Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Blueprint Project Black Edition

The Blueprint Project: A Storefront Website


A person walks into your store, browses through products and shelves, sees items, inspects, considers the values, selects something and takes it up to the check out to pay. Now if you desire to sell your products or services online, then a site is required to be enabled for e-commerce, for which you must have the subsequent features:


You should provide lots of subject material and product description like sizes, dimensions, colors and comparisons with other similar products. It should permit the customer to choose a product, get a clear pricing and shipping costs relating to the product, complete the transaction and acquire an order number, and/or invoice confirmation via email. Let your customer to determine a shipping method.

You need to inform the buyer if the item is in stock or delivered against order. Ideally, you need to have an email contact or live help if the customer has a question. Just remember you have to respond immediately! If you want to provide your own personal live chat and help desk services on your website, specialized softwares are available for purchase.

Make sure your customer service links are large and clearly marked, so your client does not have to dig around to obtain information.

Offer an ‘about us’ section or a section about your policies. For those who have privacy statements and customer satisfaction policies, your customer will feel happier about shopping inside your store.

You probably want to have customer quotes and references on the storefront page, as well, to let your potential customer are aware that others are pleased with your service.

Provide an FAQ with information about your return-back policies, guarantees, shipping prices and insurance charges if any.

For everybody who is so inclined, you can offer a print catalogue if the customer likes to order one from your very own storefront and shop inside the privacy of their homes.

Do not annoy your customers by presenting products that are marked ‘sold’ or pages that say ‘under construction’ or ‘coming soon’.

Do add new content frequently, which means your returning customers won't be bored by seeing the same products they saw four months ago.

In the event your site has got a date tag or has current references, be careful to change these references frequently this means you don’t allow the perception that nobody is attending or viewing your web page.

For more info on starting your own webstore please click The Blueprint Project

Coleman Road trip grill