If you own an e-commerce website a key component needed to help you close sales is a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. Although most of the questions that will be answered on your FAQ page should be answered elsewhere on your site such as within product descriptions or on your policies page, this is often the first place visitors will go to find answers to questions they might have about your products, business or website. In this case redundancy is a good thing. Having one of these pages goes a long way to building the credibility you need in order to close the sale.
Many ecommerce business owners are unsure what types of questions to answer on their FAQ page. Here are six categories of questions, along with a sampling of questions in each category. These should help you think of all of the pertinent questions and also aid in the organization of the page.
Shipping.
What courier(s) do you use?
How soon can they expert their purchase to arrive?
Is there insurance available for expensive items?
Do you ship to other countries?
What should they do if they product arrives damaged?
How do you handle lost shipments?
Returns/refunds.
Do you give cash back or just credit toward another purchase?
If you take returns what is the appropriate procedure they need to follow?
Is there a time limit for returns?
If you do not take returns or give refunds of any kind make sure to specify this on your site.
Privacy.
What do you do with the private information you obtain from them? Do you sell or share it with anyone?
Are you going to market to them through email, or only communicate with them about their order(s)?
Security.
Is it safe to enter their credit card and personal information into the form(s) on your site?
Payment.
What credit cards do you accept?
Do you accept PayPal?
Do you except checks?
What about purchase orders?
General product related questions.
This is a good place to answer any product related questions, especially those that apply to either large groups of your products or your entire product line. Are all your products organic? All of them made in the U.S.? Answer those questions here. This is also an appropriate place to talk about warranties, product care and service. Remember though, product related information like this should always be included within the product information provided on individual product pages even if it is included here.
A good point to remember when doing business online, unanswered questions mean fewer or even no sales. Try to think of all of the questions potential buyers might have and then make sure you answer them.
Also, whenever you receive a question via email or telephone make sure you add it to this page. Even though you may only get the question one time it is still a “frequently asked question” because if one person thought to ask it chances are others have had the same question and have chosen to just leave your site rather than ask it.
