It sounds easy enough to have an online business. You find a product or line of products that you would like to sell on the web. You do your research and find out there is a market for your product. You get a website designed. Through research you find that Merchandizer has one of the best deals going on shopping cart programs, which is why you are here, and you get one of those going on your ecommerce website.

You have your keywords and metatags in place. Your site even shows up on Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, ask and other search engines and directories but you're barely making ends meet still, why can that be? The problem can probably be traced to your product presentation. Are you telling your customers how they can use your product? Giving people multiple uses for a product and letting them know how to get the most for their money is one way to entice your website visitors to become customers.

Are your photographs of your product excellent? Notice, the word "good" wasn't used. Your photographs need to be par excellence. Your product needs to be shown in at least one and multiple photos are even better. Consider having a professional or your brother who took all those photography classes give you a hand. This is one time the old standard photography shots won't do.

Make your descriptions as detailed as possible, the more you tell about your product the more people will be inclined to buy. They can't hold and closely examine your product, give them the chance to do so and always invite questions about a product. The more personal you make the shopping experience, the more you can sell.

Take this tips to heart and increase your sales on the web!

The old saying in Hollywood, "No publicity is bad publicity", never had a business on the Internet. A bad word about your firm can get indexed and travel at warp speed around the web. If you have an unhappy client who chose to post their less than stellar experience about your firm on a message board or blog rather than contact you directly about it, first of all don't panic.

Next, contact the individual and find out what their grievance was. Perhaps they did try to contact you and an overzealous spam filter halted their email or maybe they had an incorrect mailing address and assumed no response from you meant you just didn't care.

Then see what you can do. A good idea when dealing with an unhappy person is posting ill feelings about a specific product you sell or your company in general is to find out what they want. Do they want a refund? Do they want an apology? Ask them directly what will resolve the situation and if it is within your power- do it.

One situation involved a lady that purchased a pre-cut mat and frame set from an online retailer. The customer had measured correctly but given the frame company the incorrect measurements. She was only checking her piece of paper that she had written her measurements down on and decided the frame company was a crew of idiots that couldn't read and said so on a series of art community message boards. The frame company "Googled' itself often to see if the company name was being posted anywhere and ran across these posts. They contacted her to see that problem was and she told them of her ill fitting mat/frame set dilemma. They sent her a copy of her order that was incorrect and offered to re-cut her mat/frame set for free if she would go back and tell on those various message boards and blogs how the situation turned out. She agreed and happily got a mat/frame set to fit, the company got a problem resolved in the public eye and actually received orders as a result from people who stated they wanted to do business with a company that appeared to care about all their customers, even the ones that didn't fill out their orders correctly.

As you can see, the olive branch when extended in public is a powerful selling and publicity tool that can turn a bad situation into a good selling point for your firm.

One of the most overlooked features with a corporate website, is the humble sitemap. When your customers want to find something quickly they will usually look for a search feature or a site map.

Simply put, a sitemap is an overview of all the pages on your website. Which is almost like a table of contents, but each of the entries is a link to that particular page. When you add pages to your website, especially product pages, be certain your Webmaster knows to update those pages.

If you're still thinking a sitemap is a lot of work for just having a page for people to find your products from, the other purpose of a site map is so that the various spiders sent from search engines like Google and directories such as Yahoo, can index your site quickly. If you want all of your website's pages to have the opportunity to be indexed and show up on people's search engine return results, a site map is the key element you need to accomplish this.

Once you get your site map going, it is fairly easy to maintain. When you add a page or product page, simply make a note to update your site map as well. If you make any changes on your website, adding deleting pages, be sure your site map reflects this and it keeps your website fresh and current.

A site map should be a integral part of any good ecommerce website and if you haven't planned to add a sitemap to your website, be sure to incorporate one in your final design so your website visitors can find the information they need quickly and the search engines can index you and insure that you'll be found on the web!

If you have information to share about your product or service or you have a good deal of knowledge about a subject related to your industry - let your customers know by podcasting it!

It is exceedingly simple to do your own podcasting and you can reach an audience of millions. You only need a minimum of equipment and you can be your own mouthpiece for your great products, services or inside industry knowledge. You will need a microphone and audio recording software. You can literally record and upload your podcast in less than 10 minutes in most cases and the whole process is as easy as 1-2-3!

