stage of your website’s ordering process, you’ll need to have a section where the buyer can list their payment and shipping information. After that, take your customers to a quick thank you page and maybe an area to collect their email for information about future promotions.
When someone feels like they need to set aside lots of time just to order a product, they’re probably not going to do it.
How to Solve This Problem: Having a complicated order process might seem difficult to fix. Fortunately, since you’re removing steps from your company’s order process, solving this problem won’t be as complicated as you might think. As long as a step or action isn’t necessary to successfully complete an order, remove it from your ordering process.
2. The Language You Use is Too Complicated
No matter what industry you work in, it’s easy to start picking up the lingo that you learn. With that said, it’s also important to understand that your customers might not be aware of what you’re talking about. If this happens during the ordering process, it might lead to you missing out on a sale.
Some resellers unintentionally do this when they’re creating their websites or profile pages. It’s easy to stick with the language that was left in a template. However, more often than not, it’s also going to sound quite complicated to your customers.
When you’re creating payment pages and similar check-out destinations, make sure that the language you use is simple and easy to understand. It will create a lot less confusion and lead to more customers completing their orders.
How to Solve This Problem: To solve this problem, it could be helpful to have someone take a look at what you’re writing. Fortunately, there is a wide range of websites where you can hire a professional writer or editor to look over and improve what you’ve written. A decent writer should be able to come up with something that everyone can understand.
3. Customers Don’t Understand How to Complete an Order
What can also tie in with a long ordering process is one that’s too confusing. If someone can’t understand your company’s ordering system, they’re going to be unable to make an order. You can help avoid this by going through your company’s ordering process and ensuring everything is simple.
If you’re unsure of how to do this or prefer another set of eyes on your website, have someone you know try to complete a test order. In the event that this person spots something that’s confusing, try to make some changes to your website.
How to Solve This Problem: This is another problem that’s good to solve with someone who isn’t familiar with your website or company. If you put together your website, you might be too close to it to realize that it needs to get improved. Have someone outside of your business look over your website and its ordering process.
If the person looking over your website spots mistakes or things that need to be fixed, it’s good to ensure they have a way to write them down or take note of what they find. Once you have these problem areas noted, hire a professional to start fixing them.
4. Your Company Pricing Structure Needs Improvement
Many roles within the electronics industry require looking over at creating prices for electronic devices. One of these roles that require extensive pricing knowledge is that of an electronics wholesaler. Since electronic wholesalers work with lots of items at once, they often become pricing experts.
With that said, it’s always a good idea to look over your company’s prices from time to time. As you likely know, many factors can affect the worth of the items you’re reselling. If you’re not actively updating your company’s prices, it could lead you to try and sell items that cost too much.
How to Solve This Problem: The best way to avoid having an outdated pricing structure is to keep tabs on the current market value of electronics. You don’t have to spend time doing this every single day. However, spending some time each week or month checking out current electronics prices is a great way to never leave profits off the table.
5. Using a Bad or Confusing Website Layout
Another thing that can cause a lot of frustration for customers is using a website that’s outdated or hard to navigate. In this day and age, customers expect a website to work well and be intuitive. If it’s been a while since you updated or had a company update your website, now is the time to fix this problem.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the problems that bad websites cause. If you have an outdated website, it might also give the impression to customers that you’re not involved with your business.
Another reason to update your website is that doing this keeps it safe. Unfortunately, hackers around the world are almost constantly working on ways to access the private information of companies and website owners. If they’re doing this, these scammers are also likely going after your customer’s information.
How to Solve the Problem: Again, this problem is solvable by either updating your website or having someone else help you accomplish this task. Don’t worry if you’re not talented when it comes to designing a website. Fortunately, you can use a website builder that’s extremely easy to use with no technical skills needed.
If you are pressed for money, you might want to try and update your website by yourself. Keep in mind that it’s best to backup your website before performing any kind of work on it. Without having a backup in place, you could accidentally wind up damaging your website.
6. Having a Slow Shipping Process
It’s understandable to think that you’re not dealing with problems once you get orders ready to ship. Unfortunately, this is where a lot of problems begin if you have a bad shipping process in place.
