Helping ecommerce sites through bad publicity

[abovetopsecret]

Hi all,

I have an ecommerce site that in all honesty is doing quite well in the search engines, as I have put a lot of work into it and its still work in progress.

We not basing our lives on it, so we are just letting it run through this pretty tight time and we hope it will pick up after the summer ready for xmas.

But what I have come on here to see about, is in relation to a few news reports and programmes lately that are giving ecommerce unless your amazon a lot of bad press. People getting ripped off etc.

So I wanted to find out what other ecommerce businesses are doing to give their customers confidence to buy from them.

Any sites we can join to be an approved ecommerce retailer, what stuff people are doing to their websites, all that basically.

Hope I get a decent repsonse to this, because I think it could be a good topic for anyboy who has an ecommerce business.

Thanks

 

[abovetopsecret]

Ive done a little bit of research, and I think displaying a secure payment method to the user as in if your using paypal or protx helps.

I also looked into VeriSign, but I think the high charge would put off start ups, but thats a big one in my opinion.

 

[Foamcow]

I would say to ensure that you provide a clear means of contacting you via non-internet means.

An address, telephone number etc. goes a long way to instill customer confidence.

Also see if you can get some testimonials from past customers, sure they can be faked (don't fake them!) but again it gives a warm, fuzzy feeling.

And, on that note... I don't know what it is you are selling, but would it be appropriate to make the site 'warm and fuzzy'. Look at sites like Flickr, Moo etc. They have the sort of quirky, fun and informal nature that people like. Just like real life - we often prefer to buy from the friendly local store than the big, impersonal retail chain.

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[abovetopsecret]

Hi Foamcow,

Thanks for getting in contact, this is our store:

http://www.littleacornsgifts.co.uk

The telephone number is a definate yes, which we havent included, and the testimonials is a good idea too. I was looking into the amazon affiliate program, to supply the dvd's and books of the products we sell, i thought it would be good to sort of make it look as though we workign with amazon and they working with us, coudl be done with a bit of spin.

Im thinking of a forum too, but want to become more established before we go there, so we can iron out the problems first, dont want them moaning on there, instead of discussing products etc.

Thanks again