Top 10 Rules for Holiday (or Any Day) E-Commerce Success

Do your online shoppers think of your site as naughty or nice? Follow these tips from San Francisco-based Vividence, a company that researches online consumer behavior and opinion. The company surveyed 1,000 Internet-savvy consumers to determine ways companies can simplify and focus their e-commerce sites. Check this list twice!

1. Save customers' shopping carts for later visits. Customers often return later to Web sites to purchase items they have seemingly abandoned in their cart. Make it easy for them to do so, by keeping their cart items stored for 30 days or more.

2. Offer a promotion or incentive to purchase on your site. Promotions or deals differentiate e-commerce sites. Offering free shipping, for example, addresses one of the most common factors that inhibit online purchases.

3. Show shipping prices early. Customers prefer choosing shipping options and seeing shipping prices in the shopping cart.

4. Make site registration optional. Customers are more likely to abandon their shopping cart if registration is required.

5. Consider a charitable donation tie-in. Customers are increasingly interested in donating to charity. Sites that contribute in some way can engender good will.

6. Keep products in stock. And if items are out of stock, notify customers early in the transaction.

7. Provide order tracking. Reduce the uncertainty about delivery time by letting customers track their orders. This will also reduce costly calls to your customer service hotline.

8. Shorten the checkout process. Customers prefer entry fields on one screen versus multiple screens.

9. Be clear about delivery time. Provide the details early in the shopping experience.

10. Provide paper gift certificates. Customers tend to prefer paper to e-mail offers.