In the digital-first world, selling online is no longer a competitive edge, it in an expectation. While e-commerce enables online transactions, digital commerce goes further into delivering a seamless, connected experience across every customer-touchpoint starting from discovery to post-purchase support.
And yet, persistent e-commerce problems continue to hold businesses back. From poor site performance and generic shopping experiences to security concerns and checkout friction, these pain points are not just technical flaws. They directly impact customer trust, conversions, and long-term growth.
In this blog, we break down 7 high-impact e-commerce problems, explore their root causes, and offer actionable solutions to help you build a stronger, scalable digital commerce strategy.
What is Digital Commerce and how does it differ from E-Commerce?
Digital commerce isn’t just the art of selling goods or services on digital channels. It encompasses everything – all the touchpoints. It’s about delivering a unified and seamless digital experience for the customer that transcends conventional e-commerce. Unlike e-commerce which is about buying and selling goods on a website, digital commerce is about creating a personalized user journey. In essence, e-commerce is just one side of Digital Commerce. However, e-commerce problems can influence your digital commerce effectiveness.
Digital Commerce goes beyond, it recognizes the need to improve the buying funnel, from consideration to closure. The goal is to use SEO, data analytics, marketing strategies, social engagement, tailor-made pricing and promotions, unique reskilling and upskilling initiatives, and other processes and technologies to target customers early on for consistent conversions and longer retention. e-commerce problems can diminish your digital commerce. Lingering e-commerce issues can affect other areas of your digital commerce ecosystem.
E-Commerce Problems: Top 7 Online Shopping Problems and Solutions
Weak Website Security
Minimal security signals create e-commerce problems. How? Customers lose faith in e-commerce sites having an inferior security outlook. Customers stall purchasing intent on sites lacking security measures—such as a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate (absence of the padlock icon), HTTPS protocol, and trust seals (Norton, McAfee). Why? The oversight creates distrust, triggering fears of data breaches, identity theft, and credit card fraud. Customers come to expect cyber-attacks like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), phishing scams, SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), broken authentication, and unauthorized database access – diminishing their willingness to transact, eroding brand loyalty, and worsening cart abandonment rates.
- Diagnose potential weaknesses through penetration testing and vulnerability scanning
- Implement HTTPS and Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
- Employ Web Application Firewalls (WAF) for SQL injection and XSS attacks
- Integrate robust authentication mechanisms, including multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Patch software and plugins and keep them up-to-date
- Integrate advanced encryption standards (AES) for data storage and transmission
- Monitor traffic using Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS)
- Have an incident response plan – helps pro-actively manage potential damage from a breach
Limited Hyper-Personalization
Marketing strategies lacking tailor-made and meaningful messaging create a generic user journey unaligned with individual preferences. This leads to lower engagement, conversion rates, and customer loyalty. Irrelevant products and offers lead to dissatisfaction, making shoppers feel that their needs and interests aren’t understood. Inadequate data collection and analysis lacking robust data aggregation techniques and ML algorithms, contribute to this problem. Additionally, failure to implement dynamic content delivery mechanisms that adapt in real-time to user behavior restricts the ability to create a truly customized shopping experience.
- Deploy AI-driven recommendation systems to deliver tailored product suggestions
- Implement AI and ML algorithms to process customer data for patterns and preferences
- Utilize customer data platforms (CDPs) to aggregate data from multiple touchpoints
- Use Real-time personalization engines for dynamic content, layout, and offers
- Use RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) analysis for precise targeting
- Leverage A/B and multivariate testing to perfect personalization strategies
Inconvenient Checkout
Checkout should be simple, fast, and trustworthy. Instead, unexpected costs, limited payment options, and unoptimized interfaces create friction leading to cart abandonment and lost revenue. Poor UX and unclear pricing add to customer hesitation, while inadequate trust signals undermine credibility. Businesses then spend more on remarketing just to recover lost sales.
Solutions:
- Streamline with one-page and guest checkout options.
- Offer diverse, secure payment methods including digital wallets and BNPL.
- Ensure mobile-friendly, responsive checkout pages.
- Re-engage users with automated reminders and exit-intent popups.
- Maintain transparent pricing for shipping and handling.
