If your business is like most these days, e-Commerce is a hot topic. It lures you with hopes of new sales opportunities. Getting started, however, can be daunting. Regardless of whether you sell business to business, direct to consumers or even to your own employees, your approach to e-Commerce will directly impact your overall success.

The advent of the Internet created a new sales channel. Incorporating online sales into your overall strategy requires understanding the environment and basic user requirements, evaluating what systems and processes you have in place to support it, and remembering to service the customer.

The Internet has dramatically changed how business is done, but it fundamentally has not changed the nature of doing business. Customers still require the same level of service as if they were doing business with you in person. To complicate things, the rules of doing business online are shaped by the big e-Commerce sites. Consumers are starting to expect purchasing experiences similar to Amazon.com.

Customer demands will continue to shape the nature of online business. The familiar mantra of "The Customer is Always Right" still applies in today's global economy. A quality purchase experience online is not unlike that of existing in-store, mail, fax, and phone services. Customers still need access to pre-purchase information, confidence in the product and brand, the ability to make a purchase, solid order fulfillment, the ability to make a return, and ultimately quality customer service. A positive experience provides customer satisfaction, increases their confidence in your services and thereby increases your chances that they'll be a repeat online customer.

How can you ensure that your business is prepared for the effort? Careful evaluation of the following factors will get you started down the right path.

Once customers reach your site, keep them there
There are many ways you can market your web site, from using existing channels to brand positioning to search engine rankings. Whichever method you employ, once customers reach your site, don't let a lack of product information or poor site usability turn them away. (For more information on good design tactics, see "Why do Customers Leave Your Site?") When selling online, consider the following:

• Make sure your products are organized in a clear manner and reflect this structure in your site's navigation.
• Provide more than one way to find products. Use a combination of navigation and search.
• Use terms familiar to your customers within the site navigation. Avoid using business lingo.
• Offer detailed images and product specifications to increase purchase confidence. Help the customer visualize the product as if they were seeing it in person. Provide click-for-larger, color swapping, and alternate views for images along with as many specs as possible (e.g. dimensions, weight, and finish).
• Keep page file sizes small. Image thumbnails on a page help keep the page load time down and including a click-for-larger image option still offers the customer the detail they desire.

Make sure your ordering software is customer friendly
A well built cart application is extremely critical to your e-Commerce initiative. Ensuring a functional and accurate ordering process will build customer confidence and minimize back-office glitches.

Whether you choose to build your own, go with an out-of-the-box package or purchase and customize your shopping cart application, keep in the mind the customer's experience is still paramount. You can do more harm than good if you ignore the overall user experience within the application itself. All the bells and whistles won't make up for poor application design. You'll be left with frustrated users and few return customers. Make sure you balance the time and resources spent on software development with usability testing. You'll immediately see areas that need attention by watching users interact with your cart. Give them a specific task and see how well they perform.

Make sure your cart provides functional and efficient order processing. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Allow customers to review, add, change or delete items in their cart. Make sure item names are hyperlinks in case customers want to view the related details one more time.
• Offer additional product suggestions from within the cart as a last minute sales opportunity.
• Streamline the information capture screens to minimize cart clicks. Include a "Step # of #" visual indicator as the customer progresses through the cart to help manage their expectations. Making each numbered step a link will enable customers to jump back if they need to make changes.
• The length of the purchase process can vary but four or five steps should be sufficient. Some of the items can be combined into one step.
• Whenever you ask for a customer's personal information, include a link to your privacy policy.
• Clearly mark all required fields. Don't make the customer guess what you are expecting of them.
• Make sure to require an email address for order acknowledgement and follow-up.
• Allow the billing address to match the shipping address by selecting a check box rather than forcing the customer to reenter the information if it is the same.
• Allow customers to create an account to store their personal information and preferences making it easy for them to become a repeat customer.
• Provide real time in-stock confirmation of the products in the cart before the order takes place. Customers will appreciate the advance availability notice.
• Include shipping and any additional charges to the product total in the shopping cart, well before the order occurs or the customer is asked for payment.
• Make it easy for your customers to pay. Accept major merchant credit cards and provide customers with a security statement to alleviate any fears. Explore accepting electronic cash. If you are open to accepting offline payments, provide customers with your mailing address, fax and phone numbers.
• Never accept credit card numbers in a non-secure site. Today's cart technology typically includes this functionality. Your visitors will know it's secure if they see "https:" in the browser address line or the "padlock symbol" in the lower right corner of the browser window.
• Request payment information last…just before order confirmation. Asking for payment sooner can decrease customer confidence.

Assess your internal logistics, fulfillment and order return capabilities
Your customers typically don't see the business logistics that handle the planning, implementation and control over the flow and storage of your goods and services, but those internal processes are obviously critical to your success as well. Consider the following questions in your assessment.

• Are your existing systems, including employees, prepared to handle online orders? If not, how will they need to change?
• Can you generate automatic order acknowledgements via email including payment information?
• How quickly can online orders become shipped and ultimately fulfilled orders?
• Are you able to offer customers a delivery tracking mechanism? Can you leverage your relationship with your delivery service to facilitate this?
• Do your customer service representatives have access to information in your backend systems?
• How will you handle returns? Can you incorporate this process into existing systems or does a new process need to be created?
• Have you evaluated the performance capabilities of your e-Commerce application hardware and servers?

Be careful to approach your e-Commerce program so that it works with, not against, your existing sales, marketing, fulfillment, inventory, and accounting systems. You'll gain operational efficiencies and minimize the duplication of efforts.

Prepare your business for quality customer service
Remember that customer satisfaction is imperative to your success. The concept of being willing to service the customer is not new but its importance can not be emphasized enough. How you approach customer service can make or break your e-Commerce program, especially when your business is dependent on repeat customers. If you are not servicing your customer, they will go elsewhere. If your customers are distribution partners or employees, poor service will cause operational inefficiencies that can get costly. Selling online does not extinguish your relationship with the customer, it merely changes it.

Make sure to offer customers alternative contact methods in the form of email, phone, fax or mail if questions or issues arise at any point during their purchase process. Be prepared to handle customer inquiries in a timely manner. Questions are bound to arise and at that point not even the best shopping cart application can take the place of quality customer service. There will always be customers who won't hesitate to associate a poor experience with an entire brand or corporation.

Also, you may consider pursuing post-purchase feedback and satisfaction surveys. Both will help you analyze your performance and give you insight into your strengths and weaknesses.

Keep up with e-Commerce trends and consumer behaviors
Due to the fast paced and ever changing online economy, you must take the initiative to stay informed of the latest online trends and consumer behavior patterns in order to maintain a competitive edge. Check out the Featured Resources section to help get you started.

Conclusion
Before jumping into e-Commerce, be sure to evaluate all of the efforts and costs associated with an online sales initiative, including the cart application, supporting order logistics and fulfillment, and maintaining a quality level of customer service. Customers will continue to demand a high level of convenience, confidence and control over their online shopping experience. By maintaining an informative, functional, and straightforward purchasing process, you will enable your business to deliver a rewarding e-Commerce solution to your customers and potentially your bottom line.

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