Television buyers pick up the phone and place orders when the commercial flashes a 1-800 number. Motivating people to make a call is only the beginning of the sale. Whether your product becomes a household name, or receives more air time, depends a lot on who answers that call. The same holds true for selling products online, especially higher end and more complicated product sales. Without knowledgeable customer service reps readily available whom can explain a product's features and benefits, online sales will still be lost.
Information allows customers to feel like they are in control.
Companies must push as much information back to customers as possible. The fact that they enter your store through a web interface does not make them less so. The trick, however, is to make interaction with your online staff as intuitive and friendly as it would hopefully be in a real world retail setting. The customer needs to feel comfortable that the layout of the store, the training of your people and the convenience of transactions are for their benefit, not the merchant's. If they are intimidated, they will go elsewhere to get their answers and their products.