Run your web site in a businesslike manner. Remember that people are still leery about making purchases with a faceless and sometimes nameless entity. When you walk into a store you actually see a person, know how to find that person if something goes wrong, and usually see some type of reassuring information that gives comfort such as a Better Business Bureau sign. Most web sites are a study in anonymity. It's hard to find a real person's name or even a business name. Mailing addresses are kept a secret. E-mail correspondence is done by auto-responders. You look at a cold computer screen and get a chilly reception. Imagine asking someone to give you their credit card information, their home address and phone number, and other pertinent data and never telling them who you are and where you can be located if a problem arises! WOW. A bit presumptuous, don't you think? It is very important to make your site a comfortable and easy place to do business.

First, you are faceless to shopper and shopper is faceless to you! In fact, you usually don't know who came and went. To overcome this, give visitor every opportunity to contact you by e-mail or phone. One of most effective ways is to go to http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin exis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=0015H 0, get a free HumanClick chat program and install one on every page on your site where questions or problems might arise. If you are online you can answer immediately. If not, potential customer can send an e-mail message for you to answer when you do go online. This gives you online presence even when you aren't there!

Here are some statistics you should be aware of: According to Nua Internet Surveys, as of January 2000, there are approximately 248.6 million people online worldwide.

CREDIT CARD USE DOUBLES IN YEAR Dec 3, 1999: Twice as many US adults used credit cards to buy products and services online in 1999 than did in 1998, according to new research from Cyber Dialogue.

INTERNET ECONOMY WORTH $1 TRILLION IN 2001 Nov 4, 1999: The Internet economy will be worth $1 trillion by end of 2001 and $2.8 trillion by end of 2003.

BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS E-COMMERCE TO SOAR Business-to-business e-commerce will show blistering growth in coming years, with worldwide market expected to expand to $7.29 trillion by 2004, more than 50 times larger than in 1999, states a market research company. (TechWeb)

When you take these facts and figures into consideration, it's no surprise that more and more entrepreneurs and businesses are feverishly rushing to establish e-commerce web sites.

On surface, concept is very simple: You set up a web hosting account with a web hosting company; you create an appealing site that sells your products or services; and you get a credit card merchant account so you can accept credit cards.

But there is more to enabling an e-commerce web site. There is a lot of uncommon knowledge regarding establishment and operation of a successful e-commerce web site, which makes difference between your site becoming a success or thousands of dollars wasted and hundreds of hours of pain-staking trial and error.

SIX DEADLY E-COMMERCE SINS I have outlined below six deadly sins that can derail an otherwise simple process of enabling an e-commerce web site.

1.Merchant account does not support e-commerce or AVS If your merchant account is not compatible with Internet processing systems, you will need to manually enter transactions and even risk losing your account due to bank regulations. AVS (Address Verification System) is required by VISA and it is a system that matches address criteria on cardholder's statement to reduce chargebacks. If AVS is not used, you can be charged up to 3.75% or more per transaction and leave yourself open to chargebacks. If you incur a chargeback rate higher than 3%, bank may terminate your merchant privileges. Once you are listed as a terminated merchant, getting another credit card merchant account is virtually impossible. Be sure your processing solution uses AVS and that your merchant account is set up for Internet processing.

2.Processing solution does not support real-time processing Processing solutions that do not work in real-time can wreak havoc on your growth and marketing efforts. Spending time entering every order manually can literally cost you more than order is worth. Also, when Internet orders are not processed in real-time, you won't know if a credit card is valid until you manually process it, at which point you will need to personally contact card holder. This can turn into a time consuming and costly process, especially if customer lives overseas.

Of all credit card orders processed by our office, about 7% are invalid or declined first time. Fortunately, since we utilize a real-time processing system, customer is able to re-enter his/her credit card number or use a different card.

Additionally, AVS is not typically used or available with manual systems, thus boosting your transaction discount rate to a whopping 3.75% on every dollar!