How (not) to run online business

Communication, communication, communication. This is one of the most important lessons every business, especially web business should learn and understand early.

If you get a query about your product, answer it immediately. Even sending immediately "No idea, but I'll find out" is far better than just answering with information week or two later. And no response at all is worst possible option. If the customer doesn't hear from you in a day or two, he'll move on - to your competitor. You've lost him for good.

If you get an order, send order confirmation immediately. It doesn't matter if the product is in stock and you can deliver it immediately, send the damn confirmation about it. Even if you receive order on phone, although on phone confirmation is often explicit anyway, and implicit. I've taken up habit of ending the conversation always with quick listing of what was ordered and note that I'll be shipping the goods immediately or early next week or whatever the schedule happens to be.

Customer wants to know that they will be receiving what they ordered, and when. Preferably you'll want to use delivery method with tracking information so both customer and you can see what is happening, but for small deliveries this may be too expensive.

If the item ordered isn't in stock, send order confirmation anyway - with estimated delivery date included. "Estimated to ship in two weeks", then new notification  when items are shipped (and possibly in between too, "we didn't forget your order, it's due next week." You may want to use different wording there though.)

And if you can't deliver as earlier predicted, send a note about it anyway with new schedule. Yes, you may be trying customer's patience with delays, but at least you are telling them what's happening. Offering alternative products at that point is fine also, but consistently offering just more expensive items for immediate shipping may feel like you are trying to rip off customer.

This isn't rocket science, people. Just learn to communicate, or people will take their business elsewhere!

And here I am, writing this while wondering if I ever get any response from a few shops I requested information about some (less common) screws about a week ago...