Don’t be afraid of competition. Whatever you do (or decide to do) - there always will be a competition. Think of the ways you can do better then competition. Target market niches, provide more information then competitors, stand out. If you sell what everyone else sells (like knock-offs, replicas and such) - be one step ahead, write reviews, describe why people buy knock-offs, why yours are better then a shop next door. Build a social web around your store.

Don’t forget to follow-up. This way your customer will know that you are serious seller, even if you sell one dollar widgets. Sending e-mail is as inexpensive as it could be. Even follow-up e-mails can be automated (schedule sending of an e-mail in your e-commerce system to your customers, 7 days upon successful finalizing of the order).

Don’t force your customer to register in order to check-out. Always offer a no-registration check-out option. You still be able to collect all the information about a customer you need, but you will save them a minute or two during checkout process and (this is more important) save them a hassle of remembering their password next time they are at your virtual door. They will register once they realize they return often enough.

Don’t be afraid of Google, Yahoo and anyone else. It has been said numerous times - don’t think about search engines, think of your target audience. If you are in the business of selling widgets - write couple of good reviews on latest widgets, provide decent photos, build a reputation of a vendor who knows its widgets and not just sells stuff. Google likes good content as do your customers. One of major reasons why people prefer to shop at Amazon and NewEgg - is because they can read reviews (including those of customers) and see lots of pictures. Create web site that will be convenient to use and you will get ahead of your competition.

Don’t overwhelm your customers with all the current promotions and e-mails. Maintain a database of how many times you have e-mailed each customer. Try this trick: if you have sent out around seven promotions and a certain customer never visited any links from those e-mails - generate another e-mail that will ask the customer if he/she wants to unsubscribe from future e-mails. Unsubscribe automatically if no response is given. Chances are high that all your promotional correspondence ends up in Spam bin, so there is no reason to overload your servers or pay for e-mail delivery for this customer. On the other hand - it may alert customer and enact him/her to actually confirm subscription and look closer to your deals.

Original: http://www.idowriting.com/2008/01/23/five-major-donts-every-business-should-know/