Ecommerce, or electronic commerce, or e-commerce is simply defined as ‘doing business over the Internet’. Business anywhere has its own fixed set of rules so the success of your venture will depend on a large extent on what rules you follow and what rules you do not.

Ecommerce too, has a number of rules. This article will try to highlight a few of these rules which are meant to guide you towards success in your ecommerce venture.

The “Do’s” of Ecommerce

* The number of clicks that lead to a purchase on a site is directly proportional to the realization of the sale. A customer will loose his/her patience if they have to click more than three times to complete a purchase. Hence, keep the navigation as simple as it is possible.

* Do check that all the links posted on your site work. Do this regularly so you can find out when a link fails.

* Do name your links appropriately so that people can understand it and remember it well. For example, if you are selling furniture and the link is for arm chairs, name the link armchairs.htm and not furniture01123.htm.

* Keep the graphics simple and the language easy to understand. Internet tempts millions of new users every day, and if you have complicated navigation details, that is the number of possible customers you might loose every day.

* Keep the availability of an item early in the navigation process. There is nothing more annoying than to get through the whole process, only to find at the last click that the product you wanted is not available. This will almost always guarantee that you loose customers. Remember your businesses success, especially in the early stages, will depend on repeat customers and word of mouth advertising.

The “Do Not’s” of Ecommerce

* Do not use only frames for navigation purposes. There are too many people out there who still use old model computers; they usually will block the frames when navigating sites, because it makes it faster. If all your navigations directions are based on frames, then these prospective customers will skip your site.

* Do not use too large pictures on the site; they make the loading very slow.

* As much as possible do not have special software requirements to showcase your products. People do not usually like to download some new software just to browse your site. They would rather go elsewhere.

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