These days, customers expect to receive their items quickly. If this isn’t happening, it can easily lead to people letting you know how they feel about your business on social media and review websites.
Generally speaking, you’re only going to have a few major options when it comes to shipping out your items. You can also choose to have your items shipped through the United States Postal Service (assuming that you’re in the United States).
There are other large shipping companies like UPS and others that might offer more attractive shipping rates and delivery windows. If you don’t live in the United States, it’s worth researching your local shipping providers to find the best solution.
Regardless of where you live, you should have various shipping options to choose from. While researching which shipping companies to partner with, you’ll most likely find good and bad information about every major shipper.
Also, it’s incredibly rare to find a shipping company that always sends and receives items on time. Oftentimes, delays are problems that shipping services can find hard to control. So, keep in mind that delays can happen from time to time (no matter who you choose).
How to Solve This Problem: Unfortunately, it’s hard to control the transportation of your items once they leave your company. However, you can begin to feel out how it’s going with shipping companies after working with them for some time. We recommend doing what most companies do and offering various shipping options for your customers.
7. Not Working to Expand Your Business
It’s understandable to feel pumped up about your new business finally getting off the ground. Throughout your professional journey, it’s important to celebrate your victories as they happen. However, make sure that this situation doesn’t lead to you falling into the trap of not working to expand your company.
If you’re looking for an easy and effective way to start expanding your company, consider joining Trade-In Tech. Trade-In Tech is a company that helps its members grow their electronics business. We have an awesome marketplace that is always full of items from our awesome sellers.
On Trade-In Tech, you can find all sorts of electronics from popular companies, such as:
Sony
Microsoft
Apple
Google
LG
Samsung
and many, many others
All of this information is only where the benefits of becoming a Trade-In Tech member begin. After you become a member of our platform, you’ll be able to start connecting and networking with all sorts of companies in the electronics industry. Trade-In Tech is home to retailers, distributors, wholesalers, and many others.
You can start making connections through Trade-In Tech’s social profiles, chat rooms, and directories. We also have systems in place to make sure that no scammers take advantage of our valued members.
How to Solve This Problem: Join Trade-In Tech! In all seriousness, find marketing platforms that work well for your business. If you’d like to test out Trade-In Tech, we do offer trials to let you check out everything we have to offer. You can find out more about us by going to tradeintech.com.
8. Watching All of Your Profits Go Towards Paying Fees
It’s often hard to go through life without paying fees. Fortunately, you can do what’s possible to keep on these fees and ensure they’re not getting out of control. The main thing of importance is to ensure that your company’s fees aren’t higher than your company’s profits.
While you have your calculator out, it’s also a good idea to compare the fees that you’re getting charged from companies. Sometimes, these calculations can help you learn which companies it could be time to stop partnering with.
How to Solve This Problem: If you want to find a company that won’t be charging you any fees, make sure to check out Trade-In Tech. When you buy and sell items you find on Trade-In Tech, we won’t be charging you fees each time you want to make a transaction. Instead, you can choose to either make a transaction through PayPal or another payment platform you and the buyer agree on.
9. Not Having a Way to Manage Your Company’s Inventory
As your company starts gaining momentum, you’re likely going to start gaining a decent amount of inventory. While it can be easy to start managing your inventory manually at first, this can become more difficult as more electronics start piling in.
Fortunately, you can choose one of many inventory management solutions. These solutions can help automate how your company manages inventory. It’s also a great way to avoid costly and stressful inventory-related errors.
Plus, not having a good inventory management system in place can lead to lots of out-of-stock issues and angry customers.
How to Solve This Problem: If you’re tired of trying to manually manage your company’s inventory by hand, it could be time to consider utilizing an inventory management program or service. There are many great solutions available, no matter the size of your business. It will cost a little more in expenses to have this system in place. However, most business owners feel that having help managing their inventories is worth almost any cost.
10. There’s No Clear Schedule in Place
Most business owners understandably feel close to the companies they’ve started. Unfortunately, such a strong attachment can sometimes make it hard for a business owner to separate their work and personal lives. This problem is also common among people who spend a lot of time working from home.
