When prospective clients come to us for help with a shopping cart so they can sell things online we are very upfront about sharing our experience in this area. One of the first things we do is let wide eyed and enthusiastic ecommerce moguls to be know that 95 out of the 100 plus projects we have been involved in never sell a thing. Not one thing.

There are many reasons for this but the thing it boils down to most often is that their website/shopping cart does not generate enough visits to find consumers that are interested in what they are selling. Using a bricks and mortar metaphor if your had a store that was boarded up and had a chain on it would you expect to make many sales? No.

The same goes for selling online. You need people to come into your online shop and have a look. The way they are going to find you is most likely via search. The question is are people searching for what you have? Here is a list of the most popular shopping search words.

Chart: Top Google Ecommerce Searches

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If you are not lucky enough to be selling shoes or boots what does this chart say? One thing that stands out is Ebay. If you want to get a sense of your selling ability online for anything then having a go at ebay is essential. It gives you a good idea of what people are willing to pay (or not) for the product you have.

Let’s hope for a better success ratio of selling things online for our clients in 2010. One of the ways we will make sure this happens is that we will ensure our clients to a thorough job at establishing and working with us to get a strong search strategy in place from the start.