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load that people just click away.

6. Be accessible
You are now required to take reasonable steps to provide access to people with disabilities to your store. This means that all the images contained in your store should have alternate text ('Alt') tags so that visually impaired people can use your store.

9. sell, Sell, SELL
Just getting a customer to browse through your store means your marketing has worked. Now they are here the selling begins. Make sure they see your products. Don't place any barriers in the way and don't ask them to register before they can enter your store. Once they are in don't plague them with popups and surveys as one click, and they are gone, and your marketing was for nothing.

7. Build repeat custom
Once you have turned a potential customer into a paying customer you can be pretty certain they are more likely to buy for you again (assuming your order fulfilling and customer service is up to scratch). So why not use real and exclusive special offers to entice them to re-visit your site. Get them on your side and make them feel part of a your club. A newsletter is a great way of keeping your customers informed of new products, sales and new developments.

8. Build trust
Getting potential customers to part with money online involves a leap of faith on the customer's behalf. For example, will the goods ordered be dispatched quickly, will they actually arrive?

You need to build trust by reassure your potential customer by putting human faces to your store you can do this by including an about us page, which has good quality photographs of you or your staff. Under the EU Distance Selling Directive, you must make clear who you are by providing full contact details, including an address and phone number. This is also good practice for building trust.

It also helps to join a merchant accreditation scheme such as ISIS, TrustUK or SafeBuy. Finally find a prominent place to display customer feedback and testimonials.

9. Taking payment
To comply with the bank's latest data security standard, PCI DSS, you will need to use a third party payment gateway to take payments online. Good providers provide a fast and secure way to get paid online.

The following links will help:
paypal.com
netbanx.com
nochex.com
sagepay.com
paypoint.net
rbsworldpay.com

10. Organise shipping
The users of eBay know it's important to ship a product fast! It is not unusual to place an order and have it arrive the next day. If you want to impress your customers fast delivery is one of the best ways of doing this.

The following links will help:
paypal.com
ups.com
fedex.com
interparcel.com

More info:

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