"U.S. online retail sales are expected to reach $65 billion in 2004, and will continue to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 17 percent through 2008 to top $117 billion", according to a report by Jupiter Research.

"Jupiter expects the online buying population to grow by 14 percent in 2004, representing 30 percent of the U.S. population. By 2008, one-half of the population will make purchases online."

Your business should be getting a nice piece of that pie.

One of the biggest reasons for shopping cart abandonment is difficulty in getting around a web site.

You've probably heard the term web site usability. Web usability design makes it easy for all types of visitors to get around a site and use any given proponents effortlessly.

Usability Evaluation
A usability design expert checks web site elements based on standard usability guidelines. The easier your site is to use, the better your traffic converts to sales as well as getting repeat sales from existing customers.

Usability Testing
This is where a usability expert uses a group of people from the market of the particular web site to get feedback on the problems they've come across. The observer writes a report with the lists of all the problems and gives recommendations for improvement.

Since no two people surf alike, this test helps to get different perspectives on surfing behavior which eliminates more obstacles that cause people to abandon the site/cart.

The layout of an online retail store is simlar to a brick and mortar store. It's frustrating to shop in a that store doesn't have the items logically positioned. At least, in a brick and mortar, there is usually always a shop keeper around to help find what you need.

Sometimes shop keepers aren't always available the instant you need them. That's even more frustrating. We usually wait it out because it will take more time to go to another store and there is no guarantee that we'll be promptly waited on.

An online store only has a few seconds to keep a visitor interested because that visitor can go to 100's of similar stores with just a click of the mouse. So what does that mean to you? How does your site measure up?

Visitor Behavior - The more you know about your site visitors' behavior, the better your chances to increase online sales, i.e. if you make appropriate changes to accomodate them. There's gold nuggets in your web logs. However, the log analyzer programs your host provides doesn't give a full picture of your visitors' behavior on your site. There is more sophisticated software to track each visitor's actions.

Visitor Trust - According to a poll conducted by TRUSTe, 49% of online consumers said they would limit their shopping because they fear misuse of their personal information. Some of their biggest fears are potential for credit card information getting stolen, identity theft and getting unwanted spam after making a purchase.

From dealing with many ecommerce sites, I find that most are not aware of the elements on their sites that lessen visitors' trust.. People just aren't too quick to take out their credit cards as it is. Approximately 80% of online shoppers go to an average of 4 or 5 sites before they make a purchase decision.

There seems to be a lot more emphasis on generating more traffic than focusing to increase online sales from that traffic and putting more attention on those who've already made purchases.