Internet shopping is a very fierce environment where only the strong survive. Every day thousands of companies venture online in an attempt to reap the rewards on offer. Sadly, the majority of them will vanish without trace in a short space of time. Small businesses are prone to failure because they cannot compete on price with the bigger, established giants of the internet. Another reason for failure, is not understanding the process of online shopping, and not getting to what makes the customer tick.

First impressions mean a lot in any business, and online this equates to having a presentable web site that is different from the rest. The ideal solution is to build something that stands out and grabs attention within the first 10 seconds. Studies have shown that the first few seconds of visiting a web site are the most important. The visitor will have made their mind up already about what they have seen. So the appearance and the colour scheme of the site do make a difference.

This why you will see most companies spending large amounts of money on hiring the most talented web designers. If you are trying to sell something then the best way to do this online is to put your best deals or offers right in the middle of the first page the visitor will see. It is not very subtle, but it works. Look at every successful shopping web site, they all have big banners proclaiming the latest deals and discounted items. The price is clearly visible as well, in large numbers, usually in red to grab attention. The customer cannot ignore it, and if the offer is good, then you will have succeeded in keeping them interested for those first few vital seconds. The chances of making a sale are greatly improved the longer the visitor stays on the site.

To make the best use of the available space on the home page you will find these adverts change every few seconds. This is becoming more common due to technological advances and faster internet connections. It also makes good use of the limited space on a single web page. Businesses like Amazon are the masters of this tactic, and it is no coincidence that they are the most successful. The catalogue merchants also use this tactic as they have such a large inventory of goods that need to be promoted as much as possible.

Bringing all these factors together can help towards creating a lasting online business. Adding customer service to the mix is just as important, and no amount of fancy adverts can do this, you only achieve this through experience and gaining trust. Many small companies can do this because they do not have many customers, but when your company grows it does become more difficult. The businesses who manage to keep everyone reasonably happy are the one’s who make the most money on the internet.