I am going to be very blunt here (like I’m not already). Selling on-line has its responsibilities and tasks you have to do and if you just want to sit back and expect money to just come in don’t sell on-line.

All carts have problems with abandonment. That’s when a customer goes through your site adding items to purchase, but does not complete the order by paying for it. If there is a great deal of abandonment then it may be something wrong about the checkout process. It may be difficult or awkward.

A few abandonment reasons:

• Internet connection goes down, computer locks up, browser crashes
• Shipping too expensive (I’ve done that myself)
• Phone call
• Something distracts the shopper
• Customer hits the wrong button
• They all of a sudden remember they have to do something more important to do.

There are lots of reasons. If you want to know why a particular customer didn’t complete the process you might want to contact them. But I’m going to advise against that. It’s like going to a store and having a salesperson descend or hover around you.

It is your responsibility to verify that you have received payment for an order and not to ship until then. It’s called managing your business effectively.

It is your responsibility to contact the vendors that process payments including your bank. Those institutions will not talk with anyone but you. If you expect others to do this for you then you are opening your business to major problems. Not keeping track of your finances opens yourself up to fraud. You know those stories about bookkepeers, etc. embezzling money. Well it happens when no one is paying attention to important details. Like your money!!!

You should not rely solely upon email notifications of orders. You need to login and check. Then you need to cross check (orders to payments).

The œI don’t have the time to check”. Well you’re going to be out of business soon if you don’t. If you are really too busy you need to hire someone to take care of other areas of your business.

Do not assume because you have received notice of an order that it has been paid for or that you even have orders. You need to verify that it has been paid for or check to see if there’s an order. It’s your responsibility not your web designer/developer’s responsibility. You need to login and check, and then cross-reference orders to payments.

You are the one that needs to contact your credit card processor and find out why certain things are not happening, like why you haven’t received payment or you weren’t approved. They will not discuss that information with your designer/developer.

The following are the basics that you will need to sell:

Merchant account
Payment gateway/processor
Shopping cart/catalog: A cart holds the items that are being purchased. A catalog is what you are selling whether it’s books, clothing, food items or anything else and includes photos, description, prices, physical inventory, etc. Some are all inclusive while others are separate.
SSL: All files, directories and subdirectories that may collect or temporarily œhold confidential information need to have security. Credit card information should never, and I mean never saved in a database on your web server, nor should that information be transmitted by email. Many hosts have shared SSL’s (their domain name will show in the location bar instead of yours), but what is best is to have your own and you will need a fixed IP address for your website.
A good intuitive design. Anyone should be able to tell immediately what your business is about or what you are selling. Don’t make them guess. The customer needs to be able to quickly navigate through the site.

I was asked to critique a jeweler’s website that they had created themselves to sell their handmade jewelry. They were focusing on where they were located versus their jewelry. That needed to be reversed. My monitor has a 1920×1200 resolution and there was a horizontal scroll. Not good.

Tip
One or several things that you can do is offer something that your competitors don’t. These can be as simple as any one of the following:

• Gift registry
• Blog
• Reminder service so they never forget a special date
• Wish list
• Newsletter
• Email signups for specials