1. Simply record your program, Audacity at http://audacity.sourceforge.net and Wavepad are both excellent programs to use. Then simply save your file in an MP3 format on your computer. Remember, use text characters only in your file name, special characters are not allowed.

2. Then put your podcast on an RSS feed. There are a good number of free services such as Podblaze located at http://www.podblaze.com.

3. Add a button to your website to allow people to subscribe to your RSS podcast so when you update your podcast feed, they'll be notified.

You can place your podcast at http://del.icio.us which will allow you to create and manage all your podcasts. Another great place to put your podcast out there is Fresh Podcasts at http://www.freshpodcasts.com.

There is no downside to the sheer masses of people you can reach. Keep your podcasts interesting, informative and to the point. Invite comments and emails from people that listen, the more interactive you make the experience, the more loyal listeners and soon-to-be customers you'll gain.

Now that you know the basics, look into how Podcasting can benefit your business!

Whether or not you have a privacy policy posted on your website can entice or turn away potential customers. Some visitors to your website won't even notice and for others, not having a privacy policy posted can be a deal breaker for purchasing from your website.

If you aren't sure exactly what a privacy policy is, basically it is a statement generated by you that details exactly what information your server collects from your visitors and how you will use that information.

You say your website is hosted on someone else's server and you don't collect any information. Think again. Your webstats alone will tell you the pages a given IP address (the identifying marker of the website visitor), what page they arrived on at your site (entry page), what page they left at (exit page), and many stats programs will tell you how long someone spent on any given page. If the person made a purchase you will have sensitive personal information about that consumer and it is your responsibility to tell them how you handle it and what you do with it.

If you sell, lend, or rent your customer's names to 3rd parties that sell like-minded products, put that in your privacy policy and give an email address for an "out", so people can have their names removed from your listings if they so choose.

Also, if you do nothing with your customer's information beyond processing orders and follow-up emails about their pending orders and shipments, put the in your privacy policy. It will make many people breath a sigh of relief to know you take privacy very seriously.

Whatever your privacy policy is for your website, make sure you have it spelled out for your customers.

Cookies are one of the most misunderstood of web elements. People confuse them with spam and spyware, and even those programs confuse cookies as such.

A cookie is simply a very small piece of data created by the server based on your preferences when you visit a website. It is not an executable program and it can not do or change anything on the individual's computer.

There are two basic types of cookies you will encounter on the web, session cookies and persistent cookies. They do basically the same thing, remember your information during your visit to a website, but have different purposes. A session cookie is placed on your computer to remember your visit and is erased when you leave the website. The server and browser have no memory of your visit if you visit again, another cookie will be placed on your computer temporarily.

Persistent Cookies do basically the same thing, except they are designed to last a short period of time on your computer so a cookie doesn't have to be placed on your computer each time you visit a website.

Cookies are very important in the realm of ecommerce. If your site does not use session cookies, products placed in a shopping cart program would be deleted and gone by the time the customer went to check out. Matter of fact, if someone is writing you telling you that they are unable to use your shopping cart or it isn't working because their items keep disappearing, 9 times out of 10, the problem is that the consumer has their browser set to reject all cookies. Asking your customer to check their browser settings and tell them to temporarily change them to "accept cookies" will usually do the trick.

Last but not least, be sure and state in your online privacy policy statement how you use cookies and if you use persistent cookies, how long they will last.

If you're going to sell your products online, eventually you're going to be faced with a return and make sure you have an airtight return policy posted on your site. Most people will use your return policy sparingly and if you have an ironclad one posted, it will eliminate those spur of the moment guilt shoppers (we all know someone like this) who purchase something and then almost immediately return it to the store, over and over and over. This creates a lot of paperwork and shuffling around of inventory counts and having a good return policy will usually cut down on handling those types of returns.

Return policies vary from store to store online and you'll have to determine the best one for your business; but here some basics:

* Offer a store credit instead of actual money back. This not only entices your customers to come back and shop at your store, generally people spend more than their credited amount.

*Will you charge a return to stock fee? If you receive back an item, many companies charge a 10% return to stock fee that they deduct from the amount refunded. If this is your policy, be sure it is stated clearly on your website or you might have a very angry former customer burning up your email box or phone lines.