How to Solve This Problem: Whether you’re a business owner, working from home, or both, it’s imperative to give yourself a schedule. This helps to ensure you avoid the problem of working a lot of time one week and then barely doing anything the next week.
Think of this schedule as something you likely followed when you worked before starting your business. Don’t worry - there will be plenty of time to celebrate your business success in the near future.
11. You’re Not Delegating Work to Anyone Else
Another extremely important concern as your business grows is handling a lot of work. Most business owners might find this easy to take on in the beginning. However, you’ll likely find that your company’s workload becomes too much to handle.
Understandably, many new business owners operating on a tight budget don’t have money to hire a new team of full-time employees. However, it could be worthwhile to hire at least one or two people to take on some part-time work. Another popular option is to hire a freelancer to perform work on an as-needed basis.
As you get started building business relationships with these freelancers or contract workers, and your business starts growing, you might want to consider bringing them on for part-time or full-time work. This gives these people more work security, and you can rest assured they’re not also spending time working for someone who offers them more hours.
Working for weeks and months without taking a break isn’t only boring, but it can also start harming your mental and physical well-being. Know when it’s time to start delegating work to other people.
How to Solve This Problem: To learn if you need to start delegating tasks, it’s important to take a close look at your typical day. If you’re working at a breakneck pace to try and get everything done, it could be time to hire someone to help you. This doesn’t mean you have to go on a hiring frenzy. Instead, hire one or two people at a time and continue expanding at a comfortable pace.
12. Neglecting to Track Your Company’s Finances
As the sales start rolling in, you’re going to be officially earning income from your business. This feeling is something that can motivate you to continue building your company. When this situation starts happening, make sure you’re accurately tracking your finances.
It doesn’t matter how much your company earns, whether it’s making $1,000 or $1,000,000, you should always track your company’s income and expenses. In the past, you’d have to get out a pen and paper to accurately track your company’s income and profit. Fortunately, it’s now easier than ever to track your company’s finances.
When you have a clear picture of your company’s finances, it’s much easier to make smart business decisions and avoid losing a lot of profits. Tracking your finances is also beneficial when it comes to preparing and filing your taxes. With finance management software, you won’t worry about costly money-related mistakes.
How to Solve This Problem: There is a wide range of great programs and services to help your business better manage its finances. Some of the most popular money management systems include EveryDollar, Mint, and Mvelopes. You might find that some of these programs offer either free or trial versions. By checking out these programs, you can find what works for your company without you having to spend a fortune.
13. You’re Not Taking Data Protection Seriously
Chances are, you’re going to have lots of people and businesses visiting your company’s website. Even a simple website visit can leave traces of data. You’ll find that website visitors leave more sensitive data if they’re creating accounts or buying electronics through your website.
While making sales and gaining new members is good, it’s imperative to make sure that you’re keeping visitors’ data safe and secure. If not, it could lead to a lot of big problems for your new business.
You don’t have to look far to hear about how damaging data breaches are to companies. Some companies that became the victims of data breaches quickly had to shut their doors. Fortunately, there are many programs and services that can offer data protection for your company’s website.
Paying for data protection programs and services should be considered as an essential cost of owning a company. You never want to save a little bit of money by not protecting business-related data. The money you save in the short term will be much smaller than what you could end up paying on potential legal costs in the future.
How to Solve This Problem: Look for data protection programs that will keep your customer’s information safe. If you’re familiar with web security, you might be able to set up your own solution. However, this might be too much of a time investment for some business owners.
14. Not Keeping a Close Eye on Your Company’s Taxes
Taxes can literally make or break any company. With that in mind, it’s a smart idea to always keep an eye on your company’s taxes. By doing this, you can make sure your business isn’t going to deal with a lot of unwanted surprises during tax time. It’s also a good way to make sure things like marketing, advertising, and buying pallets of electronics are all paying off for your company each year.
Some business owners find that it’s beneficial to partner with a tax professional. In many cases, you can find this type of professional and pay them at a rate that works well for both parties. You can also avoid paying unwanted fees during tax time by having one of these professionals in your company’s corner.
