Duct Tape Marketing

You've put your blood, sweat, and tears (not to mention emptied your wallet a little) into designing a great looking, easy-to-use online store. You've received some sales and had a good amount of traffic since your grand opening. A few weeks later you decide to Google your site. Next thing you know, you're staring at search results talking negatively about your site. That can't be good for business! On the contrary.

If you owned a brick or mortar store, you'd ask customers if they found what they were looking for, right? Keeping tabs on what customers are saying about your site online is essential to growing your web business. And as with anything, you're going to have the good and the bad. Negative customer reviews are anything but negative - if you put them to use they can have an extremely positive effect on your business.

Your online store is your baby, but you need to have the courage to read the criticism. Is the negative criticism regarding a component on your site? If so, take it as valuable advice to make your store even more user-friendly. Does it involve customer service? Evaluate your site's customer service experience. Do you thank the customer on the order confirmation page? Do you have an "About Us" page with your contact information and some background information about your site to instill more confidence in the customer?

Reading customer reviews and monitoring your site's online presence is a must for any ecommerce store owner. Many online store platforms like WebStore by Amazon also have a "Customer Reviews" feature where you can ask customers for feedback right on your store.