Picture this: Your prospect has just learned about one of your products or services, and is now ready to buy from you. How you handle the next critical step can make or break the sale.

Always keep in mind that most consumers are understandably wary. They won't hesitate to abandon an intended purchase if they encounter doubts or inconvenient snags in the process.

I invite you to do a bit of honest self-examination when considering the following tips, since problems in this area may be costing you dearly in lost sales, right this very minute.

Acting to improve on what you discover could very well help boost your sales immediately.

1) How Easy Is It for Your Customers to Access Information Needed to Buy From You?

a) For example, does the design of your web site make it hard to navigate, or is the information needed to complete a transaction within easy access to your customers, with minimal mouse clicks?

Poor navigation is but one of many, many different snags that hinder web site sales. Problem is, most site owners, designers, and webmasters don't realize how much more a site could sell, if it were only more user-friendly.

b) While you may wisely reduce the amount of repetitive customer service issues by answering questions through a F.A.Q., (an acronym for Frequently Asked Questions) etc., some prospects may yet have additional questions not covered in it.

Do your prospects have a way to contact you to have such questions answered, and do you have an efficient system in place for answering them, promptly and efficiently?

Is the form of contact convenient to your prospects?

2) What Forms of Payment Do You Offer Your Customers?

a) Do you require your customers to send payment to you by check, cash or money order only via regular postal mail? If you're selling online and not accepting credit cards, you're likely losing many sales.

b) What types of credit cards do you accept? Virtually any type of business can increase sales by accepting payment by Visa and MasterCard.

But even businesses already accepting Visa and MasterCard may still be losing sales by not also accepting Discover and American Express, especially in the U.S.

True, Visa and MasterCard encompass the vast majority of all credit card transactions. But there are many consumers who instead prefer to use Discover or American Express.

Do you want their business? If so, your existing merchant account provider is most likely equipped to easily get you set up to accept them.

3) How Easy Do You Make It for Customers to Submit Payment?

a) Suppose that you do accept credit cards. Even though the risk of online credit card purchasing has been exaggerated, and isn't necessarily more risky than offline transactions, many consumers are concerned about submitting their credit card data online.

With this in mind, in addition to being equipped to accept online credit card orders through a secure server, do you provide alternate ordering options for those who hesitate (or refuse) to order online by credit card?

What about options to order with check, money order, or credit card, by phone, fax, or postal mail?

b) Is your online order system simple to understand and use, even for the most inexperienced users, or are they inconvenient and confusing? How do you know?

"Shopping cart abandonment" is a term used to describe when a would-be online customer abandons, or bails out of, an online order form or shopping cart, before completing an intended purchase.

Beware that this commonly overlooked problem robs Internet merchants of billions of dollars in lost sales each year, and that the selection and design of your online order system has a major impact on your profits - for good or bad!

c) Do you work hard to eliminate guesswork for customers, provide complete order details, and guide them simply and gently through the ordering process?

Remember: Any extra hoop you require prospects and customers to jump through is an extra obstacle in the way of a sale; another reason to change their minds about buying from you.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's always room for improvement - in every business in existence. So don't feel bad when you find them in your own business. I guarantee you they exist; you just may not be aware of them yet.

Unfortunately, there's not enough room in this article to cover all the obstacles possibly hindering your online sales, of which there are at least hundreds!

How it works: You offer a product online for sale at $97. You list all the features and benefits of your product as well as the glowing testimonials you received from your previous customers or your product testers. Your sales copy is so hot, any human being reading it would have no pulse if he doesn't order your product straight away.

Okay, we make an exception for those who truly don't have any money right now. But don't worry, the technique I'm about to share with you can even help these people.

Suddenly, as your prospect reads through your sales letter and is about to click on the red hot and waiting order button of your sales letter, he is slammed with a surprise offer.

You tell him, "Want my product for only $27? I'll slash a huge chunk off the price if you tell 2 friends about my website!"

What do you think is going to happen?

What would you do if you are your prospect?

Would you purchase for $97 or $27 (and 2 friends)?

You'd obviously go for the $27 offer right?

Now imagine that about 99% of your prospects who really want your product choose the $27 option.

