Specifications

Some products are unlikely to succeed as e-commerce categories. Cheap, perishable items,
such as groceries, seem a poor choice, although this has not deterred companies from trying,
mostly unsuccessfully. Other categories suit brochureware sites very well, but not online order-
ing. Big, expensive items fall into this category—items such as vehicles and real estate that
require a lot of research before purchasing, but that are too expensive to order without seeing
and impractical to deliver.
There are a number of obstacles to convincing a prospective purchaser to complete an order.
These include
• Unanswered questions
• Trust
• Ease of use
• Compatibility
If a user is frustrated by any of these obstacles, she is likely to leave without buying.
Unanswered Questions
If a prospective customer cannot find an immediate answer to one of her questions, she is
likely to leave. This has a number of implications. Make sure that your site is well organized.
Can a first-time visitor find what she wants easily? Make sure your site is comprehensive,
without overloading visitors. On the Web, people are more likely to scan than to carefully read,
so be concise. For most advertising media, there are practical limits on how much information
you can provide. This is not true for a Web site. For a Web site, the two main limits are the
cost of creating and updating information and limits imposed by how well you can organize,
layer, and connect information so as not to overwhelm visitors.
It is tempting to think of a Web site as an unpaid, never sleeping, automatic salesperson, but
customer service is still important. Encourage visitors to ask questions. Try to provide immedi-
ate or nearly immediate answers via phone, email, or some other convenient means.
Trust
If a visitor is not familiar with your brand name, why should he trust you? Anybody can put
together a Web site. People do not need to trust you to read your brochureware site, but placing
an order requires a certain amount of faith. How is a visitor to know whether you are a rep-
utable organization, or the aforementioned dog?
People are concerned about a number of things when shopping online:
What are you going to do with their personal information? Are you going to sell it to
others, use it to send them huge amounts of advertising, or store it somewhere insecurely
so that others can gain access to it? It is important to tell people what you will and will
not do with their data. This is called a privacy policy and should be easily accessible on
your site.
Running an E-commerce Site
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HAPTER 12
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RUNNING AN
E-COMMERCE SITE
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