E-Commerce: Running Your Site
All of the advice about informing your customer is dependent on being able to update your web site.
Back in the pioneering early days of the net, web designers used to build and run your site. Every-time you got a new product in stock, you sent them all the pictures and text, and then patiently waited until they got around to adding them to your site. And then they'd invoice you.
There are still many design companies out there that operate in this way. Some of them provide excellent, hand-crafted web sites, but do make sure you find out how much it will cost to keep you website up to date. An online store that doesn't accurately reflect the stock you have for sale right now is more of a liability than an asset. On the same note, it's always worth checking how long it will take them to make changes to your site. A few days may not seem like a long time but it can mean a lot of trade in the fast-moving world of the web.
Nowadays there are dozens of systems and services that allow you to run your own website without having to learn how to write the kind of code that computers like to read. These kinds of systems do still require the site's editor to learn how to use them, and they don't do all of the work for you, but they do make it easier and faster to build and run a good site.
Web Site Editors
A good web site editor can be worth many times their own weight in telesales courses... A good editor will be constantly researching and writing about the products you sell. The information that they collate will grow into a landmark on the web, helping to get your site know as one of the best places to find out exactly the kinds of things that currently fill your shelves.
If you don't have the time or experience to edit your own site, it's worth giving some serious thought to hiring someone to do the job.
While a big advertising campaign may well produce a sudden avalanche of orders, once your exhausted dispatch staff have raided the shelves of every last piece of stock, you're back to square one. The same money spent on hiring an editor, may not produce the same immediate impact, but over time, as your site's content grows and develops, you'll see a steady and sustainable stream of new customers coming to your site.