What would happen to your website traffic? What would this mean to your online sales? How much would your revenue increase?

You do the Math!

Now, it's actually pretty simple to set up a mechanism like this to increase the sales of your product not to mention your website traffic. If you've had some experience creating your own sales letter, setting up your website, etc, you should take no longer than 30 minutes (or even less) to set up something like this.

Here, let me offer you a free "Tell Your Friend" viral marketing script that lets you give your referrers an incentive bonus after they tell their friends about your website:-
http://www.traffictimebomb.com/tyf.zip

There are no gimmicks, no rituals, no voodoo chanting, no blood sacrifice, no email addresses and no cash required to download that script. It's absolutely free.

Now what if you want to exponentially speed up the viral process of your visitors telling their friends who in turn tell more friends and so on, perpetually?

You simply add another element to this already powerful viral twist - the element of Time!

Have you watched the horror movie "The Ring"? If you have, then you'll know what I'm talking about.

Time (Deadline) + Irresistible Incentive to pass on the Viral Message = Nuclear Explosion of your Marketing Virus!

Simply tell your visitors that they have only a certain number of days to get their friends to visit your website or else you'll take away your incentive bonuses forever. But they still get to purchase your product at that special discounted price, of course, as a gesture of goodwill.

What folks don't understand is that online marketing does not have to be very complicated. It just needs the right stuff to keep you going.

For instance the use of mailing list, in particular opt in list. Before, no one ever dared to use opt in list thinking that it will not do any good for their business. Almost all entrepreneurs think that building an opt in list is just a waste of time and money. What they do not know is that, according to the “golden oversee of the Internet,” money is in the list. It has most likely been voiced before, and is worth repeating, money is really in the list.

Why? Because with opt in lists, this allows you to keep your readers on the hook by providing them with information, promotion, and other campaigns in order to persuade them to buy from you again.

Essentially, opt in lists are lists of email addresses of customers with their consent. This means that after the purchaser had closed the transaction in a particular web site, there is an option on whether or not they wish to subscribe to the correspondence of the online business for any future promotions, newsletters, or campaigns that they would contrarily be told of.

And because it is an option, the customers are not required to make available their email addresses to the internet site. Also, the web site owners will not be accused of spamming because emails that will be sent to the customers have the consent of the client. Once you start to move beyond basic background information, you begin to realize that there's more to Opt In List than you may have first thought.

Building an opt in list can be very valuable to your site. Clearly, it has been proven that in the two-step concept of retailing, follow-ups are worthwhile to prolong the interest of the consumers. The other step is to obtain the interest of the buyer.

For this reason, in order to sustain the interest of your buying audience, it is very best to create an opt in list so that allows you to give your customers the chance to remember your products, your business, and your services, in which they have been satisfied with.

To know more of the advantages of Building an opt in list for your business; here is a list that would tell you the reasons why it is beneficial.

1. Opt in lists are the business’ most significant asset

If you were to ask the owners of some online business preparing their most important asset, they will tell you that it is their opt in list. This is because opt in lists are customers’ lists that can provide higher probability for sales in a more uniform and stable condition. Because with opt in lists, all you have to do is to follow up orders or sales through promotions and ad campaigns.

2. It is always available

The perfect thing in reference to opt in list is that it never grows old. Similar to long similar to your purchaser needs something to survive, your communication with them will never grow old. This means that allows you to have a fresh, new transaction with them whenever you tell them that you have new services or products. Every transaction is a new way of bettering your profits. Unquestionably put, no opt in list = no sales.

3. Bigger opt in list would mean bigger profits

The more client’s names and email addresses you have on your list, the more chances you have in increasing your online sales. Every name, every email send can be worth a hundred dollars that can be compiled with each transaction. Therefore, the larger your list, the more money you will have.

When all is said and done, opt in lists are not just ordinary correspondences. It is the center of of an online businesses existence and endurance. That is why for everybody who value their businesses, they extend the same value they offer to their opt in list. No wonder the reason most everyone regard it similar to the perfect partnership available online.

You may have your own auto dealership that offers services from vehicle repair to simple purchases of Suzuki auto parts and the like. But your business is sure going to spurt more when you hear about the new program that would help you gain more customers and more income as well.

