Monday, December 29, 2008

Designing Your e-Commerce Website

By Ethan O. Tanner

With more and more consumers utilizing the web to shop and execute business dealings, e-commerce has become the future of the online community. Profiting completely from the e-commerce boom can be accomplishable. To keep consumers returning to your site, you must make a unique e-commerce site, one that surpasses all levels of excellence. When designing your e-commerce website, you should have a welcome or introduction on your main page. This statement should lay down the advantages of your site, and reassure those visiting that they should be at ease performing business transactions with you. Tell your intent, express your beliefs, and help the consumer understand why business done at your e-commerce outlet is always secure.

A practical website navigates smoothly. Categories to skim over and visible search boxes on the site are substantial. Design a simple site with big, readable fonts and images that will come up right away. You should definitely have a page with popular inquiries about some of your staple business policies, for example, shipping and returns. You may additionally want to make a link on your home site that guides visitors to a privacy policy. This insurance will assure customers that you will never supply a third party with information they have confided in you. It is nearly inherent for all e-commerce shops to expose this proclamation someplace on their site.

Just as when shopping offline, customers want checkout to be as fast and easy as possible when visiting your online store. If your online store is equipped with a secure server, make your customers aware. This will put them at ease and keep them coming back. Your checkout or "shopping cart" needs to be just one click away so the customer can be in and out in a minimal amount of steps. In this day and age, it is advisable to offer a variety of payment selections such as PayPal and other online payment sources, credit and debit cards, online checks, and money orders. Include a contact telephone number for customer support so the customer has assurance that they will have assistance if there is a problem with the order.

Establish a particular portion of your e-commerce website committed entirely to special discounts and new sales. If you have a large quantity of sales items, form an independent webpage with the sale items that are most popular, and have an extra page with a full listing of each discount. Throughout the holiday time of year, have a specific part of your internet site where customers can purchase gift certificates.

Developing a profitable, respectable e-commerce website can be an easy task with a well constructed site plan, some time, and patience. Take your time and design your e-commerce site to be user friendly, secure, and full of informative substance. Taking full advantage of the e-commerce phenomenon, you can achieve your business marketing ambition. - 16651

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