Ecommerce Articles
Online Turnkey Sites Good And Bad
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 463)
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You have decided to open a site online, but are not sure where to start. This brings us to the subject of the online turnkey sites.
Online Turnkey Sites - Good and Bad
An online turnkey site comes in a couple of variations. All of them are designed to give you a base to work off for your ecommerce efforts. The idea is to create the fundamentals of a site and then let you go to town with it. Depending on the platform, using one of these platforms can be a good or bad move.
Let me save you a ton of money from the outset. If you are considering an online turnkey site that is fully contained, to wit, it gives you a site, domain and products to sell, you are going to have a very difficult time making money. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, your site is no different than all the other turnkey sites sold by the same company. Why would prospects come to your site instead of any of the others? Simply put, there is no way to make your site standout. Further, your marketing will be a major pain. Many pay-per-click search engines will not let you list the site because they only allow one listing per affiliate program and they will consider a turnkey site as one. Further, you will have difficulties pursuing any search engine rankings because you will have little ability to change the site. I strongly encourage you to avoid these online turnkey sites like the plague.
There are online site builders that work fine. These services essentially give you the ability to control the design of your site, and require you to have a domain as well as your own products and services. On the high end, you can find massively flexible page builders with databases tied in covering everything from customer service management to inventory tracking. Most can also be customized to your particular needs.
This second set of platforms, known as online site builders, are really the way to go. The days of learning and hammering out html code for pages has gone the way of the horse and buggy. The online site builders give you convenience, flexibility and control over your online venture. This allows you to manipulate the site as you gain a better understanding of your market and all things Internet. Minor elements of html coding are still needed, but nothing that will set you back or be confusing.
An online turnkey site sounds like a great thing at first blush, but it can cost you in the long run. Make sure you understand what you can and cannot do before committing to a system.
Learn How To Accept Payment Online From Your Customers
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 508)
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Whether you own thousands of dollars or just a few hundred-at least two hundred, and you are providing a service, it may be a good idea for you to check into accept payment online from your customers. This is a type of merchant status and the first place for you to look to achieve that status is the bank you do business with. Just because you may have been doing business with them for a long time doesn't mean they will automatically give you merchant status though, and if they turn you down, don't worry, you have other options. You can try a couple of other banks or you can try other companies that specialize in issuing accounts to online merchants. Do a Google search and type in credit card processing, you will find many outfits looking for businesses seeking merchant accounts. This will not be a cheap endeavor either; start-up fees to accept payments online can amount to around $200 and monthly processing fees of around $20 dollars.
While searching for your merchant account so you can accept payments online, you should also realize that you are going to have to make your customers feel safe while doing business with you online. Wherever you buy your credit card processing should also supply you with a secure transaction environment, if they don't find one some where else before you start accepting payments online. Despite what you may have heard about accepting payments online, credit card payments are still one of the safest payment methods available online. There are many fraud-prevention tools out there so check them out and get one that will suit your needs. You can also protect yourself by using the card validation code 2 {CVC2} and the card verification value {CVV2} verification systems of MasterCard and Visa, respectively. These verification services use the three-digit codes printed on all MasterCard and Visa cards to help you determine whether your customers are using legitimate cards. Also, you may want to ask prospective processors about the costs of storefront solutions that you should have to make your website a success, things like shopping carts, Web hosting, online payment gateways, virtual checks, customer tracking, databases for your orders, and a way to calculate tax and shipping charges. These are all the things you need for a successful Web site business.
Shop around for a credit card processor that best suits your needs. Talk to several different processors and don't be afraid to ask questions. Find out about:
The discount rate: The percentage of each transaction paid to the merchant account provider. If your monthly charges are less than a certain volume, the processor may charge a higher percentage. Just make sure you read all the fine print before you start doing business with the services you need to run your own business. You want your customers to feel secure in all aspects of doing business with you, so they will keep buying your products and you can accept payments online.
Do You Have An Ebay Store
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 358)
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In this article we look at the benefits of having an eBay Store. Selling on eBay does not require you to have an eBay Store, but it sure does make things a lot easier.
There are 3 store subscriptions you can sign up for with eBay Basic (15.95/month), Featured (49.95/month), & Anchor (499.95/month).
