The primary goal for any successful e-commerce site is to be easy for the customer to use. Consumers have become so accustomed to easy-to-use e-comerce sites that they often don't understand the complex actions that are taking place behind the scenes. To the consumer, they merely pick their desired product, pay, and leave, the same as they would in any retail store.

Customers are impatient, finicky creatures, accustomed to the quick flow of information so common in the world. They are less likely to continue shopping at a site with a slow response time or with excessively deep navigational structures. It's crucial to your site's success that it's as responsive as possible and that all of the most important information your customer needs is positioned prominently and easily visible on every page. If your site bogs the customer down with excessive unrelated content or if the navigation to the information they want is not immediately obvious, it's very likely that you will lose that potential sale. However, simply quickly displaying the information they need is not the whole picture. You must present the information to them in a fashion that is visually appealing, attention grabbing, and that effectively encourages the customer to buy.

Artistic and technical quality is absolutely everything to an e-commerce site! According to survey results published by Bizrate.com in 2001, out of the more than 9,500 online shoppers surveyed it was revealed that more than 75 percent leave a site without a sale. Of the 75 percent who abandon their online shopping carts, 31 percent cited poor site organization and 21 percent cited slow response times as the reason they left the site without a purchase. Of the 75 percent who abandon their shopping carts, 44 percent purchased the same or similar products from another competitor's site!

All of the potential customer's who browse your site can be divided into three distinct groups. For a site to be successful, it must be designed such that it caters to each of these three groups of customers without alienating any of the others. The three groups are:

The customer who knows exactly what they want, knows that you have it, and is ready to buy. This customer is the dream of all business owners. To get the sale, the customer must be able to promptly and effortlessly find the product they want and quickly complete checkout.

The customer who is browsing to buy. They aren't necessarily looking for anything specific, they simply have money to burn and want to spend it. Your website must convince these shoppers that if they choose to buy then your site and company is the best choice and value for their money.

Finally, the most common customer type is that who accidentally stumbles upon your e-commerce site while surfing the web. Your site's presentation is the key to dealing with this type of customer. The primary task is to present them with easy access to information related to your products or services and to make the information as interesting and fun as possible. If you can coax them into wanting a product, it must be extremely easy for them to buy the item.

We follow a set of standard criteria that we've developed over our many years of experience in developing successful e-commerce sites. By asking ourselves the following questions, we can build a top-notch site for our clients that fulfill the needs of all customer types:

• What kind of layout and navigational tools will be used in the site?
• Will the color scheme of the site add or detract from its value in the eyes of the customer?
• When is an intricate design so intricate that it interferes with sales?
• Is the quality of the site obvious? The site's stability and quality direct affect the customer's view of the products and services advertised on the site.

These questions, and more, must be answered by our knowledgeable staff before one hour of time is put into the actual development of your project. We are constantly learning, through trade articles and scientific journals related to marketing, psychology, and human-machine interfaces, so that we stay ahead of the curve and provide cutting-edge, high-quality, relevant, and sales-effective e-commerce sites to our customers.