One of the biggest mistakes that most online retailers make is they do not take into account typical buyer behaviour. The conversion from real world to online provides many benefits to the retailer, but present some real challenges for the customer because their buying decision is made more difficult in an online environment.

This means having a website needs to be more than having just an online catalogue.

What to I mean? Lets take the example of a recent client of mine who sells sterling silver jewelry.

Their site that was well structured; the items pages were neatly laid out, images were clear, add to cart button clearly visible and there was a short description of the item. There was a page with a 14-day money back guarantee, and a privacy page saying your details would be kept secure. But still sales were slow.

What was missing? What could be done to encourage visitors to purchase?

The answer is we need to stop and think about buyer behaviour. Lets think about the buying process when we are in a physical store.

If the sales person handed you a card with a picture and short description of the item, would you buy? What if they went one step further