Customers get confused when sites don’t make it obvious that they’ve added something to their shopping cart. These days, it’s common for sites to have a “persistent shopping cart” — or a running tally of the number of items and total price of items in their cart — on every page. If your site has a persistent cart, make sure your site alerts the customer that they have added something to their shopping cart.

Many sites simply add the product with no alert, while others alert customers with messages that go unnoticed. This results in the customer asking “Did this product get added to my cart or not?” I recommend sending the customer to a shopping cart page when they click add to cart. If you choose not to do this, consider putting a bold, shaded message at the top center of the page just below your site’s main category links. Then add a link to the shopping cart just after the message.

Putting links to “similar items,” “related items,” “best sellers” or accessories on individual product pages helps provide a logical next step when a customer realizes that a product might not fit their needs.

Be careful though — this can be detrimental if these cross-sells take up more real estate and draw more attention than the actual product you’re trying to sell. Remember that product images draw the eye’s attention, so use them sparingly or use small thumbnails when advertising cross-sells.

Your nicely designed web site has pretty “add-to-cart” buttons that match the rest of your site, but are they blending in? Many of today’s graphic designers think that small add-to-cart buttons that match your site’s color scheme will be more aesthetically pleasing. But do you really want your add-to-cart button to blend in?

Imagine your add-to-cart buttons bigger and then have your designer create an add-to-cart button that is a size bigger than that. Choose a color for the button that stands out visually.

How do you know when your button is big enough? The first thing a customer should notice on an individual product page is the product image, the next is the add-to-cart button.

Hopefully your web site offers the opportunity for customers to sign up and receive promotional offers or a newsletter. The holiday season is a perfect time to dust off this list and put it to good use. Sending coupon codes exclusively for your e-mail subscribers is a great way to stimulate sales. Other good candidates for an e-mail marketing promotion include offers like “free gift with purchase,” “buy one get one free,” or you may just choose to spotlight your newest or best-selling products.

Whatever you decide to include in your e-mail promotions, be sure to include links to the products in your email by linking the product photo as well as providing a link. Include calls-to-action like “Click now for the best savings of the year” or other relevant messaging.

Finally, I’ve had great success sending e-mail campaigns for e-commerce sites on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. These days and times have worked best for my clients.

A relevant, well-designed e-mail promotion can drive significant traffic to your web site. Want proof? Check out the following graph showing number of visitors for one of my e-commerce clients:

This probably sounds like a no-brainer, but many sites don’t have basic contact information in a clearly visible place on their web sites. Additionally, I’ve heard test participants say in usability labs that web sites that have a clearly visible phone number are more credible.

Consider putting your toll-free phone number at the top of every page. If possible, you’ll want to repeat this at the bottom of every page, and include a linked e-mail address at the bottom of every page also. Since e-mail is not as immediate as a phone call to customer service, include some messaging with your e-mail link that sets customer expectations. For example, you may say “Contact customer service via e-mail for a reply in less than 4 hours.”

Also, it’s critical that your phone number is at the top of every page in the checkout process. Having a phone number clearly visible in checkout can help capture those customers that might not have normally completed the process.

If you have an established web site with a larger customer file, you can probably quickly parse through your database and grab e-mail addresses of repeat or best customers. As a token of your appreciation for their repeat business, offer them a special deal that no other customer can take advantage of (and let them know it’s exclusive).

This is typically done through an e-mail marketing promotion where a customer receives a coupon code for a percentage off, free shipping, etc. In the e-mail marketing promotion, let your customers know how to take advantage of the offer and when it expires.