A key question you may ask yourself when planning your e-commerce site is how do I turn visitors to my site from "window shoppers" to buyers of my product or service. This section of our e-commerce planning guide will explore this.

Price-not necessarily the number one factor.
Many people would argue that price is the number one factor motivating people to purchase on the web. Certainly, price is an important.

According to the GVU 10th Internet demographic survey (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu), the most important factors are convenience and variety.

Main Factors sited for not purchasing.
In the same survey, respondents said that the main factors for not purchasing were security, lack of privacy and quality.

The number one concern of Internet surfers is privacy. Look at the backlash against things such as mass e-mailing (junk mailing or "spamming"). Why is this?

Because the Internet is a very personal medium. It is different than an other interactive medium in the sense that you surf the Internet from the privacy of your own home, from your living room, bedroom or den. You have control over the content that comes to you. Unlike television you actively interact with this content. The computer exists within your personal space. When you go to an e-commerce site, you interact anonymously, without obligation.

These psychological factors should not be dismissed. Many large corporations have, with near disastrous results. A good example of this is Intel's near disastrous introduction of the Pentium III. Intel put a unique "electronic serial number" inside each chip in order to reduce fraud in on-line credit card transactions. What Intel thought would be a boon to electronic commerce turned out to create a tremendous outcry in the on-line community. Many people felt that they would loose control of their privacy. The public outcry began to overshadow an otherwise positive product introduction. Intel withdrew the passive implementation of this feature (a user must now actively turn this feature on if they want it).

People expect information to be easily accessible and without charge or obligation. People view the web as a grand repository of free information. You will generally produce more ill will than income by asking people to sign-in and divulge personal information or pay in order to get information that they can access for free from else where on the web. Of course there are exceptions. Examples are a company such as Jupiter Communications or Lexus/Nexus that are well know for there extensive and reliable information databases, then you can charge for your on-line service

Gain your customers trust by:

In the final section of this e-commerce planning guide, we will look at how to create a customer oriented website.

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