[thelist] What makes a good e-commerce website?

[Rob Smith]

>I'd like to compile a list of features that make for a more user 
>friendly online shopping experience, so that we can all benefit by 
>incorporating them into our own e-commerce applications.

We recently discussed this in one of my Masters classes. We came up with:

* Not having to register yourself before you select your items
* Having a shopping cart that actually remembers your selections given the
first bullet in mind.
* Not having a complicated form
* When you're browsing categories of items, when you click Add, you place
one (1) item into your cart. However, if you're on the item detail page you
can add X number of items to your cart.
* If you show quantities available, decrement that number as people are
putting things in their cart. However, if the customer does not proceed to
checkout, the system releases the item and restores the quantity in a short
period of time; usually 10-20 minutes.
* Provide the ability to accept and remember credit card information based
upon the user.

... pretty much what Amazon.com does. Actually, I'm in the process of
building a shopping cart system at home and I'm incorporating these features
and others as they come up.

Rob