When I am with a consulting client and a client says people do not buy from my site, or they do not come back again. I will often ask them “Do Your Buyers Feel Safe?”. Very often they just me that blank look, just like you are. What do you mean, do buyers feel safe? How can they be made to feel safe online. Well yes they can be made to feel safe and yes you can go along way to help them feel safe. Below you will see some pointers that I use and I get my clients to use.

@ When they arrive at the site, do not have a pop up asking for their name, email address straight away. By all means have a newsletter sign-up form on the site, but not as a pop-up. Think about like going on a date, you are in a bar and someone walks in who you fancy. Do you walk up to them and say, name, address, phone number. Nope. Well some might, but if you try it you will get a slap. You need to woo your buyer.

@ Make the site easy to use, give your buyers that warm feeling. Make buyers feel safe and loved.

@ Have a newsletter sign up box, by using a newsletter you can build a relationship with them and build that trust and make them feel safe.

@ Whenever you ask for information use a secure server (https).

@ Make your buyers feel safe and welcome.

The above are just a few pointers to help you make your customers feel safe on your site. Of course there are many more and over the coming weeks and months we will re-visit these and cover them more in depth.

Andrew Milburn and My Auction Empires Are eBay Consultants Based In Lichfield Staffordshire