Know your audience. At the heart of every transaction is good communication—something was offered (you posted your products in your Office Live Small Business store), and something was accepted (when your customer bought your product). In order to make that transaction happen, customers need to know clearly what you’re offering and why it should appeal to them. In order to sell effectively to those customers, you have to know who they are, what they want, what they expect to see, and what kind of information they want to find in a product listing. If you do your homework and know what types of product listings resonate with your target audience, you can tailor your own product listings in a similar way and increase your chances of big-time sales success.

Write great copy. Along with what your customers want to see goes the question of how they want to see it. Depending on the type of products you sell, your customers might like an irreverent sense of humor (or not). They might be "touchy-feely" (or not); they might want to hear solid, reliable, secure undertones in your copy (if you give "touchy-feely" text to a banking crowd, they might be concerned about the accuracy or security of your product).

Include quality photos. Don’t post a photo about any product that presents it in anything less than the best possible light. Why? Because that subpar photo may be the one your customer uses to make a purchasing decision. When a customer is looking at the products on your site (Congratulations! That’s half the battle), make sure you’re displaying the best possible quality for that small moment of attention you’re getting. Remember, the average consumer looks at a page for only a few seconds before deciding whether to look closer or click away. A good photo appearing in those few seconds may persuade your customer to stick around for a better look.

Answer users’ questions. Consumers are much more comfortable purchasing online today than they were a few years ago, but people still want their questions answered. Include a FAQ page on your site so customers can see you’re anticipating their questions and care about answering them.

Show that you’re trustworthy. Everything on your site tells a customer whether you’re a good purchasing risk or not. If your pages are professionally done, your links work, your text reads well, and your photos are strong, all those almost subliminal pieces of information reinforce the idea that you’re a reputable seller. Uneven page design, oddly worded copy, missing or broken links, and mom-and-pop looking photo selections can detract from the overall trustworthiness of your site. And that can translate directly into dollars spent on online purchases.

Help provide a safe user experience. Office Live Small Business helps safeguard your users’ data by partnering with PayPal to enhance the security of financial transactions. Adding similar security protection can be an expensive undertaking if you’re creating a site with an independent ISP.

Make the process intuitive. Office Live Small Business helps you create an easy-to-use shopping cart and purchasing experience. Be sure to regularly review the sales experience from the customer’s point of view so that you can be confident things are working as they should and the process is as simple to follow as possible. Ask others you know—friends, peers, relatives—to test your shopping experience as well and give you feedback about areas that are difficult to understand or navigate.

Let users contact you. Customers want to know there’s a real person behind the site and that they can get their questions answered in a timely way. Be sure to display contact links prominently on your site—especially on your Product List page.

Promote, promote, promote. After working on your Product List page and pulling together great photos and copy for your catalog, you may be so excited about opening your online store that you forget about another important piece: online marketing. Although there is that common saying, "If you build it, they will come," that doesn’t necessarily hold true in online sales. In order to build and increase the sales you make online, you need to market your site and products to the masses, using search ads, e-mail marketing, and more. (Luckily, the next chapter takes you right into this very topic.)

Ask "How did we do?". Be careful not to assume that you’re doing a great job in online sales just because you’re not hearing any complaints from customers. Take the initiative to ask people who’ve purchased something from your site to rate their sales experience. Be prepared for honest—and not all positive—feedback, and make changes to improve your process.