The vital facts to sell online:

There are numerous website today which spend much more to maintain the website than what they earn from the website. This may be good if you have set up a website for any other reason but not when it is supposed to be a source of earning. There is no point using a great design, a sophisticated cart and ending up with some pennies as the revenue. There are some sites which are flooded with buyers and others which hardy see any buyers.

There is a big gap between the successful and the loser websites, the successful ones are able to convert nearly 2 to 9 percent of their visitors into buyers and the unsuccessful ones are hardly able to make even 1 percent conversions. That brings every loss making web based business to ponder, where have they gone wrong. The design may be perfect and the software functional, you may even be accepting online payments but still there is something missing. And this something makes all the difference.

You may be wondering what could it be, you may dissect your entire setup to find out the cause, and if still havent found any reason we have the answer ready fro you in just one word. And that magical word is trust. For any business to be successful, be it online or offline, it should be able to create a feeling of trust in the mind of the consumer. No trust would simply mean, no business for you. And this becomes a more vital factor when we turn towards the internet business, because there is no human touch at the business end. So people may prefer to buy only from websites of big brands which are able to build an image of trust in the mind of the consumers, and this will become clearer if you can get hold of some research data on this subject. The brands need not be bid product brands like Compaq or Hewlett Packard; they can be online brands too like Amazon. Dont get worked up you need not build a big and strong brand as that, all you need is to generate a feeling of trust in the minds of the visitors to your site. Based on trust as the key factor, we have outlined three types of success strategies for you to choose from.

• Trusted brands strategy:

In todays media run world there would hardly be any people who would have remained untouched by the power of the brand. In all media, one can see or hear numerous advertisements targeted at promoting branded products. There are ads playing on the TV, the magazines and newspapers are full of ads, banners on the walls or in the streets, so the brands are doing a lot of work to build trust in the consumers mind. Most of these companies are into physical stores and websites are used just to generate additional revenue. But there are online brands too, which have come up after a lot of hard work and a lot of money going into the business. There are several of them now, and some of the ones which are leaders today started very small and it was difficult for anyone to imagine they could grow out to be so big. Some of the things that these companies did were to extensively advertise on the net through all strategically effective methods, offer the most competitive pricing, never compromise with product and service quality, use the fastest and the most trustworthy carriers to deliver goods and offering refund policies. With all this they ensured that there would be no reason left with the consumer to doubt them or not trust them. If a branded company is not able to sell on its website, the only reason could be an ill designed site.

• Selling to old existing customers:

This strategy uses the existing database of the buyers to convert them into repeat sales. In this way the seller is also able to extend some kind of discounted prices to the consumers as selling online may reduce or cut down some of the costs. This is preferably the best choice for the international sellers, as they can provide more efficient and faster service to their customers by implementing eCommerce solutions. Another place where it is gaining popularity is wholesale selling as this adds convenience for the buyers too. To get repeated sales the companies may make special offers to the customers, which are normally sent through email.

• Strategy for the un-branded:

If you are out there selling unknown brands and are worried as to where will you stand in the race, its time you stop worrying. You can also have high conversion rates like the branded companies, by doing some amount of extra effort. The trust factor can be increased in the minds of the consumers by imparting them with good and effective education on the products and services you offer. To begin with supply the visitors to your website with some free products or free information, in order to create a database of their email addresses or other contact information. This information will come to use when you need to educate them about your website and also when you want to advertise to these customers. Also there should be some good online content to entice the first time visitors. Once you receive orders show you efficiency in delivering the products within the promised time to build up trust.

So the bottom line suggests every online business owner to build trust in their customers, if they want to experience the real power of selling online.