Unless you sell unique products or services, there’s possibility that you use product information provided by product manufacturer or supplier. Although this information can be very detailed, in most cases, it isn’t or information is targeted more at those selling product rather than those wanting to purchase it.

Due to ease in which information can be used on your site, it’s likely to be used on many of your competitor’s sites too.

Stand out from crowd and provide personalised content about products and services that you sell. After all, to be able to sell your products and services, you need to be familiar with their use, features and unique selling points. Make sure that product details you provide include as much information as possible in an easy-to-read and enticing format.

4. Ensure that your site is accessible to all visitors and search engines

Many ecommerce stores remain inaccessible to many visitors and search engines. Given need to ensure that all websites are accessible to visitors with disabilities, it is very important to ensure that your website meets WCAG guidelines for website accessibility. For more information about guidelines, check out RNIB’s Web Access Centre at http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/code/public_rnib008789.hcsp.

Some of most important visitors to your website are search engine spiders. These spiders visit pages on your site and are used to rank pages within search engines for particular keywords and phrases. The spiders follow links to your site from other sites, and then follow links within site. However, there are certain impediments that may prevent spiders from getting to some or all pages within your website. These include:

• Use of JavaScript menus – some JavaScript menus do not include links to internal pages within website that search engine can follow. If possible, replace JavaScript menu with an alternate CSS based menu.
• Use of dynamic URL parameters – search engines are getting more tolerant to having multiple parameters in URLS. However, it is still advised that no more than 3 or 4 parameters are used.
• Use of session IDs – Many ecommerce stores require use of session information in order to be able to maintain information about visitors as they interact with store. However, if session IDs are passed as URL parameters, they can prevent search engines from spidering website.

It is very important that these impediments are removed in order that your site can be completely spidered. For example, an ecommerce site may have many thousands of pages (associated with products). However, through use of too many dynamic URL parameters or session IDs, major search engines many only be able to list a handful. This therefore gives less content available within search engines associated with your website that could potentially be found by a search engine user.

5. Add new ways of delivering content to 3rd parties

Article and news syndication using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is becoming widespread across Internet. However, to date, syndication of content for ecommerce stores hasn’t been as popular. This is set to change and ecommerce site owners start to use content syndication to keep their visitors and customers up to date with their:

• Latest news
• Special offers

The use of content syndication can be used to replace need to publish opt-in newsletters. This saves you time and ensures that your visitors/customers are always up-to-date with latest developments on your website.

In part 2 of this article, we will provide more detail about following tips for website success in 2005:

• 6. Improve conversion through removing unnecessary registration and requests for too much information
• 7. Offer greater customer service through not only meeting ecommerce regulations but surpassing them
• 8. Improve site such that it offers an improved user-experience
• 9. Stop worrying about page rank and start focusing on customers
• 10. Take time to understand how visitors use your site and learn from that knowledge

(b) You must be clear about postage and packing costs and whether VAT is included in prices shown on your website.

(c) You must provide a written confirmation of order following purchase, e.g., via email.

(d) You must allow a "cooling off" period of 7 working days for most goods. Certain exclusions do apply and include perishable and digital goods.

(e) You must inform your customers of their right to cancel their order with no loss other than return postage and packing.

Ecommerce Directive

(a) You must display name of your business, company registration number (or proprietor's name), geographical address (not PO Box number), contact information e.g., telephone number and email address, VAT registration number (if registered).

(b) You may refer to trade or professional schemes if applicable.

(c) You must provide clear information on price, tax and delivery to buyers.

(d) You must clearly display your site’s Terms and Conditions.

(e) You must acknowledge all orders.

(f) In commercial communication with your customers, you must clearly identify any electronic communication designed to promote your goods or services.

(g) You must clearly identify sender of all electronic communication.

(h) You must clearly define any promotional offers and qualifying conditions regarding these offers.

(i) If you send unsolicited emails, you must clearly identify them as unsolicited.

Other means of increasing Ecommerce Credibility

In addition to ensuring that you satisfy ecommerce regulations, you can gain extra credibility by:

• (a) Including verifiable testimonials.
• (b) Allowing payment via other means than online, e.g. via telephone or mail order.
• (c) Ensuring that all transactions that involve transfer of personal and payment details are secure (via SSL).
• (d) Ensuring that your shopping cart does not make following common mistakes:
• Call a shopping cart something else!
• Use a ‘Buy Now’ button instead of a ‘Add to Cart’ button
• Give no feedback that an item has been added to cart
• Force user to view cart after each added item
• Make user register before adding items to a cart
• Not provide a ‘Remove Item’ button