If you run an ecommerce site, or have anything for sale electronically, whether it be a single PayPal button for a single product, or a database full of goodies, then your number one priority should be the avoidance of losing sales to people who finally get to your order page. You work hard to get these people, and there are some things you’ll want to do so that they don’t abandon your shopping cart before they do what you want them to do, which is to buy! Let’s look at several ways you can seriously frost relations with your prospective buyers.

No Pricing – There are some who want to keep the price a secret until you’re actually on the shopping cart. For many, including this writer, that’s a non-starter. If I’m curious enough to click through it 99% of the time my mind is already made up, because of the way I’ve been treated. I just want to see how much I’m NOT going to pay!

Too Many Hoops to Jump Through! - If you make your buyer go through a long list of steps, creating accounts, listing and revealing unnecessary information, you’re going to lose many sales. Make your payment process as easy as possible, and you may create not only a satisfied but also a potential return buyer. Make it an ordeal, or a process they feel unsure about, and you’ll lose them and anyone they speak to.

Asking For Another Email Address – Sometimes to ward off spam, payment processors don’t allow purchases using certain email providers, like Gmail, AOL or Yahoo. Think again. Much of the world operates off of these service providers, and the alternatives are likely to be worse.

Consider Coupon Offers Carefully – Studies have shown that asking “Do you have a coupon?” in the shopping cart can result in as much as 27% abandonment. Think about making sure either that potential buyers arrive there with coupon code in hand, or consider incentivizing some other way, such as purchase incentives for making it through the shopping cart, or getting the incentives via email afterwards. These produce much better results.

No Obvious Payment Options – If you make your buyer search high and low for the links to buy your products, or you have a payment processing system that has very few options to pay, you pretty much deserve what you get!

In short, take a moment, and be the customer on your own site. If you make the process anything but a pleasant and fast experience, you’re doing your own business a grave disservice!