It may be intuitively obvious to you that purchasing your products on the internet is fast and easy, but it often is not that simple. You must make it easy for your prospects to buy or they will go away, never to return again.

Here's a case in point. I found a book I wanted to buy on a website and checked for it on amazon.com. It was there, but not currently in stock. I ordered it anyway since amazon is great at follow up and will automatically send the book when it gets there.

A couple days after my order, I got a message from amazon telling me the book would not be available so they were canceling my order. Phooey! I like to get my books from amazon because I have a prime account which gets me two day free shipping. So much for that.

So I wandered over to the website for the book and decided to order it there. Once at checkout, I discovered that the only credit cards they took were MasterCard and VISA. Another phooey! I like to use AMX. I searched around to see if they took PayPal which would allow me to use my AMX. Nope.

And then I gave up. I really don't want that book so much that I'm willing to pay $15 more for it plus $5 shipping and can't even use my American Express. They lost that sale. The whole process from my point of view was a failure.

:: FAIL ::

Could this be happening to your customers? Don't allow them to get frustrated or annoyed about purchasing from your website. Walk through your ordering process to make sure it's friendly and that you offer plenty of payment options. The easier you make it for your customer, the more they will buy from you. And in this economy, that's more important than ever before.