This new program is called the Rapid Response program and it has been launched by Autobytel Inc which is considered as one of the automotive world’s leading Internet marketing services company. The Rapid Response program is actually one of the first from the company’s Keep in Touch, or KIT, services that has been created so as to help dealers be able to successfully manage their shops and at the same time be also able to communicate with any of their customers needs online.

As per the Rapid Response, just by the name itself, you would know that this is some really fast type of service. Sure enough, according to Autobytel, this program actually initiates phone calls to any Autobytel member auto dealers to notify them within seconds about a customer’s inquiry on vehicles’ price quotes. And with this type of service, many auto dealers have said that indeed, the Rapid Response has helped many dealers have better customer satisfaction rates and even better sales.

Mark Garms, the senior vice president of dealer operations for Autobytel, even is satisfied by Rapid Response. He expresses, “The goal of Rapid Response is to put our dealers on the phone with the customer so quickly that the customer is literally still sitting at the computer. Obviously, that sets the stage for better contact rates, but it also creates new opportunities for dealers to interface online with customers, for example by leading them through a virtual inventory walk around or showing them different color or trim options.”

Even Mike Bromer is satisfied for he says, “Rapid Response puts my sales team in a prime position to speak with Internet customers immediately after they have decided to buy or learn more. That automated connection has completely transformed our online sales process by breaking it out of the computer, so to speak, and putting it in real time, in the real world.” Bromer is currently the general manager of Continental Honda.

Have you ever clicked on a link, or ad that seems to be offering you the exact answer to your question? A perfectly worded ad that seems to have all of the answers that you may have been searching for, for hours. You click on the ad, then you are transported to the page only to find that in order to find out what you are looking for you must go through a rigorous search, and click until the cows come home in order to find exactly what it is you were looking for.

By the time you have found the page that promised you all the answers to your troubles, you are feeling so hassled and tired of navigating the website. You sigh and only half read the information on the website, further more you don’t really take in what the offer is all about and decide that it is probably not what you were looking for after all. Then you see some other offer and decide to click on that link instead. Will you ever visit that page again? It is unlikely.

On the other hand, when you click on an ad, or link that is offering you a solution to all of your problems, and you are transported directly to the spot that has all the answers, you begin to read with gusto. In fact, you are so glad that you have found a solution to your question that as you read you become more and more exited about what is being offered.

Then right at the perfect time there is your opportunity to purchase all the answers in one easy click, so you do. You leave the website with your new purchase in hand, congratulating yourself on finding the perfect solution so easily.

Think about both of these scenarios and ask yourself which one would you prefer? The easiest access of course. Now consider your own website, and ask yourself which scenario is the most likely to happen to a visitor when they are transported to your website? Do you place so many barriers in your customer’s way that by the time they find the answer, they no longer feel like looking for it? On the other hand, do you give your visitors what they want right away, and get a sale or reaction from them while they are still keen to find an answer?

Web surfers are known to have very short attention spans, because of this it is important to grab their attention, and give them exactly what they are looking for as soon as they ask for it. Don’t make them work too hard, and don’t place barriers in their way to finding the solution or answer that they desire.

Often when potential customers are browsing on the web and are looking for answers, or solutions to their problems, they may be tempted away from their current search by an ad that you may have placed on Google. The trick is that you need to provide a gateway for your potential customer that displays the information they are looking for immediately.

If you make the prospective customer search or have to navigate through a mass of pages, you will be guaranteed that they will loose interest and most probably click on another ad, or abandon their search altogether. Either way despite your flashy ad and promises to a solution, you have failed to answer the question you promised in your ad in a timely manner.

By offering the shortest distance between their click on your ad, and the desired information the potential customer is most likely to be in a buying mode and look over your offer more thoroughly. Keep in mind that when you do get a customer looking for a solution, they click on your ad, and the page opens give them one answer at a time. Don’t bombard them with a heap of other solutions or links.

