So you have thousands of server requests for the final, the end of it all, milk and honey part of your shopping cart; the checkout. All paths lead to here. You have the metrics in place. You can figure abandon rate and all the granular statistics. Great. Let’s put it all in perspective.

1. Don’t Keep Customers Waiting

When a customer hits the Buy button, they don’t expect to spend several minutes waiting for a response or even worse, get an error message. Decrease that LOAD TIME! In fact, nothing frustrates customers more than a Web site that keeps them guessing about their orders.

There’s a simple solution to this problem: Make sure your software and servers are capable of handling whatever your customers throw at them. If you’re using a third-party service, this means ensuring they use first-rate technology (i.e. Rack Space). If you’re building your own site from scratch, it means investing in the best possible software and hardware.

2. Make It Easy for Customers to Pay

Online stores can accept a variety of payment types: credit cards, electronic cash, purchase orders, or cash and checks sent via mail. Different types of businesses will need to accept different payment types; make sure your e-commerce provider can handle the ones your customers are likely to use. For offline payments, such as cash and checks sent via mail or credit card numbers sent via fax, publish your mailing address and fax and phone numbers in an obvious place on your site.

Online payments present another special challenge: security. Although sending a credit card number over the Internet is extremely safe, (safer than snail mail) customers still worry. Most online payment systems send credit card numbers and other sensitive information via encrypted connections. If your system does this, make sure customers know their information is absolutely secure.

Finally, keep in mind that you’ll need a merchant account to accept credit card transactions. If you already have an account for your existing business, you might be able to use the same account to accept credit cards online. In other cases, your Web developer or hosting service can help you establish a merchant account with an online transaction-processing service.

3. Usability Testing

You can use third party companies for this type of stuff. (Work employees are usually a bit biased and already stare at the screen too much). This will give you an excellent idea as to how much sense (not cents) your site actually makes. Through usability testing, your e-commerce can be analyzed for good copy, design and navigation. This step is crucial in keeping those sales rolling. A lot of companies rely on pure intuition or experience. Big Mistake. Even if you are a small company, get a few friends who do not work for / with you and have them give you some feedback.