6: Make Them Work
Speaking of order forms, here's a way to stop a customer's order dead in its tracks. The customer searched for, found, and is about to order your product. He reaches the order entry screen and it asks him to fill in the product name, code, description, and price of the product! Now the customer has to navigate back to the product pageor even multiple product pagesto retrieve and record the information. The response? "Fuhgetaboutit! I'm outta here!"
So invest in a shopping cart software program that keeps track of what the customer is going to purchase and fills in the product information for him. These programs can be purchased easily on the web, and some are even free. If you're not technically adept at installing it on your web store, hire a programmer for a few hours to do it. But do it!
Another big don't is to ask shoppers to register with their name and contact information before they can shop in your online store. Would you fill out a form to enter a store in your neighborhood? Yeah, right.