Eight Ways To Kick Your Customers Out of Your Site	Visited: 537 Not rated Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by KC TAN October 02, 2007

With more and more Internet users buying goods and services online, many online business owners are constantly looking for means to retain and convert the traffic. It is common for the site owners to get confused and neglect the customers' needs while designing the site and online transaction process. The following are several points to bear in mind and to maximize the online revenue.

The first reason to drive away customers is to have a slow site. 99% of the users will click the 'back' button in their browser when they encounter a slow loading site and the remaining 1% will close the browser. You should always check your site's loading speed especially taking note of the big images. One common way to optimize your site is to reduce the quality of your images.

Some customers are also concerned about security if their credit card details were required. This is a sure way to kick your customers out of your door if your site requires their credit card number but did not demonstrate a proper security gateway.

Taking too long to close a deal also kills the buying mood of the customers. It may seems logical to ask for more details to build your own list at times but most buyers only want to get the process over fast.

A return policy is imperative as it instills confidence in your product and at the same time, assure the customers that they are covered for at least a certain period.

You should also decide on what are the details that you are going to collect from your potential customers. Some buyers stay away from sites that attempt to get as much information from the customers as possible. One excellent advice is to start with something simple and request for other useful information over time.

High shipping charges and long shipping time can also drive off your customers. Most buyers will not wait more than a month when ordering for a book online especially with a high shipping fee. You may want to consider an offer that allows the buyers to buy more products and have their shipping charges waived.

The last method is to mess up your checkout process. A small and out of the way checkout button will guarantee to drive your customers crazy while they are looking to complete the transaction. The checkout button should be prominent without any other misleading information surrounding it.