With nationwide online retail sales expected to reach above $100 billion this year – estimates range from $115 billion to $175 billion, excluding travel – it is very evident that there are lots of would-be customers visiting the Web sites of their choice with the intent to purchase items.

Not withstanding the gaudy projected totals, online retail sales only represent roughly 5 percent of the total U.S. retail marketplace. Still, Internet use in America and around the world continues to grow, with broadband access gaining in penetration to even rural, isolated areas. The more ‘net users, the greater the number of potential customers for online retailers (sometimes called e-tailers) to sell their wares to.

That’s a good thing; now for the bad news – approximately three-quarters of online customers abandon online shopping carts during the purchase process. The reasons that they do so include the desire to simply comparison shop, too-high shipping costs, technical difficulties experienced during the transaction and a lack of time to complete the purchase, among others.

 It is therefore vitally important that online retailers do all within their power to convince putative buyers to complete the sales transaction and purchase the product(s). Studies indicate that there is a lot of room for improvement in this area.

Technical problems, in particular, continue to dog smaller e-tailers who don’t have the wherewithal to offer advanced shopping carts, nor to have experienced computer programmers on hand to fix things if there are any breakdowns. As a result, many smaller online establishments struggle, both with attracting customers from larger Web sites and with fostering a level of trust with their visitors that credit information is safe.

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