Pre-Order Customer-Support Issues
Pre-Order customer support online consists of information available to the customer in advance of making a purchase.
Online Visibility via Search Engines
The author skims the topic of SEO, ensuring that search engines can find your Web site, hitting some of the high points, but not really getting into too much detail. He also stresses the importance of a short URL over a longer one.
Real-Time Access to Product Information
The most basic step: put product information online - not just a brief description, but all the information you have at your disposal.
The catalog must be organized. He doesn't' add much to the current body of knowledge on this topic, either.
He also speaks of comparison engines. Most retailers fear these, as it points customers to cheaper prices. He speaks of a retailer (half.com) that built one onto its own site - showing other stores' prices as proof it was the lowest, to prevent customers from leaving the site and shopping elsewhere, perhaps forgetting to come back.
He briefly mentions customer-contributed content - allowing other shoppers to post comments on the products, and the value of this "unbiased" information to customers.
He recommends using images, video, VR models, and sketches in addition to text to present product information.
Also, don't forget to include model numbers, technical specifications, color/style options, sixes and measurements, and other details some customers want.
Inventory Integration
Another feature is integration with your inventory system, to assure customers items are in stock and will ship promptly (or, if that's not the case, how long they can expect to wait).
A company may be reluctant to do this, preferring to take orders they can't fill and making customers wait (or take steps to cancel backorders), but this isn't worth the ill-will it engenders.
International Business
A reminder that the Internet is world-wide, and you will receive orders from overseas. You should expect them and be prepared to handle them.
If your company is international, and doing business with other countries is a major part of your business, develop language-specific sites.
EN: From here, the author mentions a topics that occur at the point of order (shipping) and after the order has been placed (order tracking). There are separate chapters on these two stages, but for whatever reasons, the author chose to discuss these two items as "pre-order" issues.
Shipping
Customers should be given various delivery choices, including in-store pickup. It's customary to charge shipping costs (postage), but adding handling fees for filling the order is considered unacceptable (they should be included in the price of the item).
Customers are becoming savvy to this, and it's expected that one of the major reasons behind shopping cart abandonment is that customers wish to know the full price, including shipping, and creating a shopping cart and taking it to the register is the only way to know that.
In many cases, a retailer who offers free shipping can steal business from other sites whose item prices are lower, as customers expect that shipping charges will negate he discount.
Also worth noting: creating customer accounts enable you to predict shipping charges, and know whether you can ship a given item to a given location.
Order Tracking
Enabling a shopper to check the status of their current order is expected anymore.