Overcoming Communication Barriers in Retail During Pandemic

This report analyzes various communication barriers faced by the retail sector, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies emotional, physical, information, technical, and cultural barriers that hinder customer engagement and sales. Emotional barriers include customer reluctance due to lockdown and health concerns, while physical barriers involve restrictions on in-store experiences. Information barriers arise from difficulties in accessing product details and building trust. Technical barriers include website issues like basket emptying and product availability discrepancies. Cultural barriers are exemplified by language limitations on websites. The report proposes strategies to overcome these challenges, such as improving website user interfaces, providing comprehensive information, offering more product options, and eliminating barriers to foster positive customer relationships. The solutions aim to enhance website traffic, improve business goals, and increase sales.

Individual assessment

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
Products About us Services Policies and
procedures
Communication barriers-
Emotional barriers- These are those types of communication barriers which are
being faced by customers during this on-going pandemic situation as because most of the
customers things that due to lockdown they need not have to go out or attend any event. So
due to the impact of covid-19 they do not feel of purchasing retailing products. Something for
everyone needs to promote a brand so that customer feels to purchase their products
effectively (Li, 2018).
Physical barriers- This is also a type of a barrier which is commonly faced by
customers and due to which chosen enterprise is unable to focus on their improvement in
sales and growth. Due to the physical barrier customers find it difficult to try clothes of their
size because of the lockdown restrictions by the government and legislation. These physical
barriers also need to be sold by the organisation so that customers are able to do purchasing
easily.
Information barriers- Due to the on-going pandemic situation the business of retail
sector have been decreased and it is becoming difficult for customers to obtain proper
information about a product or retailers. This has been also seen that customers are unable to
put a trust on retailing industry whether to purchase or not and also if they purchase whether
it will be refunded or not (Mattos, 2017).
Technical barriers- Technical Barriers are also faced by customers for example in
context of related with this website issues like original website design automatically empties
customer's basket after 30 minutes which makes customer frustrated and the leaves the site.
Also another issue is that some of the products are listed as available and when they are
cleaned by the customers they become out of stock. Technical issues are required to be solved
in such a way that users find it easy to access the website in most efficient manner.
Cultural barriers- This is another kind of communication issue faced by customers
in which in website of a company only English language were to be seen as option and also
there were limited style which can be chosen by the customer on a particular day. Due to this
the sales of company was decreasing gradually.

The above discussed barriers wanted to be properly examined by the manager of an
enterprise so that they are able to increase and enhance the productivity of a business and also
uplift their activities in market.

Strategies as a solution
 Improve UI of website- It is the most effective solution which is to be used by
company in which they need to improve their user interface of the website which will
help them to communicate with customers in most user-friendly way and also enhance
their website links. By making and improving the user interface of website, users feel
comfortable and like to visit website again and again.
 Develop more information on webpage- It is also another important strategy which
is to be undertaken in which more reliable information are required to be adopted as
the last displayed on web page of a website so that customers can easily generate
important data which are needed by them in order to make purchase and decision
(Purwati, 2020).
 Provide more options- With implementation of this strategy company need to
provide more options to their websites in terms of products similarities, items,
languages prices so that customers remain active open the website for longer period.
 Eliminate barriers- Through use of this strategy, company needs to make assure that
various are barriers are eliminated through which positive relationship is being
developed between both customers and organisation. Removing barriers are important
as because it is critically necessary for company to provide better services and
products to the customers through which they are capable of improving their sales
growth (Rekarti, 2017).
So it has been specified that about strategies and solutions are required to be adopted
by organisation which will help them in improving and developing their website traffic as
well as business goals at higher level.

REFERENCES
Books & Journal:
Li, 2018. Improving sales analysis using Excel: A business solution.
Mattos, 2017. Improving Sales through Inventory Reduction: A Retail Chain Case Study.
International Journal of Economics and Management Engineering, 11(10), pp.2454-
2462.
Purwati, 2020. Product Quality and After-Sales Service in Improving Customer Satisfaction
and Loyalty. Jurnal Economia, 16(2), pp.223-235.
Rekarti, 2017. Improving business performance: A proposed model for SMEs.
Sun, 2019. Improving the pro
Syvänen, 2020. Improving Large Sales Opportunity Identification Process: Proposal for
Developing Demand Plan Accuracy.
Umar, 2018. Business model canvas as a solution for competing strategy of small business in
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Villamarín, 2017. Key success factors to business intelligence solution implementation.
Journal of Intelligence Studies in Business, 7(1), pp.48-69.