E-COMMERCE TIPS

• When selling a product or service, it must be easy for the customer to make the decision to buy without needing to contact the company. Many sales are spur of the moment and will be lost if the visitor cannot order a product immediately. Consumers will not always buy only on price; they will navigate and return to sites they feel they can trust.
  
  
• Write positive statements about what your products or services do, not what they don't do.
  
  
• Include calls to action to prompt visitors to order, and give them reasons to act soon (e.g. expiring offers and discounts). Up-sell accessories or higher priced items. Bullet points make it easy for customer to scan quickly. Use longer sales copy for extended reading.
  
  
• In general you should not use free services on a commercial website. Would you seriously consider ordering from a company that that refused to invest a mere $25 a year or even $10 a month to maintain their own domain? Would you be comfortable ordering from a company that had no secure on-line order form?
  
  
• Commercial sites must do everything possible to establish trust (full disclosures and policies, contact information, secure ordering, professional look, third party endorsements and testimonials).
  
  
• Use designated account for Internet orders (check with bank for restrictions)
  
  
• 90% of fraudulent orders come from free e-mail addresses. You may want to consider refusing credit card orders from customers using free e-mail.
  
  
• There is a higher risk for non-tangibles (software, etc.).
  
  
• Subscription services are high risk.
  
  
• Verify manually if "bill to" and "ship to" are different.
  
  
• Use a traceable shipping method.
  
  
• Use manual credit card processing with AVS verification for least risk.
  
  
• Inform customer who the charge on their credit card will come from when they look at their monthly statement in the HTML and e-mailed receipts.
  
  
• International orders are the highest risk of all. Request phone # on back of card and manually verify. Once the product is out of the country, it's gone.
  
  
• Phone the customer back on large orders, especially on 2nd day or overnight shipping.
  
  
• Be wary of breaking policies for customers on payment issues, it can be a fraudulent order (i.e. shipping to a 3rd party address that doesn't match the credit card billing address because it is a gift).
  
  
• The merchant is most at risk for Internet fraud and charge backs since there is no signature. Try to get backup information. Only give free offers and bonuses upon receipt of a completed warranty card or get customer receipt confirmation another way.
  
  
• Problems resolved in favor of your customer, reduces the chances of negative word of mouth advertising.