A Website should be your Shopfront
A customer walks into your 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 for it. Now if you want to sell your products online, in that case your site must be enabled for e-commerce, where you must have the following features:
1.You need to provide plenty of content and product description like sizes, dimensions, colors and comparisons with other similar products. It must permit the customer to select an item, get a clear pricing and shipping costs on the product, complete the transaction and acquire an order number, and/or invoice confirmation via email. Allow your customer to select a shipping method.
2.You must tell the customer if the item is in stock or delivered against order. Ideally, you ought to have an email contact or live help if the customer has a question. Most of all you must respond immediately! If you wish to provide your personal live chat and help-desk services on your website, specialized softwares are available for purchase.
3.Be sure your customer service links are large and clearly marked, so your client doesn’t need to dig around to locate information.
4.Provide an ‘about us’ section or a section about your policies. For those who have privacy statements and client satisfaction policies, your customer will feel happier about shopping in your store.
5.You probably want customer quotes and references on the storefront page, as well, to let your prospective client understand that others are pleased with your service.
6.Provide an FAQ with information regarding your return-back policies, guarantees, shipping prices and insurance charges if any.
7.In case you are so inclined, you can offer a print catalogue if your customer would rather order one from your storefront and shop in the privacy with their homes.
8.Do not annoy your web visitors by presenting items that are marked ‘sold’ or pages that say ‘under construction’ or ‘coming soon’.
9.Do add new content frequently, so your returning customers will never be bored by seeing exactly the same products they saw four months ago.
10.If your site has got a date tag or has current references, make sure change these references frequently and that means you don’t give the perception that nobody is attending or reading your site.