Managing a business isn’t easy. Whether you’re selling lipstick or loafers, the world of ecommerce comes with its fair share of challenges. Knowing how to tackle these roadblocks with the right solution makes all the difference.
That’s where strong problem-solving skills come in. In honing these soft skills, you create a powerful tool for navigating difficult situations in ecommerce. By sharpening your approach to problem solving, you’ll be better equipped to spot potential solutions and think creatively through high-pressure business problems.
Explore various problem-solving techniques designed to help you unlock new perspectives, build communication skills, and resolve complex issues—regardless of your industry or company size.
Popular problem-solving techniques
- Root-cause analysis
- The Six Thinking Hats
- Means-end analysis
- Five Whys root-cause analysis
- SWOT analysis
- Cost-benefit analysis
- The Fishbone Diagram
When you’re up against an obstacle, you can usually follow the basic steps of the problem-solving process: Identify the issue, determine its cause, find possible solutions, and maintain the results. Within this broad framework, a wide range of problem-solving strategies exist, allowing you to choose the best solution for you and your team. These approaches can help you think critically through high-stress situations and solve problems more effectively. Here are seven frameworks that can help you overcome new challenges:
1. Root-cause analysis
Root-cause analysis is a problem-solving method that relies on concrete data to understand why a problem is occurring. Suppose customers complain that a sportswear brand sells shoes that aren’t true to size. If customer support offers discount codes, they are treating the symptom instead of the root cause.
A root-cause analysis can help reveal the underlying causes. The team must first identify the problem and brainstorm its possible contributing factors. In the case of misfit shoes, they might discover that the product description needs more details or that the size guide is inaccurate. From there, they can examine all the factors and determine which one is the root cause.
2. The Six Thinking Hats
This method—developed by Edward de Bono in his book Six Thinking Hats—assigns roles to members of a decision-making group. This framework challenges you to adopt new patterns of thought by offering six different viewpoints to effectively solve a problem. The six color-coded hats represent six different mindsets. Each hat serves as a unique problem-solving approach:
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The white hat. Wearing the white hat means looking at a problem objectively and relying on linear thinking (breaking problems down into cause and effect). This includes acknowledging what information is known and unknown, as well as assessing all the data before reaching a conclusion.
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The red hat. The red hat relies on intuition, emotions, and gut feeling. This subjective way of thinking prioritizes expressing your feelings and following your instincts.
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The yellow hat. This hat is all about optimism, focusing on the potential benefits and opportunities a certain decision can bring.
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The black hat. When wearing the black hat, a person looks at things through a pessimistic lens to understand the risks and prepare backup plans.
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The green hat. The green hat represents a creative approach that analyzes new ways to tackle a problem. It explores alternatives that have not been considered yet.
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The blue hat. While wearing the blue hat, you act as the facilitator between the other viewpoints to encourage a productive and balanced discussion.
By relying on multiple perspectives, you can develop a comprehensive understanding of a problem and find the optimal solution. Have a different team member put on each “hat,” then conduct a discussion accordingly.
3. Means-end analysis
Sometimes, the best way to fix a problem is to look ahead to your desired goal and work backward from there. Introduced by computer scientists Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon, the means-end analysis is another structured approach that solves a problem by identifying the end goal, breaking it down into smaller sub-goals, and determining the actions required to accomplish them.
The team behind City Seltzer, a brand of non-alcoholic seltzer waters, had to find creative solutions for breaking into a market somewhat unfamiliar to them. Despite his extensive experience in the brewery industry, founder Josh McJannet and his team had to educate themselves on building new relationships with retailers in the grocery sector. Taking an approach similar to the means-end analysis, the team envisioned the lifestyle of their ideal customer.
“We talked about someone who owned their own little business, working late hours, wanting something delicious, but not wanting to consume alcohol when they're going to have to get up and get back to business again tomorrow morning,” Josh says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast.
To reach this end goal, the City Seltzer team embarked on a journey to complete the subgoal of increasing brand awareness within their local community. They began a series of grassroots strategies, like hosting pop-ups at events and giving out free products at festivals.
Through these authentic marketing efforts and building meaningful connections with the community, the City Seltzer brand witnessed significant growth in the years since its inception.
