I am not sure if you feel some pressure of the current recession. Just yesterday our fuel prices increased again at a drastic 40%. The petrol station was crowded with people trying to pump their petrol full before the clock ticks midnight.

I was stuck in a jam after dinner. I decided not to join the crowd in the petrol station that night. But while I was trapped in between cars, it just got me thinking.

How can our e-business win against the current recession? Does recession have to mean a bleak selling experience for us all? The downturn will be here for until i-don’t-know-when. And we all know for sure it will not be gone tomorrow, next week or perhaps next year. What can we do about it?

According to Forrester Research’s February 2008 teleconference, “The Outlook for U.S. eCommerce in 2008 and Beyond”, online sales are projected to see more than 130 billion dollars of growth over the next 4 years, climbing from an already-impressive 204 billion dollars this year to almost 335 billion dollars in 2012.

Shawna Fennell of http://1Choice4YourStore.com commented “I’m going into our Yahoo stores, and I’m thinking “where is the recession?”. You don’t see it unless you go into the local mall and there’s nobody there”.

Andreas Georgio, of http://AndreasInc.com agrees, “The recession isn’t affecting me at all. Actually, my business has doubled almost every year since I started.”

So, I came up with the following conclusions:

• to maximize your conversion, we need to build repeat business.
• this is more important than ever before now.
• deliver a positive shopping experience that yourself as a customer crave.
• address issues that could keep them from coming back.
• Recession means one thing, people want to save and are afraid of losing money more more more more more more more so now.
• a positive shopping experience tells them that they can trust you and they will not be scammed. Their money is safe.
• be honest with all the charges and costs. Never let them feel you are making a profit on other unnecessary areas, for example packaging or postage.
• always have stocks and deliver on time. People like to see their items quickly, again that is to feel that their money is safe.

So, that was what the fuel price increase and traffic jams taught me. It will be a great time for us. Don’t worry.