Oh yes...One of the top questions arrived into my email-box is related about "sales". 

You can explode your orders by following some easy steps...Why not to write them down? 


Entice people to link to your web site by giving them something free in return. This'll increase your ranking in some search engines. 


Trigger your reader's emotions in your ad copy. Example, if you sell a book on gambling tips, tell them the feelings they'll get when they win money. 


Add a chat room or message board to your web site. People want to interact with other people that have they same interests as them. 


Offer something that is really free. If people go to your site and what you said was free really isn't, you'll lose their trust and they won't buy anything. 


Ask people questions in your ad copy that make them think about their problems. For example: Do you want to be free of your debts? 


Magnify the size of your prospects problem in your ad; show how your product can solve it. The bigger the problem, the more sales you'll have. 


Make sure your site looks good in all browsers. You could be losing sales because it looks distorted in some web browsers. 


Increase your sales by e-mailing full page ads to your e-zine subscribers. Remember to tell people before they subscribe or they may consider it spam. 



Right, right my friend.

Succeeding in business can be a hassle and a headache without the right tools. This is especially true when dealing with ecommerce. Regardless of the market, service, or goods being offered, the one tool that is essential to the success of every online ecommerce business is a reliable ecommerce shopping cart. 

The online shopping cart is your one stop container for placing and receiving orders online. A basic shopping cart will allow the customer to specify the quantity of the goods wanted, take the customer’s credit, billing, and shipping information, and actually allow the customer to place the order. However, a good shopping cart software solution will do all of this and so much more. 

Many ecommerce shopping cart solutions offer customizable templates and design tools for your shopping cart and sometimes even your website. There are also several web hosting shopping cart solutions that will not only handle the order placement and transactions, but also handle the hosting needs of your website. 

Other tools and features included in shopping cart software packages are affiliate system management programs, search engine optimization tools, and advanced shipping options. There are also several ecommerce providers that offer secure encrypted credit card processing along with other merchant account tools as a part of using their shopping cart solution for your ecommerce needs. 

Almost all reputable shopping cart software providers also offer full telephone, email and live internet chat support in case any questions may arise after purchasing their service. All of this is done to allow you to focus on growing your online business. By automating the backend of your website, you don’t have to worry about manually taking each order that comes in. Ecommerce shopping cart software handles all of this for you. 

Make your online business profitable, secure, and reliable with an affordable shopping cart software solution. It is one of the best investments you can make in the operational aspect of your ecommerce venture.

One of the most popular questions asked in online business forums or even by my customers and subscribers is this : 

“How the hell can I increase my sales?” 
or 

“I’ve got tons of visitors but nobody seems to be buying anything? What gives?” 

FISHNETS WITH HOLES? ANYONE? 
Getting traffic is not the be all and end all of a successful online business. It requires skills, specific online marketing strategies designed for your site and a robust customer service strategy. 

So what if you have thousands of visitors per day! That does’nt amount to success, unless you close at least 5 to 10% of those visitors. 

You see, when you get a lot of traffic from your advertising and marketing activities and nobody there to guide them, is like hauling a big fishing net in the water with a major flaw…..it has a sizeable hole in the middle. So you can say goodbye to eating fish…for now, at least. 

Would you go and pick up items on display from a store that does not offer the least bit assurance of somebody manning it? Sure! Sure, we’re on the work smart, work less attitude but hey, humans prefer humans, and they most certainly will buy from somebody they’ve talked to before. You see, they need to feel some warmth and yes, especially on the internet where items are passed on in “cold” or “digital” means. 



DOING THE BOTTOMLINE 
It’s good that you have some or a lot of visitors to your website, but the bottomline is that you should have the best customer service and a lot of options for them to contact you, the soonest. The more the better! 

Look around you. Take a look at the most popular sites on the net or even your favorite newsletter, they all have one common factor, customer service availability. 

The most common or popular customer service strategy is through a form-to-mail which prohibits anybody from spamming your email account rather than having them email you directly, well unless you have a very good email filter software. 

But you can offer them additional ways to contact you such as these options below. 


PROVIDE MANY OPTIONS FOR CONTACT 
Online business is a contact sport. You want to close more sales? Then increase your customer service availability and options. 

Providing them with a lot of options would mean that you are always ready to receive their inquiries, or issues with a welcoming smile. It would make you more credible. It would create a halo of success to your already plumed hat. 

