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1. Tackle and publish Common User Issues
All the time you've spent compiling a comprehensive FAQ section should not go to waste. It's important that throughout the ordering process, common user questions and queries are addressed. Users might want to know how long delivery is expected to take, or if they have to enter extra information such as their date of birth, they might want to know why. Go through the ordering process and ask yourself at each stage: What questions might a user have? Answers to these queries should either be provided on-screen, or through a link. Take this a step further by cutting off issues at the pass. If you give your users a "account login area" to see account activity, this is the perfect place to highlight these issues.

2. Create Trust With Customers
Many consumers are still not completely comfortable buying online. They might be concerned about giving out their credit card number, or about not receiving the items they've paid for. It's therefore important that you acknowledge and dispel these concerns to put customer’s minds at rest. Try and think about the concerns customers might have at each step of the ordering process, and try to tackle them. Go out of your way to Including information on your organisation and the people behind it is essential to your success. Links to this information should always be included in the navigation of your site, but consider locating this information to a sidebar during the actual checkout process. If you're worried about cart abandonment - open up the link in a new browser window.

3. Success From Confirmation Emails
Once a customer has made their order, a confirmation e-mail should be sent straight away - no waiting until you can process the order. Confirmation e-mails should be brief and tell users important information such as the order number or tracking code. Including contact information for your customer service department from the company might be a little too much for the business process of smaller companies, but if you can manage, there is no substitute for conveying yours is a quality product from a quality company.

4. Remove surplus "non-sales" content
When shopping at an e-Commerce website, customers should always have a clear opportunity to buy a product on almost every page of the site. Having a page that just gives product details is not a great idea as that info should be combined on one product page with all the information a user needs and a visible purchase button. You want customers to easily find what they want on the site and be able to quickly check out without wasting any time. Keep your articles FAQ’s etc completely separate but easily accessible.

5. Product photos are vital
Shopping online is a lot different than the in-store experience because customers cannot see and touch the product so it is best to show your users as many product images as possible. You want your customers to feel confident that they either found the right product or that what they are buying is of the quality they expect. Do not make your customers make an extra click to view photos that should be clearly visible on your product page.

6. Highlight your discounts and savings
When shopping at any high street retailer you will plainly see how well they promote any sales they have in the shop and this should be no different in your e-commerce store. Visitors to your website need to know that there are items on sale or discount opportunities making sure they are enticed to dig further into your store and ideally make a purchase.

7. Customers Feedback
You should frequently do a online search on the name of your company and your specific domain name (or even set up automated news alert such as is offered by goggle) If someone has criticised your company on an online message board or blog, you need to know about it so that you can strategise on a response. A quick reply to explain the situation and offer a solution could solve the problem before it snowballs - or even turn a bad situation into a good one. Above all make sure your customers have every opportunity to give you there feedback.

8. Are all the visitors to your site are buying?
If you don't know how well your website is working for your existing and new customers It can be hard to tweak, update, and improve your website. Site statistics that track the traffic to your site including when people are visiting, how they found your site and how often they came back, you should set up analytics software for your site. Currently, there are many free online analytics services that will answer all of those questions about your site's visitors. Google has its own free analytics software available at http://www.google.com/analytics/. Once you start tracking your site name via analytics, you'll know where your customers are coming from and what pages they're visiting on your site.

9. How much of your time is taken up on your e-commerce software?
If you have been selling on the web for some years, you may be selling your products via an e-commerce site that you built or had built - with software operating on your server. And, if that's the case, you're probably already aware of the many issues involved with running e-commerce sites from your owner server - security issues, possible server outages, constantly checking the software to make sure it's running properly etc etc.

With the increase in hosted e-commerce packages, you don't need to spend a huge amount of time building and maintaining your own e-commerce site anymore. There's a wide variety of ways to easily sell your products online.

10. Shout about the good things your customers say?
When it comes to purchases, no one likes to be a pioneer. Customers like to shop where other people shop, and they like to do purchase from companies that others in their situation have trades with. Regardless of what your business is, you can benefit from testimonials - people talking about why they like your business and the positive experiences that they've had doing business with you.

No matter the size of your business, if you have a happy customer, ask them to give you a testimonial and add that information to your site in a prominent place.

11. Providing excellent service
A significant part of your success selling online will be your ability to provide first-rate customer service. If a customer emails a question about the products you're selling, you need to have a system in place to respond to customer questions and complaints promptly. The internet offers business owners an unparalleled ability to sell to people literally all over the world, but the internet also offers your disgruntled customers a wide-reaching platform to air their complaints. Buy far the best way to reduce customer complaints, is to offer customers great service.