One page should equate to one desired effect, whether it is information, solutions, or a sale. Don’t confuse your potential customers with too many options and most of all don’t make your potential customer navigate your whole website in order to find an answer to their question. Because if you make your potential customer work too hard for their answer you will loose their attention, and you wont get a sale despite all of the trouble you have gone to.

Affiliate marketing can be a profitable venture for you, as a merchant or affiliate. It presents you with a great opportunity to increase revenue, and build valuable business relationships.

Affiliate Benefits and Resources

As an affiliate partner, you’re capitalizing on traffic you already have. Every time someone clicks through your site and makes a purchase on your merchant’s site, you earn a commission. Explains Anik Singal, CEO of http://AffiliateClassroom.com, “Your job is to deliver as much qualified traffic to your merchants as possible.” That means pre-selling their products to customers, and preparing them to make that purchase when they click through to their site.

To become an affiliate, check out http://ClickBank.com or http://LifeTimeCommissions.com, or go to Amazon’s homepage and click on the Join Associates link. You should keep several factors in mind when deciding which merchants to promote:

• Is their affiliate program free to join? If it’s not, move on.
• What’s their reputation like? Do a little research, and make sure you want to be associated with them.
• Do they have a proven conversion rate? Don’t waste time driving traffic to a site that doesn’t sell.

Merchant Benefits and Resources

For a merchant, affiliate advertising is a low-risk, high ROI promotional channel. Your affiliates are your online sales force, but you only pay when they actually make a sale. You also diversify your traffic, so if your AdWords aren’t performing or your natural listing drop, you have another source to fall back on. Says Singal, “Why say ‘No’ to all this extra traffic when it’s very little risk to you? You can launch an affiliate program for pennies on the dollar.”

There are different ways to find and recruit affiliates:

• Join an active network, such as CommissionJunction or LinkShare. Most networks alert their members when a new merchant joins their program, and encourage them to see if they’d be a good match.

• Do keyword searches, based on your product line. Sort through the sites that come up, and focus on content sites, especially ones using blogs. Make sure they’re reputable, and relevant to your target market. Personally contact them, and see if they’re willing to work with you.

Online Home Based Business is the best possible way to earn a decent living online. I have been running my own home business for last couple of years and I must honestly admit that I am doing well at it. In my past 4 years experience of online business, my top money making period started with the beginning of Affiliate/Reseller Programs such as Clickbank and Commission Junction. There were times when I used to hear something like "Earn $1,000 per day from your home" and my reaction would have been "Yeah, yeah another scam artist". But now thanks to places like clickbank, it is really possible to make that amount per day! That’s no more a dream.

If you are thinking that this is bogus and impossible than I do not blame you. People thought the same when some one talked about going on the moon or when someone simply said that the Earth is round! The whole point is in believing and trying to reach out for it. So, if you are really want to make some serious money online then Affiliate Programs are definitely the way to go. You will find more elaborate information about it on my website http://www.profitfrominternet.com/

Here I discuss some serious points that you must absolutely consider before joining or promoting any "Pay Per Sale" (You are paid commission on every sale you make) Affiliate Program.

1. Does the affiliate program offer you a free way to join without buying the product or service?

2. Contact other affiliates already in the program to see if they have had any problems.

3. Is the product or service related to your target audience?

4. Can they notify you by e-mail when a sale is made?

5. Do they offer backend products so you can get repeat sales from the same person?

6. How often will you receive a commission check?

7. Do you get credited for a sale if people come back in month and then make a purchase.

8. Can you get around-the-clock help online or offline? Message Board Support?

9. Do you get a large percentage of each sale as commission?

10. Do they provide you with proven sales material? (Links, banners, classified ads, content, sales letters etc)

11. Will they give you the leeway to create promotional ads?

12. Do they offer you access to an online sales stats page?

13. Do they use a reputable system to track your sales?

14. Does the affiliate program pay commission for sales of people who sign up under you?

15. Can they offer customers a lot of different ordering options, so in return you won't lose sales.

16. Will they keep in contact with you on a regular basis by e-mail?

17. Do they offer datafeeds or web services?

18. How well do they fight scumware?

19. Do they allow you to encrypt the LINK, link in frames, or do a .htaccess redirect?

20. Do they allow you to place your own orders through your own affiliate link?

Although you will never find all the above factors at the same time with a single affiliate program. But according to me the general rule of thumb is if you get any 5 matching points then the program is a sure winner. Just don’t be skeptical like me or you will never know what you can get out of it.