Now most people starting out will of course go for the Basic store and not the Anchor. You would need to make huge profits to go for the Anchor store. We'll talk more about the Basic, and Featured Stores here.
If you have a Basic Store you may want to consider upgrading to a Featured Store. Things have been changing with eBay stores and some of things I'm most thrilled with is the $30/month allotment of eBay Keywords.
Free Keywords
Yes, that's $30/month each and every month worth of free eBay Keywords. With eBay Keywords you will drive more traffic to your listings by putting your ad at the top of the page for the keywords you choose. This also separates your store from other listings. This can significantly increase your store sales.
More Pages
With a Featured Store you get double the web pages! Which only increases your presence on eBay. You can also reduce the size of the eBay header on your pages giving you a page that's more focused on your business. This helps build your own brand on eBay, and you can match it to your website.
Advanced Reports
With a Featured Store you get advanced monthly reports and traffic stats you can access anytime. I just love looking through my reports to see all the in-depth info that the reports give me. The Path Analysis allows you to see how visitors move around in your store. This is so important as you develop your business.
Owning an eBay store will not only bring you more sales, but it'll cost you less by using it in the long run. These are just some of the many advantages of owning an eBay store. Once you own one, you'll wonder why you didn't go for it sooner.
Quick Guide To Accepting Payments Online
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 639)
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There are many ways of accepting payments online, some are easier, some more expensive, and some which offer ways to take online payments, and pay affiliates without tracking them yourself.
Accepting payments online can be a minefield and as the amount of online payment processors grows, the choice becomes more difficult as to which online payment processor to use. Here we weigh up the pros and cons of 3 of the top online payment processors.
One of the biggest and most widely accepted ways of accepting payment online is to use Paypal. Anyone who has used Ebay is likely to have already come accross Paypal even if they haven't signed up for an account. Paypal allows the online merchant to accept instant payments from customers either directly from the customers Paypal funds or from a credit card. This combined with its high profile, and use by Ebay makes it a useful payment processor to the new marketer online.
Paypal also gives you easy ways to create buttons and sales links to sell your products, and in the case of digital or downloadable products can be set to send a customer straight to the download page so your delivery work is done automatically. The thing to bear in mind is the fees associated with Paypal, as they take a percentage of every sale paid through them. The fees can soon add up and knock a hole in your profits.
Another favourite payment processor with online marketers is ClickBank.com who also accept credit cards on your behalf.
Clickbank is preferred to Paypal by some vendors due to its built in affiliate program which also has many affiliates searching for products to sell for commissions.
Clickbank makes it easy to setup an affiliate program and pays your affiliates for you directly, and can also offer the instant downloads the same as Paypal. As it already has a huge army of affiliates and people making search scripts to find products in the Clickbank marketplace it seems to be the answer to all your online sales needs, but unfortunately Clickbank have made it difficult to sell more than one product, so you need another account each time you want to sell something, or all your products on one page for affiliates to send their potential clients to.
Another thing in Clickbanks favour is that they have recently started allowing payment from Paypal, so that makes the payment options more varied for your customers, and affiliate customers.
Clickbanks one drawback is that you can only sell digital products through its system, so if you want to sell physical products such as books etc. then you need to look elsewhere.
Another option is to use an online credit card processor such as 2 Checkout (AKA 2CO) which offers the user the ability to accept all kinds of credit cards, and is able to be "plugged into" many shopping cart scripts for use on websites. Although it offers no affiliate program itself, 2Checkout doesn't stop you using multi level affiliate scripts, unlike Paypal, and Clickbank which are limited in this respect. Where 2Checkout doesn't compare so favourably is in the fees charged for each transaction, but you do only pay a one off fee to get an account unlike most credit card processors which charge fees and a monthly or yearly membership fee.
These are just some of the choices available to the online marketer who wants to accept payments online, all have pros and cons, but you need to look at what you want to do, and choose one or two of these services to start selling your products online. Use the one which best fits your business model, and budget, you can always look at other ways to accept payment later, but these will get you started.
Shopping For Magazines Online
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 323)
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When purchasing subscriptions online expect to save a significant percentage off the cover price, but expect to the price offered to be the exact same on all the major sites. Pricing on magazine subscriptions have a fixed minimum price and the vast majority of legitimate retailers will charge exactly that minimum price. Choose the website to purchase from based on features such as additional features (such as available gift cards and renewal reminders) and based on which site you are confident you can trust. Be aware that some sites will automatically charge you for a renewal if they don't hear from you when it's time for renewal. If that's not what you'd like, read the companies policies clearly.