- Build trust with security badges, user reviews, and ratings.
- Leverage analytics to identify and fix friction points in the user journey.
A frictionless checkout isn’t just a UX challenge it’s a growth lever. At Altumind we rebuilt the checkout flow for a global FMCG brand using headless architecture and flexible payment integrations, resulting in a 22% improvement in conversion within the first month.
Performance Issues
A slow website is a conversion killer. Long load times, unresponsive pages, and buffering frustrate users and damage brand credibility. These issues often stem from poor server infrastructure, unoptimized code, heavy media files, and a lack of scalability, especially during peak traffic periods. Add excessive third-party scripts and weak database management to the mix, and performance bottlenecks become inevitable.
Solutions:
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to reduce latency and manage high traffic.
- Run regular performance audits focusing on Core Web Vitals (CLS, FID, LCP).
- Minify and compress JavaScript, CSS, and third-party scripts using Gzip.
- Defer non-critical scripts and enable asynchronous loading for faster interactivity.
- Compress and optimize visual assets (e.g., banners, carousels).
- Scale effectively with cloud hosting, load balancing, and auto-scaling.
- Improve database performance through indexing, query optimization, and caching.
- Use real-time monitoring tools like PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Web.dev.
Poor Customer Service
Plagued by slow and irrelevant support, customers choose to abandon their purchases, some won’t even consider the brand for their next purchase. Long telephonic calls, late replies, or even no replies to emails from reps create dissatisfaction, leading to credibility issues. You wouldn’t want to wait days to get a response on a query that came up today. Most customers perceive such businesses as unprofessional. They might even leave reviews and spread the word – damaging the business’s reputation.
- Develop an omnichannel support system across all touchpoints – email, SMS, phone, etc.
- Implement AI-driven chatbots for instant responses to common queries
- Create and update Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Improve training programs for staff to enhance their knowledge and problem-solving skills
- Integrate a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to manage interactions
Inadequate Content
Vague product descriptions, missing key specifications, or lack of engaging multimedia elements mean customers struggle to make informed purchasing decisions. A Product Detail Page (PDP) lacking pivotal elements lowers clarity and heightens confusion leading to lower trust. Missing or low content creates friction and customers usually withdraw from the page. So, incomplete or missing content will create online shopping problems, and here’s how you can fix it:
- Create a complete content repository – manuals, videos, images, etc.
- Work on the presentation of the content – ensure it’s aesthetic and digestible
- Provide detailed and accurate information about the product
- Implement rich 360-degree product views and interactive guides
- Try Augmented Reality (AR) for a more immersive experience
- Answer all the common queries about the product on the page
- Use Content Management Systems (CMS) with built-in SEO tools
Delivery Issues
Last on the list of online shopping problems is poor logistics. Inefficiencies in logistics like delayed shipments, inaccurate delivery estimates, and poor handling of products impact customer satisfaction. Wrong orders or orders reaching elsewhere create customer inconvenience, lowering long-term sentiments and loyalty. These customers are less likely to associate with your brand. Further, last-minute charges, custom regulations, no Cash on Delivery (COD), or high costs can also exacerbate logistical issues, causing more complications.
- Provide real-time tracking and visibility
- Streamline inventory handling, reduce errors, and improve order fulfillment speed
- Partner with reliable logistics providers and set up a network of fulfillment centers
- Offer multiple shipping options – same-day delivery or BOPIS (Buy Online Pick-up in Store)
- Incorporating GPS tracking and route optimization for timely and accurate deliveries
Wrapping Up
E-Commerce may be just one aspect of Digital Commerce, but it is an indispensable aspect that can break or make your business. Any robust digital commerce ecosystem will have a flourishing e-commerce arm and vice versa. Getting your Digital Commerce right requires you to fix e-commerce issues. Why? Pestering e-commerce issues leads to online shopping issues. Plus, bolster other areas of your Digital Commerce hub such as Analytics, Social Channels, Marketing Campaigns, etc.
Whether you’re struggling with load times, conversion gaps, or customer churn, Altumind brings a full-stack approach to transforming your ECommerce Services from operational to exceptional. Our cross-functional teams collaborate with businesses to unlock measurable value—faster, smarter, and at scale.
