One of the biggest hassles when ordering online is not knowing the current status of your product.  You read on the website that you will be notified with an email, but sometimes you are not.  You are told you will get the product in a certain number of days, and most of the time you do not.  This is just the way things happen online, and you have to be prepared to deal with customers that want to know where their product is.

I have no problem waiting a month longer for product I order as long as the company has called me and told me what was going on.  There is nothing worse then not knowing what is going on with your products and the money you spent on them.  My suggestions are as follows:

1. Make sure to offer order tracking features right on your site.  Look at the way Rocky Mountain Mattress allows you to track mattress orders.
2. Make sure you are using a shopping cart that will allow auto responders, and automatic messages sent out during all steps of ordering.  People feel good about the email confirmation they get after ordering saying things like; "You will receive your items in "so many days", and you can "track your order by clicking here".  By doing this you are making the customer feel at ease with the purchase that was just made.  It can make all the difference in the world for charge backs, or order cancellations especially when you are dealing with high ticket items.
3. Make sure you send follow up emails after the order arrives thanking for the purchase with customer service numbers, and any other important information.  This also is a great opportunity to ask for testimonials and what they thought of the shipping process, and product (or how things can be improved).

These may seem like simple things, and you are saying to yourself "no duh", because you use these features all of the time on other sites that you purchase from.  You might be surprised though, how many people who are running businesses online fail to take advantage of these features because of programming costs, or additional time it might take.  Do what you can to make the shipping process easy, and you will almost eliminate the return rate.  Customer service goes along way, so remember to not put the "cus" in customer service!

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