Best Practices

In the vast online space that is e-commerce the divide between legitimate websites and everything else is pretty obvious to me. Here are some basic practices regarding checkout that I think are a given:

• Credibility builders are a must: There is an entire industry that revolves around certification, ratings, security, etc. You must have an SSL Certificate if you are collecting credit information. Your Privacy Policy has to be easily accessible from every page. You should put effort into getting your company reviewed online by real users. The more seals and certifications you have, the better (think: Truste, BBBOnline, HackerSafe, etc.)
• Checkout must be clean: Best practices for online checkout are pretty obvious. If they need to be spelled out, here they are in good form. Basics include showing your customer an itomized list of ALL charges before they are asked to submit their credit information. Immediately following submission, another itemized list of the charges that have been applied must be presented. A follow-up e-mail receipt and what to expect next are also essential.
• Upfront selling: Whether you want to give your users a one-step checkout, or upsell them to death (see this post on GoDaddy's 16 step checkout process) you need to be upfront with your users that you are trying to sell them something. The worst possible scenario in e-commerce is that someone has completed an order without realizing it. If this occurs in your business, it needs to stop. Users should never be fooled into making a purchase - if your business model relies on this then you are fooling yourself.

As for everything prior to the transaction, there are a few things that are an obvious red-flag for grey-hat operations.

• Floating content that exists in no relation to an established site structure.
• Never ending pages that require users to scroll through content that drags on forever, interspersed with call-to-actions.
• A generic 'contact us' form in lieu of actual contact information, or physical fact of the organization.

But then there are those things you can't really put in a bulleted list. You know that feeling you get when you click through to certain sites...an uncomfortable nagging inclination that the site you are viewing wants to take you for everything you've got and give you nothing in return.

It is not hard to overcome this. Just be genuine. Care about what you do. Take pride in your practices and respect your visitors. Tell them who you are. Be Transparent. Create value. If you can just get over the revenue already, you will start to see it grow beyond your wildest dreams.