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Many people fail to complete a shopping transaction. Typical figures are one completed transaction for every 10 commenced. The reasons for this are varied but many people merely explore your web site before making a purchase and may return at a later date. Purchasing from an unknown web site requires trust, which can only gained subjectively from the web site itself.

Such people may contact you through traditional channels, so make your contact information prominant and be available to answer questions. Others may be comparing your products with other web sites, or merely gaining an intuitive feel for your pricing structure. Many fail to realise that such people may complete the transaction through traditional channels. This is another reason to ensure that you are easy to contact. Also ensure that customers have multiple payment options through multiple channels because the customer is always right and may have a prefered payment method different to your own.

At a minimum, your full postal address and URL [web address] should appear in the footer of every web page. You should also consider adding your telephone number, fax number and EMail address. Within certain industries you may want to provide additional information anyhow. For example, financial companies may want to provide a financial registration number, companies within the building trade may want to provide tax references and charities may want to provide charity references. You may be required to add additional information by law. For example, a strict interpretation of UK company law requires that every communication [web access] provides the company's registered address, company number and a full list of directors should this number be less than 20. It is also increasingly common to receive EMail that meets this requirement. You are advised to check relevant laws.

Should this information only appear on a contact page? No, every web page should be a fairly self standing document. Secondly, many people print the web pages for products they are considering purchasing. You must ensure that your web pages print properly. To ignore this will reduce sales. Nothing on your web site should be wider than 600 pixels; less if your web site uses frames. Although web browsers can display web pages at any size, many still print at this scale. Additionally, many people web surf at this resolution or lower. To ignore this is to reduce your audience. ...

What should appear on the contact web page? The contact information web page should provide more detailed information, such as opening hours, maps and directions.

Web sites with frames typically do not print properly on many web browsers. Frames also confuse navigation and bookmarking. You will have varied results on various web browsers.