If by reading my pervious post example, you became frustrated just take a second to visualize how a potential online customer feels. When a consumer visits your site, most often they are looking for a apparent reason to buy from you instead of all the other sites. Does your eCommerce site give them a reason? Can you honestly say you can give them more then one reason?

If all considerable factors are identical or even if they are all similar your visitors will find it hard  to choose your site over the rest. Once online consumers start playing a guessing game of who to purchase  from, your online business start losing potential revenue. There is always a chance they would choose you, maybe that same chance is that they won’t. There is a way to ensure you are chosen over your competition. You have to make it clear through content how your online store is superior to the rest of your competition. A few great tips are:

- Offer only specialty items and become an expert in those items.
- Up your prices (this tends works well for premium services and goods)
- Redesign your website with a new “modern look and feel”
- Offer an unconditional 30 day return policy
- Boost your area of expertise (for service-based businesses like web design firms, internet marketing firms etc. )
- Offer a  creative customer loyalty program
- Reduce your prices
- Stress the importance your companies “great” customer service policy
- Provide an easy to see 800 number
- Create user reviews for all your products.
- Personalize service to your customers
- Offer discounted shipping or even free shipping for spending a pre-specified amount

Every website owner should know that when online visitors come to your site, there is a pretty good chance that they are looking to make a purchase. If you think I am just stating the obvious, you’re about to be taken back! I browse through numerous sites every day that offer everything to online visitors except give them a reason to make a purchase, donate, click, call or take any sort of action. With in a brick and mortar business, this could lead to devastating results; yet, it’s even worse for eCommerce merchants.

A good example of this would be making a laptop purchase. You would start by looking at “example store A” which from first looks seems like a great store, except nothing is categorized. After spending hours clicking  link after link you finally come across something that meets the criteria of what you are looking for in a laptop. After looking over the features you note down the price and model number. You’re finally done with store A!

The next eCommerce site you visit, looks almost the same, as example A, except for the logo. It has the same navigation, links and prices. The shipping amount is the same, and the delivery policy is almost impossible to tell apart from example site A. As you click from laptop site to laptop site, you realize that most of them look the same. How can you make a decision what to buy when all your options are identical? What will be the decisive factor between site Example site A and Example site B?

In the next post I will conclude my series on the importance of getting the edge in eCommerce.