5The goal of a successful search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is always the same: getting a better search ranking position along with noticeable traffic increase, which usually means more sales and thus more profit due to the improved ranking.

While more traffic is the major goal of any good marketing campaign, too much traffic can quickly create problems- especially in the e-commerce sector. Regardless of whether companies produce independently, supply by delivery service, or take advantage of short-term drop shipping, they always must adjust to an increase related to the demand.

However, these plans are quickly turned upside down, if SEO is suddenly more successful than it was actually intended. Therefore, before planning a good marketing campaign there should be an even better storage planning in place.

Impact

The effects of a significant increase in visitors in your own online-shop are obvious: there will be more orders and a significant increase in demand. While this is great from a business point of view, it can also quickly lead to problems, namely when the stock isn’t sufficient to compensate for the increase in traffic.  The result is a delay in delivery, products must be ordered at short notice from the manufacturer or there is a shortage of essential commodities if shops produce arbitrarily.

The sufferer in e- commerce is in any case always the customer, who gets his desired product only with a delay, which is especially annoying if it is common merchandise that could have easily been ordered in any of the other countless stores as well.

Many customers in the e -commerce sector justly vent their anger on review sites and personal blogs that serve them as perfect catalysts to put the traders’ expertise into question. Here, too much traffic then has more negative effects than positive results, because the reviews and customer feedback is not temporary, quite the opposite, as it remains as a rule online for years or even forever. Thus, a company or an online shop gets permanently damaged in its reputation because of not having been able to handle temporarily a single rush of too much traffic. So keep in mind that a competent SEO campaign should always be accompanied by equally sophisticated warehouse planning.

However, many shops and businesses are reluctant, as on top of the high advertising budget additional investments would be necessary for product inventory, which would tie up more capital and reduce the realistic liquidity.

Approaches

If SEO or other marketing measures are too successful, a quick and short-term adaptation should take place. Either the products are automatically taken out of the assortment of shops when they are no longer available or the delivery times are raised ingenuously.

In case it once comes to a delay in delivery, empty promises and excuses do not help. Maybe a voucher might calms down the customers? In any case, at the time of impact, there should be a swift reply, otherwise a large portion of advertising budgets will soon be needed to rectify your own reputation.

By Daniela La Marca