4. Five Whys root-cause analysis
Developed in the 1930s by Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Industries, this approach leads teams to dig deeper and uncover the underlying cause of a problem. To implement the Five Whys, start by identifying the problem you’re dealing with. Ask why the issue is happening, and with each answer you uncover, ask why until you have reached the root cause.
Let’s say your company’s website crashes. You would first ask why it happened. You might realize it crashed because the server had insufficient bandwidth. Then ask why the server’s bandwidth was inadequate. You determine that the server couldn’t accommodate the high traffic surge. You would then ask why there was a traffic surge. You might realize that too many people tried to visit the site at the same time. You would then ask why so many people visited. Suppose the high traffic was due to a new product launch that enticed customers to buy during its initial release.
Now you understand that the website crash occurred because you failed to anticipate the excitement and traffic generated by your product release. In the future, your team might prepare the server for a high traffic volume for the next product launch.
5. SWOT analysis
Looking for a better understanding of your organization’s culture? Align your team and develop a strategic plan using the SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This framework breaks down and dissects the key elements of a business to create a strategic plan.
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Strengths. Begin by evaluating the strengths of your business that give it a competitive advantage. Consider what your business does well, what you offer that other companies don’t, and what consumers might identify as your strengths.
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Weaknesses. Next, identify areas where your team needs improvement by looking at the areas where you often face challenges.
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Opportunities. Analyze where your business has opportunities to succeed. This typically involves external factors, such as market trends.
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Threats. Finally, think about potential threats that could harm your business. Explore whether any external threats are negatively affecting your business, and if these threats are also affecting your competitors.
Suppose an ecommerce business struggles with low conversion rates. In that case, its team can work together using a SWOT analysis to identify what’s working, what needs improvement, what opportunities they have to address the issue, and what threats exist. In this example, the business might have a stellar customer service team that consumers rave about. However, the company’s website may load slowly. The team might determine that an upcoming opportunity is the approaching holidays, when consumer purchases tend to increase. Using this data, the business can create a strategic plan to boost conversion rates during the holidays by making website updates and offering holiday deals.
6. Cost-benefit analysis
Learn how to evaluate decisions with the cost-benefit analysis. This method compares the potential benefits of a decision against the associated costs. With each decision under consideration, the costs are subtracted from the benefits to determine whether or not the decision is worthwhile.
To execute a cost-benefit analysis, you must assign a dollar amount to every cost and benefit. For example, a snack brand may consider expanding its inventory to include beverages to attract new customers. The benefits of this decision may include more attention on the brand and increased sales from new shoppers. On the other hand, the costs could outweigh the benefits. The resources to develop a beverage and the capital to advertise it might be greater than the new sales and brand awareness gained. Calculating the exact expenses in a cost-benefit analysis will tell the leadership team if developing a new product is worth it.
7. The Fishbone Diagram
Also known as a cause-and-effect diagram, this visual tool resembles a fishbone. To use it, first write your main problem on one side of a piece of paper (this will be the head of your fish). Draw a horizontal line to the left, then sketch diagonal branches that extend above and below the line. At the end of each line, write a category of potential causes. In a traditional fishbone diagram, there are six branches—people, process, equipment, materials, environment, and measurement—but you can use any categories that suit the problem you’re trying to solve.
Suppose an ecommerce business has a slow supply chain, causing customers to receive late shipments. On a whiteboard or paper, “slow supply chain” would be written down as the “head” of the diagram. The team would then ponder all the possible factors causing the issue. This could include a global material shortage, transportation delays, labor shortages, or an underperforming manufacturer.
Problem-solving techniques FAQ
What are the basic steps of problem-solving?
To effectively solve most problems, follow these simple steps: identify the issue, determine the cause, find an effective solution, and maintain the desired outcome. If you don’t achieve your goal, go back to the drawing board. Reassessing the situation with fresh eyes can spark new ideas and lead to alternative solutions.
What are the best problem-solving techniques?
The type of structured problem-solving process you choose should be based on your business and your team’s unique needs. Some recommended techniques you can implement in your business include the SWOT analysis, the root cause analysis, and the Five Whys analysis.
What’s an example of problem-solving?
A business that experiences a cybersecurity breach and implements the Five Whys strategy to understand the root cause is using an effective problem-solving strategy. By starting with the breach and working backward, asking “why” each thing happened, the business can discover the root cause. Potential solutions to this issue include backing up company data and investing in security plug-ins to prevent hackers from breaching the system.
