Mastering E-Commerce Basics: A Marketer's Playbook

Most of the people who land on your store this year have never entered a credit card number into a website before. That single fact should shape almost every decision in this playbook, more than any tactic borrowed from catalog retail or traditional advertising. Amazon and eBay have done a lot to normalize the idea of buying online, but plenty of shoppers still abandon a purchase the moment something looks unfamiliar or untrustworthy.

Get the payment infrastructure right first

You need a merchant account, a way to process credit cards securely and a certificate that encrypts the transaction. VeriSign issues the Secure Sockets Layer certificates that put the padlock icon in a customer’s browser, and CyberCash processes the actual transaction between your site and the card networks. First Virtual offers an alternative model built around email-verified purchases rather than transmitting card numbers directly. Whichever you choose, test the full purchase path yourself, with your own card, before a single customer does.

Make the security visible, not just present

Having SSL installed does nothing for a nervous shopper who can’t see it. Put the lock icon and a short, plain-English line explaining that the connection is encrypted right on the checkout page. Display your merchant account provider’s name if it’s a recognizable one. This isn’t decoration, it’s the single biggest lever most stores have for reducing checkout abandonment among first-time online buyers.

Keep the cart simple

A shopping cart that loses items when a customer hits the back button, or that requires an account to be created before checkout even starts, will cost you sales that never show up in any report because the customer just leaves. Let people see their cart total at every step and get to checkout without unnecessary account creation.

Price shipping honestly and early

Surprise shipping costs revealed only at the final step are one of the fastest ways to lose a sale that was otherwise won. Show a shipping estimate as early as the product page if you can, and never let the first mention of shipping cost be on the same screen as the final “confirm purchase” button.

Confirm everything in writing

Send an order confirmation email immediately, and a shipping notification when the item goes out. Customers buying online for the first time are watching closely for signs that a real business is on the other end of the transaction, and a prompt, clear confirmation email does more for repeat business than almost any other single touchpoint.

Answer questions fast

Post a real customer service email address and, if you can staff it, a phone number. Reply to inquiries within a day. A store that goes silent after the sale looks exactly like the fraudulent storefronts that occasionally make the news, and customers who buy from you once will not buy from you twice if a question goes unanswered.

Measure the parts that predict revenue

Track how many visitors add something to a cart, how many of those complete checkout and where in that path people drop off. That drop-off point tells you more about what to fix than any traffic number does. A store getting thousands of visitors and few sales usually has a checkout problem, not a traffic problem.

Get these fundamentals solid before you spend a dollar on driving more visitors to the site. More traffic into a leaky checkout just means more people having a bad first experience with buying from you online.