1. Be impossible to find

That’s right. Make it so frustratingly hard for potential customers to find you that they’ll go to the competition instead. There are a number of ways you can achieve this, but my all-time favourite is to misspell your own domain name.

If that isn’t possible, ensure that links you’ve managed to get on other websites lead to the wrong places or to 404 error pages. Also, at all costs, avoid appearing prominently in Google. This is pretty easy for the first few weeks as it takes the search engines months to locate and index new websites. Don’t make it easy for them. At all costs, avoid using words people actually use when trying to find your products. For example, instead of bargain furniture, write about economical wooden sitting utensils. Far fewer people will type those words into Google when looking for a chair.

2. Overcharge on postage

This one is a classic method for losing customers. Some previous champions at business failure have turned thousands of customers away with inappropriate postage charges. The easiest way is to only offer overnight courier service on all purchases – regardless of what they are. Suddenly, that t-shirt is an expensive buy when you add in $30 worth of courier costs!

But even without going to such extremes, it is possible to scare people away. Avoid postage discounts on multiple items. Yes, of course you’ll send the products in the same package but by insisting on charging as if you are sending them separately, you can be sure to create some angry customers who won’t come back.

3. Hide your best deals

You know that your special offer on ornamental teaspoons could be a great money-maker but relying on the psychic powers of the average consumer to find the page within your website may be taking things to extremes. On arriving at the website, don’t make it too easy for a person to find your best products and prices. Bury them deep in your product pages, preferably at the bottom of overlong pages of unattractive offers that are not linked from the home page.

If possible, have conflicting offers on different pages of your site. What is offered at 25% off on one page is full price on another and removed from sale on a third. Ensure the customer doesn’t know what to do to get the best deal – and even if they do make a purchase, seed them with enough doubt about whether they paid more than they should.

4. Loop pages around

Ever been to a website FAQ section where answers that don’t answer the questions loop around each other taking you in circles? One answer suggests you click to another page for the information you need, but the new page refers you back to where you were.

You know that answering consumer questions accurately may force you to reveal how bad your business really is. Baffle them with pages of vague and useless waffle that fails to address the issues while linking meaninglessly to each other in a perpetual loop of confusion.

And then refuse to take queries from customers who have not used the FAQ to solve their problems.

5. Don’t provide any contact details

Taking this one step further, prevent any personal contact at all.

Jeez, so many people want to contact you these days! Anyone would think they want to make further enquiries or ask for information to help them make a better purchase. Timewasters! Don’t let them interrupt your daily routine with petty customer service issues. Just remove all possible forms of contact from your site – especially email – and force anyone with a question to attempt to find an answer on the looped and infuriating FAQ pages (see 4).

6. Avoid updating the site

If your website looked good once, why change it? Sure, that was back in 2001, the news items are out of date and the products you are pushing went out of fashion three years ago, but fresh content and accurate info only encourage more sales and that means more work for you!

If you haven’t updated your postage rates for years, it will really get up customer noses if you email them after a purchase to demand more money to correct the difference. But nothing loses customers faster than failing to update which stock is in or out of stock. That really pushes their buttons of disappointment – especially if your site forces them to confirm the purchase and pay for the item before you email them to say it is out of stock. Don’t repay the money, of course, just tell them it’s on backorder and should be available within six months – maybe – if you remember to call the suppliers.

So there you have it – some foolproof ways to turn away all those pesky customers. All of these techniques are tried and proven to work. In fact, examples can be found every day across the web, leading the way in customer dissatisfaction. Don’t get left behind! Join the fight against business success today!