Processing Time
Most publishers use mail processing centers which print address labels for several issues at a time. Labels for new orders are generally not printed until the next run of labels. Additionally, most magazines are printed well in advance of shipping, and each printing is pre-allocated only to the amount of subscribers at the actual time of printing. As a result, the magazine industry has a standard "lead time" for subscriptions of 4 to 8 weeks for weekly magazines and 8 to 12 weeks for monthly magazines and quarterly subscriptions although these times do vary by different publication.
If you haven't received the first issue of your subscription within the expected period times, you can often check the magazine's web site for your order status.
Ordering for the holidays
Magazines are a popular late holiday gift because the receiver doesn't expect an issue in-hand at gift giving time. Many magazine websites send a card with gift subscriptions, so there is something to fill the stocking.
The most popular magazine gift ideas for men are men's magazines and fitness magazines. For women, vacation magazines are the most popular gift and for children, puzzles and animal related magazines top the gift list.
Ecommerce A Plan
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 365)
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Planning an ecommerce website is like building a house - architecture and budget need to be agreed before the decoration.
AN AGREED REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION MUST BE DRAWN UP AS THE FIRST STAGE BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE IS DONE - ANY OTHER APPROACH WILL ONLY LEAD TO CONFUSION AND WORSE.
Once an AGREED REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION has been agreed then solutions need to be evaluated and costed against that specification are:
- Project management
- Hardware
- Web design and software
- Site marketing
- Project management:
All aspects of the project need to be managed. Decide who is going to do it and properly plan the requirements, activities, outcomes, milestones and timings.
Hardware:
Your choices here are a managed service or your own server. The security and disaster recovery aspect that is achieved by hosting with a major provider is very important. Only go with your own server if you have the experience and facilities.
Design and Software:
Site design
Develop site templates and test them with real people. They have to be easy to use and navigate. Don't let "design" drive the site; let ease of use and sales drive the "design". Think how the customer thinks.
Software
At least 5 solutions need to be considered.
- Updating
- Shopping cart
- Forum
- Statistics
Updating
There are 2 realistic routes here. Either an online or an offline, PC based content management system (CMS). The online CMS can be either an Open Source CMS (Open Source means any application that has been made available, generally free, to developers to view and modify freely. Examples of Open Source applications are MySQL and PHP) or commercial.
There are pros and cons to both routes. An online system is available to anyone with relevant security clearance anywhere any time. A PC based system is, obviously, limited to the PCs running the licenses. An example of a PC based system is Macromedia Contribute which integrates with Dreamweaver. There are a whole range of online Commercial and Open Source options such as SuiteWise
What Cyber Price For A National Identity
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 361)
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This is a case of 'let the seller beware' ...
The tiny Polynesian island nation of Niue is beginning to think it's been had.
Frankly, it's clear they didn't do their homework before they did their deal.
Ironically, it seems the buyer hadn't really done his, either.
Anyone who has been inundated by advertisements for 'global domains' can easily understand that it's a burgeoning business. The specter of purchasing a domain at a much better price than the more common 'dot com' or 'dot net' or 'dot org' is most attractive to most aspiring entrepeneurs on limited budgets. This niche's market leader is most likely Global Domains International (GDI), which has no doubt put Western Samoa on the mental map of many a cybernaut. The key element in that deal is that the Western Samoan government granted the rights to GDI in return for a royalty for every domain sold.
Niue's name is derived from the local language's phrase for, "Look, a coconut!" It seems they should have used theirs more thoroughly before signing a domain deal with Bill Semich in 1998.
An American businessman whose former station was editor for a computer magazine, Semich recognized the potential value in the marketability of unique domains. Apparently finding the 'nu' extension an attractive letter combination, he signed a contract with the Niue government that gave him the exclusive rights to it.
It wasn't a one-way deal. Semich guaranteed free wireless access for all 2000 of Niue's citizens and he delivered, completing the installation of an island-wide network of translator towers in 2003. The country's leaders surely felt they had provided their citizenry with a service for the new century which would favorably ensconce their place in island history.