Let us take a look at some of the free ways for you to interact with your website visitors: 

CHAT SERVICES 
Mostly, website owners would be the one manning these free chat services and if you’d like to be assumed as a pro-entrepreneur you can always advance anytime to a helpdesk solution or upgrade from your free account. 

Bravenet.com - Free Webmaster Resources. Cut and paste services you can use for your site for free. They use LivePerson for their customer help service. (FREE AND PRO) 
http://www.Bravenet.com 


Chat-Forum.com – They offer free Java Chat Rooms & Advanced Custom Internet Chat Solutions (FREE AND PRO) 
http://chat-forum.com/ 


Parachat.com - They’re solutios enable real-time communication on their own web site for a host of applications, including corporate interaction, moderated events, distance education, visitor retention, customer service, dating and romance, entertainment, and family fun. (FREE AND PRO) 
http://www.parachat.com 


Boldchat.com - Boldchat is a FREE live chat service for web sites to do live help and live support chats with visitors. They don’t have ads and their free account is for unlimited personal use. (FREE AND PRO) 
http://www.boldchat.com 



PHONE SUPPORT 
If you want credibility then put your phone number up in your website. Make it more visible to the eye especially on your home page or on your product or service order page. This way, they’ll be more comfortable to see that they can call you anytime. You can ask your local phone company to provide you with a 1800 number so visitors all over the world can call you for free. 

RULING IN VOIP 
VoIp is certainly getting it’s share of the market right now as more and more softphones or internet phones are coming out of the market every month. 

What is voip? Voice over internet phone which basically denotes that you can now make clear pc to pc calls worldwide. 

Skype.com 
Take a look at Skype for example. They’re definitely a new player against giants like Yahoo, and MSN but they say that they have 14 million downloads up to date. I’m not against them but hey, they’re software is ad-ware so you should be aware! 
http://www.Skype.com 

Buzzfon.com 
There’s a new player in town and they call their pc to pc calling softphone, Buzzfonp2p. They’re giving away free 30 day trials and yes, the user surveys are in. They’re clear, the quality is amazing with no disruptions mind you even if you’re on dial up! So you can check them out. http://www.buzzfon.com and nope, they don’t have ads on them and you can even make pc to phone calls, phone to phone calls, phone to pc calls on their advanced version of Buzzfonp2p, aptly called, Buzzfon+. 

GO BROADBAND FOR LESS 
There are a lot of broadband services out there who would’nt charge you an arm and a leg for their services. One of them is Vonage and the newest player in town is Bonusfon. 

Vonage.com 
They have specific target packages for different market segments and they’re basically number one in terms of broadband user surveys. 
http://www.vonage.com 

Bonusfon.com 
They are certainly getting their own share of the market, as what the energetic telecom owner Tam Sanchez said regarding distributing global broadband services. Their rates are highly affordable and they have a feature called pay –per-talk. Pay only for the services you need and you want. Yes, they’re lower than Vonage and more competitive and flexible in terms of packaging. 
http://www.bonusfon.com 


HELPDESK SOLUTIONS 
Helpdesk solutions are web applications that you install on your own server or hosted on the provider’s server that includes most of the customer support solutions like FAQ, TICKET SUPPORT SYSTEM, and LIVE CHAT. Some even have phone in support. 

There are a lot of helpdesk solutions out there which are free but then always has a drawback. It’s either, chatting service are slow on your server or it just freezes in the screen while you’re online or you can only try it if you have the latest language of php, and perl installed in your server. 

There are particular helpdesk solutions we like that offers a lot more for less. 

LiveHelp.Stardevelop.com – PHP Live Help Messenger is the new real-time, live chat, customer service software solution allowing customer support operators to chat to potential online customers browsing your web site. (Price : $89.00) 
http://www.livehelp.startdevelop.com 



DNAHelpdesk.com - DNA Helpdesk is a powerful yet user friendly module for the corporate helpdesk available on its own, combined with DNA Pack 1 (Inventory) or as part of our overall DNA management suite. DNA Helpdesk is a fully web based solution providing detailed recording and tracking of user Help Requests. (Price : Commercial) 
http://www.dnahelpcenter.com/ 


IN CONCLUSION 
There are a lot of ways to interact and create a more personalized service than your other competitors and that will surely depend on the ways and means that you want them to contact you. Provide them more avenues of interaction and they will certainly trust you more than your competitors. Help them to help yourself. 

Happy Profitting!