To gain a favorable outcome with your e-commerce website, use common-sense business practices.

(1) Always observe the highest ethics in your business dealings. Repeat customers and referrals are indispensable. Few things are more important than building and maintaining a good reputation. If you stretch the truth related to the product’s features and/or service, you might make a few sales, but eventually buyers will realize that you cannot be trusted and your reputation will suffer. a) Provide correct descriptions. b) Always keep to the promised shipping times.

(2) Make the page intuitive (simple to navigate) and keep to a minimum number of clicks needed to perform a transaction.

(3) Payments should be able to be completed successfully online. Accepting a credit / debit card or possibly Paypal. Let your shopping cart system calculate shipping costs, so that the transaction can be finalized quickly in one sitting.

(4) A high level of security for your payment function is imperative.

(5) Offer adequate information on your products or services. Display enough of information so that a typical user will not need to “click for more details”.

(6) Ensure top quality for your product images – grainy, distorted images can make people wonder in the back of their mind if your products/ services are any good. If download times of high quality images are prohibitive, provide thumbnails or split the products into smaller pages.

(7) Ensure your site is friendly to search-engines. Employ a helper if needed to accomplish this.

(8) Do not share users’ email addresses if you promised that you would not. If you promise users not to put them on a mailing list, then do not start emailing them! (See rule no. 1)

(9) You do not want a reputation of spamming. Use only an opt-in opt-out (or double-opt-in opt-out…) email lists and immediately accommodate users who want out.