Semich, meanwhile, intended to hawk his bargain domains to Americans. He had no idea that his ideal customers were in Sweden, where 'nu' is the local word for 'now.'
Obviously,'now' is a hot marketing action term in any language, so Semich was pleasantly surprised to find the Swedes flocking to his cyber-property. As a translated example of why this works for them, 'drive.now' (which would be 'k
E Commerce Solutions
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 477)
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When you have a small home-based business, and are basically just starting there are many ways to make a large leap ahead. One of these great methods is to sell online merchandise. An online store can be set up relatively easily and e-commerce has been proven to be quite successful. There are many sites online these days that make e-commerce an excellent decision for your business.
Microsoft now offers a great service known as Bcentral, and is offering great deals on server and hosting packages that run on a monthly scale, or basis. This is a great tool for the individual that is looking to delve into the e-commerce field. If you have an idea for a catalog, and need tools to get it up and running such as templates, and logo creators this could be your solution you've been waiting for. Not only will you receive the templates and the graphic creators, but also you will receive the quaint shopping cart in the top right hand side of the page. Having the opportunity to track and control orders and sales is made very easy as you will receive automated conformation through e-mail. Being able to become a member in the PayPal system is also a good idea, as you can never have enough payment options attached to your site. This just increases your chances of sales. You will also be given the opportunity to keep track of customer traffic to your site as well. This makes for a very handy service indeed.
Another great service is provided by Ebay, the stores offer a very popular alternative and have a sliding fee scale to fit most businesses needs and budget. The basic service is for the smaller of the businesses that have a smaller volume of traffic. This does not mean that you will not have access to some great tools for your site. You will not be able to keep track of the flow of traffic or sales with this service and there is a very limited directory, yet it is still a good service for someone who is just starting out. The next level of the ebay service will provide more for the business that may be needed as time goes on. It places your priorities in relation to the product you are trying to sell; knowing exactly what the consumer is looking for makes it easy for them to adjust your targeted areas. You will get some traffic reports and sales figures, but not many. The third and final level of the ebay store program is exactly where you want your business to be placed. This is the premier spot or the center stage. This is the place where the bulk of the strongest traffic will be located. This will give you a much stronger shot at making those sales.
Your Web Merchant Account
(category: Ecommerce, Word count: 514)
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Do you know of competitors who are using a Web merchant account? If so, chances are they are more than satisfied with the benefits this type of account can confer on a business of any size. Assuming this is the case, do you really want to be left behind as your colleagues begin to see profit increases from 50% to 400%? Obviously not! Now is the time to maximize your company's potential by applying for a merchant account that will support your company's image and credit card processing operations on the Internet. If you already have a Website, let a merchant account make it even better by enhancing your technical operating functions. If you don't have a Website, a merchant account can make it easy to put one up and start accepting credit payments from your clients.
When you apply for a Web merchant account, you are asking for a bank or another financial underwriter to support your credit excursions into the world of e-commerce. As more and more business owners look to technology to improve the way they do business, they will need support from banks in the form of credit services and technical assistance. A company Website is the perfect means of showcasing your company to every customer in the world. You don't have to rely on expensive print or broadcasting media. Just register for a domain name, find a host site that accepts a low monthly rental fee, hire a designer to help you create a fantastic company image, and you're in cyber-business! Your merchant account can help to pay for these services and assist with locating the technical help you need to make them happen and keep them operational. Alone, you may not make much progress, but with a powerful underwriter working behind the scenes, your company could emerge front and center in your industry.
A Web merchant account will let you extend credit card payment services to customers from every nation in the world. You don't have to wait for checks in other types of currency to arrive or have them converted at your bank, and then wait again to be sure the funds are in the account of origin. With a credit card processing feature on your company's Website, you can easily and quickly process each transaction, or several transactions at once, to keep the cash flow steady and your customers satisfied.
Your Web merchant account will let you adopt other equipment as well, like a pager, a wireless credit card processor for remote destinations, and a digital credit card processor. Gone are the days of manual payment processing that require patient effort on the part of both customer and cashier. Now customers can pay their own bills with a credit card, usually without the help of a company employee. Some start-up effort with the help of your merchant account will let you turn your attention to other things while sales pretty much take care of themselves.
Find out now how your business can benefit from a Web merchant account.
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