Reducing inventory management costs is an essential and integral part of any business, but none more so than in the process manufacturing business. Proper inventory management can make a real difference in obtaining and retaining a competitive edge in the sales markets for the particular products a company offers. Modern inventory management is often much more complicated than the once standard practice of simply keeping abreast of inventory levels and costs. Today's process manufacturing businesses need integrated inventory controls that are streamlined for effective operation with distribution, compliance and other software protocols.
Often, because of the discrepancy between prices for large vs. small orders, volume pricing controls are necessary. Process manufacturers may also need to set complex pricing structures based on differing sales stratagems for wholesale, retail or online sales. Consideration should also be give as to whether or not automation applications should be inherent in the inventory management software itself. For larger companies, software that can not only keep track of stock levels but also relay ordering notification information is a necessity. Aside from specialty features, inventory management software should offer almost unlimited capabilities to assign categories departmentalize and compartmentalize various incoming and outgoing resources. As process manufacturing is one of the most challenging industries in regard to inventory (and in general), the level of complexity necessary to effectively keep track of resources is substantially high, and must be reflected in the abilities of the software.
Additionally, inventory management software must be integrated into an organizations pre-existing software or must be offered as part of a fully encompassing business solution system that incorporates applications for all aspects of the process manufacturing business. Because most inventory management software applications are offered as part of a larger financial, distribution and general process manufacturing application, knowledge with the software offerings available to the industry as a whole is highly recommended.

There is one hard and fast rule in generating income for your website: A steady flow of website traffic. If no one goes to your site, it hardly bares a chance of generating an income. Many sites have tried and failed in doing so, and these results to the sites demise. It takes money to maintain an income generating site; it also takes money to make money.

BUT, it doesn't take a whole caboodle of cash to generate website traffic for your site.

Ever wonder how does big hit sites drive traffic top their site? Most of them are spending tons of money to drive the traffic to their sites, investing in many advertising campaigns and different forms of marketing schemes and gimmickries. This is all worthwhile because, well, they are what they are now, high earning, big hitting websites.

You don't have to do this if you don't really have their resources. There are many ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don't have or can't afford. Many people have banked on high cost methods and have ended up losing their shirt over it.

Here I present to you the Top five ways to generate low cost website traffic that could help your site a whole lot. Even if you only get a small percentage of successful visitors in to client ratio it still works especially if you get a high number of website traffic.

Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven method. Rarely would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You'll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites is having the same niche or content as the other site. They should share a common subject so that there is continuity in the providing of service and information to what interests your target traffic.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks high sites that have inbound and outbound theme-related links. With a good ranking position in the search engines, you will generate more traffic in your website without the high costs.

Traffic Exchange

This is like exchanging links but on a different higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links but could be made cheaper because you get to earn credits. You can use those credits when viewing others traffic, while you earn credits when someone views yours.

Traffic exchange services are the viewing of another's site or page. This is done vice versa where a site can use your sites contents and so can you to his or her site. You both benefit from each others efforts to generate traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your sites existence is boosted.

Write and Submit Articles

There are many e-zines and online encyclopedias in the internet which provides free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can do the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do those articles yourself.

Write articles that are themed along with the niche of your site. Write something that you have expertise on so that when they read it, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site. Write articles that produce tips and guidelines to the subject or niche your site has.

Include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Write a little about yourself and your site. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more.

Make a Newsletter.

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter but on the contrary, this is not so. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in on your newsletter. This will also provide free advertising for them as well.

As your newsletter gets pass around, you can widen your public awareness and build an opt-in list that can regularly visit your site.

Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. You can share your knowledge and expertise with many online communities as well as your website. You can get free advertising when you go to forums that have the same subject or niche with your site.

E-commerce is a cut throat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest. Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.

Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.

But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I aforementioned, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make them selves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better everyday.

So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.

With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let's just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.

So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site's existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.

Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.

You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site's content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.

You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.

Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.

If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.

Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.