*Do you refund shipping amounts? Many online businesses will only refund or give a store credit for the actual cost of the item at the time of purchase, excluding shipping and tax. This is an individual decision you will have to make for you business.

* Be aware of fraud. Some of the smartest customers you will have will also be looking to rip you off. It doesn't happen often, but a common trick is to purchase something online using a fraudulent credit card number and then ask for a refund before the person who has lost their card has had time to notice and report their card as lost or stolen. This happens most frequently with people who use shopping carts without CVV and other safety features. If you aren't using this type of shopping cart program, talk to Merchandizer- this can greatly eliminate your chances of being hit with this type of rip-off.

Now that you know the basics for a return policy, design one that will make both you and your customers happy.

When you tell people you're thinking of starting an ecommerce business, inevitably they will make comments about you getting to stay home, eat bowls of cereal and watch television while you wear your pajamas and surf the Internet. All of this while making money. Sounds good, but it's really not that way.

An ecommerce business is just like any other business in many ways. You have to present a professional front. Okay, so your clients are not meeting you in person and you could probably get away with wearing your jammies while you add products to your shopping cart program and such but your website must present an image that makes people comfortable doing business with you.

Just like a brick and mortar business, you also have to do sales. The majority of your clients will come to you but they must be able to find you by the search engines. Utilizing a blog and keywords on your site that accurately describe your products and services will help the people who want to purchase from actually find your business. Keep your website fresh above all, if you're having a sale, announce it on your website's front page.

Also, you will have customer service duties. You will need to connect with your customers when they ask a question. Most people will email, about 90% of your customer contacts will be via email. Brush up on your writing skills and above all be personable and professional. The Internet is dry enough, let your customers know that they are dealing with a real person and you will see a marked interest in your services.

As you can see, an ecommerce business can be a lot of rewarding work. But you get to be your own boss, sell the products you find appealing and many days work on your own schedule. Keep working, keep selling and keep adding to your site and you will realize good success in the ecommerce arena.

One of the biggest keys to selling your products on the web is how you present them. Do you just have a picture and a price with your product? You can have the most well done website in the history of the Internet, but if you aren't giving people the information they need about your products, be prepared to have a lot of inventory on your hands that you won't be selling anytime soon.

When you go shopping at your local mall, the stores spend good sums of money making their windows look appealing to entice you to buy their products. They have sales people handy that are knowledgeable and can discuss the product with potential customers. You will have people from all walks of life and all times of night and day visiting your website, you don't have a sales rep handy so your website must do the selling for you.

Make sure you tell what the product is for, it's height, weight and other dimensions. Special features are usually a good selling point, does your product have any to specify? If the answer is yes, then tell everything cool it can do. If your prices are better than your competitors, mention that fact too. If you offer free shipping (and that is usually a winner in the Internet store business) mention that fact as well.

The more time you spend writing your product descriptions, the better your online store will fare. Additionally, people searching online in the various search engines will have a better chance of finding your store if you list your items with Froogle. If you're handy with Excel and FTP programs you can do it yourself or if you'd rather not deal with a learning curve, Merchandizer can hook you up with professionals to do that task for you at a very reasonable rate.

You can't afford to not have good product descriptions, now that you know the secrets to helping people decide to buy from your website, update your product descriptions and get ready to sell, sell, sell!

Deciding to start your own ecommerce business is never an easy decision. A lot of thought and research should go into any enterprise but even more so when you won't have a store front for people to judge your company by. Your website is your store front and the wording, layout and overall look of your web design will either pull in your potential customers or turn them away.

Not only does your website need to be appealing to the eye, it needs to be fast loading, searchable is a great perk to have so potential customers can find items quickly and also you need to consider how you're going to sell your products or services.

You will need a shopping cart system on your website, and once you do some research you will find in the world of ecommerce shopping cart systems, there is the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Merchandizer has seriously done their homework when they were designing shopping carts for businesses. They have a small sized shopping cart that is very affordable even for the newest of start-ups and have different choices all the way up to a huge shopping cart system for the person who has thousands of products to sell.

Not only will these shopping cart programs take your orders and process them, they will send thank you and confirmation emails to your customers and the larger models of the shopping cart programs will keep track of your inventory so you always know with a click of your mouse how much stock of any particular item you have on hand at any given moment.