If you are on a tight budget or don’t want to pay an accountant, you can also utilize popular software that manages your company’s finances for tax purposes. With these types of programs, you simply enter into your company’s expenses and how much it’s earning. After getting this information, most of these programs can give you a clear image of what to expect before filing your company’s taxes.
How to Solve This Problem: Whether you prefer to purchase tax software or contact a CPA, it's good to ensure your company's taxes are accurately tracked. Consider researching your options to determine what option is best for your business.
15. Making It Hard to Find Your Company’s Contact Information
We’ve talked a lot about how important it is that other people know about your company. While this is great, it’s also just as important to ensure that your company’s contact information is easy to find. This means placing your company’s information on your website in prominent places. Some people achieve this goal by placing their contact info in their logo.
You’ll also want to make sure that any claimed online business directory pages have all of your company’s important contact information. Most of these services make entering this information as easy as typing something into a digital box.
It’s almost impossible to know where every customer will find the information it needs to get in touch with your company. However, you can help ensure they’ll always be able to contact you when your company’s contact information is easy to find. Whether you’re flipping phones or selling other types of electronics, you’ll always want your contact information easily available.
How to Solve This Problem: To solve this problem, it’s a good idea to check out how people find your company online. Chances are, most people will use a search engine and enter your company’s name as the keyword(s) of choice. So, try and Google your company to see what you find.
As you come across each search result, you’ll hopefully come across pages that you either can edit or own. When possible, edit any pages to reflect accurate contact information for your business. This small step can lead to your business getting a lot more emails and phone calls than it might normally receive.
16. Not Having Brainstorm Sessions
One of the most common traps business owners fall into is getting used to a routine. Considering that, you might have grown to expect certain types of work or projects from your company’s team. But what if there was a way that you could get new and valuable insights from these people? If you want to achieve this goal, consider regularly scheduling meetings where you and your team members start brainstorming.
You might think that these meetings need to have strict rules, but that’s not quite how you’ll get the best results from brainstorming sessions. Instead, mention the challenges that your company is currently going through. More often than not, the people that work for your company can come up with highly effective and targeted solutions for business growth.
Do you currently not have all of your company’s employees working out of one office? That's OK, programs like Zoom and Microsoft Teams can give your team the ability to brainstorm - no matter where everyone is.
You don’t only need to have these meetings when your company is facing challenges. Some businesses prefer to have meetings like this every week, month, quarter, or year. Whenever you choose to host a meeting, you might be surprised at the valuable insights you can gain from these events.
How to Solve This Problem: This problem is one with a simple solution, which is to hold meetings more often. If your company currently doesn’t have a meeting schedule, it’s time to make one. You don’t have to keep your team brainstorming for long periods. Even a simple 15-minute meeting once a week can work wonders for solving business-related problems.
17. You’re Not Networking Enough
If you ever took any business classes or flipped through a business book, you’ve probably heard or read something about networking. If you haven’t, that’s ok! Networking is a commonly used business term that involves people from companies meeting with each other.
Networking is similar to meeting new people in a social setting. The main goal of networking is for companies to learn about other business professionals. If networking goes well between two companies, it can sometimes lead to these businesses working with each other. When things go really well, networking leads to long-term business partners.
However, you might be wondering where you should start networking. Fortunately, there are many great websites that you can use to accomplish this goal. With that said, you might not have a lot of time and energy to spend on networking. If this is the case, we recommend learning more about Trade-In Tech.
How to Solve This Problem: One of the best ways for professionals in the electronics industry to network and learn about each other’s companies is by joining Trade-In Tech. On Trade-In Tech, you can find other companies in the electronics industry that are all looking to grow their companies. Through our social platform, it’s easy to find valuable connections that could otherwise take you months or years to start finding.
To summarize, there are many potential problems that can negatively affect your electronics business. If you’d like to learn more about how to avoid these problems, don’t forget to visit Trade-In Tech’s blog. This blog is packed with articles, how-to guides, and other sources of help for your electronics business. Whether you’re a wholesaler, retailer, distributor, refurbisher, or you work in another role in this industry, you’ll find a lot of great tips on our blog.