Posted by admin in Feature, Merchant Accounts, Online Traffic, Shopping Carts Thursday, 10 December 2009 10:25 No Comments
shopping cart pci compliant
Hello. If you are reading this, it’s likely that you are looking seriously at the question of how to make money online or you or your company already has a product or service that may achieve enhanced sales by being promoted online.
There are 3 basic elements that this little endeavor will need.
An online page where a user can find you.
An online shopping cart page where a user can securely enter a credit card to pay you.
A merchant account in the background that is linked to your bank account for receiving payment
Some would say that this is the absolute barest of necessities and back in 1997 to 2002, a set up like this would have still made money. I know this to be true because this is exactly what I did.
But Don’t Even Try To Do That Now.
At this time, 2009-2010, due to user sophistication, many more interesting options for users, increased ADD ( Attention Deficit Disorder ), its pretty obvious that a basic set up like that described above simply won’t work.
What else is needed ?
- A highly interesting website with both video, great imagery, good mix of larger fonts,
- Blog – for administered user generated content
- Highly Integrated shopping cart
Ecommerce What is needed? Shopping Carts, Merchant Accounts, Gateway
- Autoresponder services whitelisted – Newsletters, ongoing communication for continuing relationship with potential clients. And sorry but you just cant email 500 clients from your own office anymore. Times have changed
- Articulated autoresponder process – for holding multiple structured conversations with clientele having differing relationships with your company. Some of whom have not bought anything, some bought small items, some huge items, some wholesalers etc.
- Merchant Accounts linked to Visa Compliant PCI regulated Shoppingcart Solutions
- Quality online traffic that is interested in your product without which the entire above effort is simply wasted.
We are going to cover all the basis in this E-commerce Blog. Expect hundreds of articles, videos, comments about all of the above topics.
Posted by admin in Feature Tuesday, 13 April 2010 05:52 No Comments
Who really cares about PCI Compliance ?
You shouldn’t if you are only buying things online ( we think )
However, you really should if you are the seller and you are hosting your own credit card pages on an https or secure page. Why, well its pretty obvious that whoever authorized your online credit card system actually took a peek at your page initially to say that it measured up to certain standards.
These standards which covered the obvious points such as correct pricing, truth in advertising etc., were significantly upgraded in 2009 and are being tightened even further in 2010 to the point where even very large brand name retailers may decide to host with certified centers instead of jumping through the Visa/MasterCard/Amex hoops of 2010.
The tightening is going to be so tough in 2010, that it is being strongly suggested that those having websites that take credit cards ensure that the credit card page or the entire shopping cart is hosted with a service provider in a facility that is itself 2010 PCI compliant.
What does a PCI compliant facility look like ?
Well, it doesn’t look like my house or yours ( for a start ). The use of wireless even for secretaries and other administrative staff is either heavily restricted or totally banned. Surprise audits can occur at any particular point in time.
In the past credit card numbers were encrypted at the database level such that not even a database administrator with admin rights could actually decode them. Its quite possible that with the new tightening, no credit card storage will be allowed even in a 2010 PCI compliant system.
And the list goes on and on. A fully PCI compliant facility can spend $3-500,000 a year in just compliance issues particularly if new routing and updated hardware has to be taken into account.
Only Webmasters should need to worry about silly PCI Compliance
So, let’s take a moment and revisit something we said earlier “You shouldn’t if you are only buying things online ( we think )”
Who is getting the credit cards stolen more often?
Would you say that would be webmasters or online customers ?
Yes, that was a little obvious right? Its definitely online customers.
So, shouldn’t they be the ones most concerned about these compliance issues? Well, on a perfect planet yes, but the truth is – its expected that financial systems whether they are online or offline will have more than adequate security measures to protect the consumer. Furthermore, by concentrating efforts on the focal point where the accidents occur, the burden is shifted to those most technically capable of solving or preventing it – the savvy webmasters with their fancy online shopping carts.
If you are a home business without a super technical webmaster, your best bet for being on the correct side of PCI Compliance ( without which you will lose your merchant account ) is to put your shopping cart in a hosted solution such as yahoo stores, paypal,google checkout or 1shoppingcart.com
While the first three are fairly well known, the last one is actually the only one of the 4 to include a sales funnel which experienced marketers know can on its own, increase sales potentially by up to %400 percent.
