E-commerce is something that almost all business owners are after. The point of developing a website for your company is to bring in traffic and ultimately use it as a tool to bring in more business. Building a store into your website is one of the fastest growing requests in the Web development world. All kinds of companies ranging from handmade soap developers to kids self esteem programs are capitalizing on a user base that likes to do, find and get everything all in one place.

It’s simple enough to request a store be added as a part of your projects scope, but the real tricky part is setting it up in a way that will convert users and increase your sales. Some will argue that on-site stores aren’t the answer, and in 3 years they might not be, but for now this is where the industry is headed and you have to be hip to the trends.

So, how can it be the “ultimate e-commerce tool”? Well, it’s going to take a great deal of time to organize the thoughts of the designer and the rest of the development team. If you’re utilizing this kind of tool then it’s important that you have a few spots on your home page to entice users to visit the products area of your website. This could be in the form of an elegant button located in the top right area of your site or a featured product box in a sidebar or somewhere else so long as its above the fold.

You can use all kinds of other marketing tactics such as offering freebies if they purchase a product now. This is a great way to pull people in. If they can get something for free without having to do a whole lot of work than that can be big, especially if they like what they’re receiving. They’ll say good things about the company and direct other people to the site who might be interested. Word of mouth, in my opinion, is the most important piece of the small business puzzle. If you have a great website that has some interesting offers and you’re visitors are pleased, then wouldn’t you agree that Web usability could very well be the ultimate e-commerce tool?

Use Web usability to direct traffic towards the areas of your website that you want them to go. This is how you get customers to convert.