Your Website as a Storefront

First take a pause to picture this. A customer walks into the store, browses through products and shelves, picks up items, inspects, considers the prices, chooses a product and takes it to the cash register to pay. Now if you want to sell your products online, then your site must be enabled for e-commerce, where you must have the following features: 

• You need to provide plenty of content and product description like sizes, dimensions, colors and comparisons with other similar products. It must allow the customer to choose a product, get a clear pricing and shipping costs on the product, complete the transaction and get an order number, and/or invoice confirmation via email. Allow your customer to choose a shipping method.
  
  
• You must tell the customer if the item is in stock or delivered against order. Ideally, you should have an email contact or live help if the customer has a question. Most importantly you must respond immediately! If you want to provide your own live chat and help desk services on your website, specialized software is available for purchase.
  
  
• Be sure your customer service links are large and clearly marked, so your client does not have to dig around to find information.
  
  
• Provide an �about us� section or a section about your policies. If you have privacy statements and customer satisfaction policies, your customer will feel better about shopping in your store.
  
  
• You probably want to have customer quotes and references on the storefront page, as well, to let your prospective client know that others are happy with your service.
• Provide an FAQ with information about your return-back policies, guarantees, shipping prices and insurance charges if any.
  
  
• If you are so inclined, you can offer a printed catalog if the customer prefers to order one from your storefront and shop in the privacy of their homes.
  
  
• Do not annoy your customers by presenting products that are marked �sold� or pages that say �under construction� or �coming soon�.
  
  
• Do add new content frequently, so your returning customers will not be bored by seeing the same products they saw four months ago.
  
  
• If your site has got a date tag or has current references, be careful to change these references frequently so you don�t give the perception that nobody is attending or reading your site.
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  Doyle invites you to find out more about Online Stores and related topics by
  visiting the following sites: Ecommerce and Promote Products Online
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