[September 11th, 1999]

See Also   Want A Sticky Website That Sells? Forget Content!   Giving Customers What They Want   Rule Busters Lose   Building Your Web Site's Sales   Abandoned Shopping Carts: Enigma or Sloppy E-Commerce?   The Only Visitor That Counts Is A Repeat Visitor   Three Steps to Get More Customers   Your Web Site - Do It Yourself? or Get Serious!   How To Make Them Buy Now   The Future of E-Commerce Stinks!   Beware Overload   Does Your Site Have Stopping Power?   Online Sales Psychology That Works   And the Broadband Played on, and on...   How Your Web Site Can Learn From Newspapers   Promise Not to Tell   Where's Your Community?   Understanding Your Visitors   The Seven Deadly Web Site Sins   The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - Part 2   The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I highlighted a new report from SFO Interactive which listed the main attributes of a Web store that would encourage people to buy from it. Ranked in order of importance, the top five features were:

1. Trust that the site will keep personal information private
2. The site offers a secure environment to purchase products
3. The site is technically reliable
4. The content is up to date
5. Products ordered are delivered in a timely fashion

At the time the report was published I briefly discussed the first item in the weekly newsletter but I feel that all five items are worthy of detailed consideration. After all, we are now rapidly approaching the holiday season, a time that will tempt many people to buy online for the first time. And anything we can do to overcome these new shoppers' fears will help us to win their order instead of our competitors.

Trust that the site will keep personal information private

One of the major trends of 1999 has been the growth of consumer concerns about their privacy online. And against this background, it is not really surprising to find privacy listed as the number one concern of Web shoppers.

There are three main actions you can take to try and reduce shoppers' fears:

• Only ask for information that you really need. The more information you ask for, the more questions will form in your customers' minds about what you intend to do with the information.

• Explain why you need each piece of information. Once you have worked out the minimum amount of information you need your customer to supply, explain to them clearly on the order form or in the cart checkout area exactly why you are asking for it.

• Explain what you intend to do with this information. The best way to do this is through a clearly posted privacy policy. These are easy to create -- TRUSTe have a wizard available that will generate a basic policy in about fifteen minutes, although you will need to invest another hour or so to fine-tune this for your Web site.

The site offers a secure environment to purchase products

Many merchants will understandably interpret this to mean the provision of SSL secured transactions along with an explanation as to why these types of transactions are safe. And whilst these are undeniably important, there is more to providing a secure shopping environment.

The important thing to remember is that you need to make your customers feel safe by addressing their real and imaginary concerns. They need to know that they are dealing with a professional organisation that they can trust to handle all aspects of the transaction in a satisfactory way. So make sure you include details of your bricks and mortar address, and your telephone and fax numbers. Display verifiable testimonials from previous customers and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee together with a clear returns policy.

The site is technically reliable

A site that is “broken” is clearly going to do little to inspire confidence in a would-be customer. Make sure that your site loads fast and has no broken links – try using a tool such as LinkExchange's Site Inspector that will quickly check these for you.

Your site also needs to be available when ever a shopper pays a call. Considering signing up for a service such as Netwhistle which will monitor your site as frequently as every five minutes and email or page you if it goes down or becomes excessively slow.

The content is up to date

The Web is littered with sites that were put up by their creators in a burst of enthusiasm, only to be abandoned when the money didn't start rolling in immediately. It is therefore vital that when a potential customer arrives at your site they can quickly see that it is an active one.

As a minimum, you should ensure that the content on your home page is kept up-to-date -- there is nothing more off putting than a home page that features a special offer that expired two months ago!

If your Web host supports SSI (Server Side Includes), consider using this to automatically insert the current date and time in a prominent position. Alternatively, you can achieve the same effect by inserting a simple piece of JavaScript in to your page.

Other, more advanced techniques include using programming to present a different home page every time a prospect visits your site.

Of course, the best way of all is to fill your site with valuable and up-to-date content. So for example, if you are selling videos your homepage should feature the latest releases with links to reviews.

Products ordered are delivered in a timely fashion

Customers need to feel confident that when they place an order they are going to receive their goods quickly. The ideal away is to include a stock level check in your store so that the customer definitely knows you have the goods available before placing their order. This, coupled with a reliable online order tracking system, should serve to reassure even the most wary of customers.

If you're not able or willing to provide this, you should state clearly on your Web site what the typical delivery time is and list what the customer's cancellation options are should this delivery time be exceeded. Acknowledge orders by e-mail and include a unique order ID number together with details of how the customer can contact you to inquire about the status of their order.

I hope the above has given you several ideas of ways you can improve your Web store. However, if you only take one action as a result of reading this article, please make creating a privacy policy your number one priority.