Have a look around before making your decision. Online marketing is not the same and sometimes not even similar to offline marketing and having the edge in a sales funnel can be the difference between winning big and not even breaking even.
Warm Regards
Posted by admin in Feature Tuesday, 13 April 2010 06:40 No Comments
What is a Sales Funnel ?
There are any number of definitions for a so called sales funnel. Some of them you may or may not be familiar with depending on one’s background in sales or marketing or management.
I was going to simply blast out the definition of a sales funnel as it relates to a shopping cart when I thought – let me have a look at what our good friend Wikipedia has to say.
Sales Funnel Shopping Cart
The Wiki definition is truthfully, the one that most people would relate to and in this case though its traditional for offline sales it is not the same as an online sales funnel.
Wikipedia Defines the Sales Funnel like this :
1. New Opportunity
2. Initial Communication
3. Fact Finding
4. Develop Solution
5. Propose Solution
6. Solution Evaluation
7. Negotiation
8. Sales Order
9. Account Maintenance
New opportunities are put in the top and worked through the funnel until they either issue a purchase order, or become a disqualified lead. The key to surviving in sales is to make sure that each layer never goes empty. You should always know how many companies are in each layer. The adage is “Fat pipeline equals skinny kids.” One-call closers have fat kids with better toys.
Knowing that it can take weeks or months to walk prospects through the funnel process, you better have multiple prospects at all the layers of the funnel.
So the bottom line is pretty straightforward. Make sure that you have action at all levels in the sales funnel and you’ll never be desperate for a deal to close again.
In italics above, including the editor’s opinion, is the traditional offline view of a sales funnel. It’s not incorrect, as it was the established way of looking at a sales funnel prior to internet marketing. So, its still quite valid and used in marketing worldwide.
However, when seasoned Internet Marketers discuss “Shopping Cart Sales Funnels” they are really talking about the relationship building process that starts with the capture of a potential client’s email from what is/was usually a free offer on a web page on through to the process of getting or achieving credibility with that customer and on through a possible customer purchase.
A number of well known metric centers have determined that a web site must communicate with a customer, an average of 7 times before a sale is made.
If the customer bounces into a site, doesn’t find what they need and immediately bounces right back out – how can the site hope to touch that client 7 times ?
The straight up answer is that it really can’t. A strongly positioned website with an excellent interface but no sales funnel might achieve a sale 1% of the time. In other words, from 1,000 unique visitors, it might expect 10 sales if everything else were correct. There will be any number of marketers ready to correct this and remark that the number can be as low as .1% instead of 1%. I wouldn’t argue the 1/10 of a percent number either because thats inline with what many sites get now.
So, how does a sales funnel change all of this?
A Proper Online Sales funnel typically looks like this
- Capture Email Offer on front page
- A series of 7-12 Pre-Sale Autoresponder Messages set to discuss relevant issues of a 30 day period
- A series of Post-Sale Autoresponder Messages for helping customer get the most out of the purchase
- Hidden Tracking scripts attached to very soft sales offer in most but not all of the messages
- Tracking script switches Converting Clients over to Post-Sale Autoresponder messages after sale
My favorite autoresponder application is GetResponse, but neither GetResponse nor Aweber ( which is also a great product ) have a truly integrated shoppingcart/autoresponder. I know some people who will say that they wrote this custom script or that custom script to hack together something similar to what I have described above – and to them I say, wonderful your technical genius is commendable – but for the rest of us, there are only a few shoppingcart solutions that include autoresponders integrated with the shopping cart.
The first and still one of the most widely used of these is the 1shopping cart product.
A sales funnel attached to a shopping cart is rarer than a flock of Canada geese in the dead middle of winter ( Yes, they flow south in the autumn ) but they do exist, lol.
Posted by admin in Shopping Carts Thursday, 2 September 2010 13:52 4 Comments
I don’t necessarily purchase items all the time, but I always feel the need to look through clothes and put them in my shopping cart online. Do I have a problem?
Posted by admin in Google Adwords Thursday, 2 September 2010 13:50 No Comments
Follow these 5 simple steps to make the best possible start when creating your first AdWords campaign.
Ecommerce Comments