Is Your Online Store an Accident Waiting to Happen?

In overseeing an online store, you have a lot of responsibilities on your plate.

From having the best products to sell to making sure you avoid online fraud, there is much to think about.

With that in mind, what are you doing to decrease the odds of major gaffes in your online operations?

For some Ecommerce businesses, they do everything on their own. As a result, they can drop the ball at times.

Others, meantime, have staff to help them lessen the chances of problems arising.

No matter where you fall in the manpower department, be sure to watch your site on a regular basis.

Remember, it only takes one or two major events to sideline your online operations once and for all.

Be Pro-Active in Looking for Trouble

Even though you’d like to be as positive as possible about your Ecommerce business, you know better.

Rarely do things fall into place in life in perfect form. As a result, you need to be looking out for trouble before it finds you.

Among the areas of focus for your Ecommerce activities:

1. Online fraud

One of the biggest potential roadblocks to successful Ecommerce operations is online fraud.

One of the more notable areas of fraud turns out to be chargebacks.

For those not up to date on chargebacks, they are what happen when a customer decides not to pay for a sale.

Although many customers have legitimate reasons for not paying for a sale, others do not. With the latter group, your business can suffer the consequences.

To best prevent chargebacks, it is important that you recognize the following:

• Look for unusual orders that do not seem right. This can be many purchases from the same IP address with various credit card payments.
• Look for international orders that seem to be coming from about anywhere on the globe.
• Look for customers who seem to have a pattern of refusing payment on their credit cards. One time is one thing, but many times over a period of months or even years is trouble.

When you are better at seeing the signs of fraud, you are better suited to fight it.

2. Competitor dominance

Yes, it is tough to beat out the Amazons of the world. That said there is no reason not to compete with smaller Ecommerce ventures.

That said look to see what your competition is doing that you seem not to be.

They may in fact be better at:

• Designing a website that more customers like using
• Being able to spot fraudulent customer activities
• Marketing and advertising their Ecommerce activities
• Utilizing social media to promote their brands
• Providing customer service

By knowing what your immediate competition is up to, you’re better prepared to do something about it.

3. Moving forward

While your Ecommerce focus is on today, what about tomorrow and weeks and months to come?

It is important that you have a master plan about how to make online sales better tomorrow than they were today.

It is also important to study the trends in Ecommerce.

See where there are opportunities for you down the road. In doing so, you are better situated to handle whatever comes your way.

If your online store is an accident waiting to happen for any number of reasons, get things together now.

By being pro-active instead of reactive, you are more likely to be around for the long haul.