eCommerce and eBusiness

The Check is in the "E-mail"

2005-11-11T22:44:00.000+05:00

Have you ever had someone who owed your business money say, "the check is in the mail." Well now there is an answer to that old tired way of brushing you off and not seeing that check come in the mail week after week after week. Qchex.com has an awesome service that can cut waiting weeks to get paid via check to only minutes. I have used this service many times and I don't know what I would do without it. Many of my clients would rather pay me by check and are use to just letting the old post office take their time in delivering it. Qchex.com will cut that time to almost nothing.

After a few short minutes of setup and downloading of the printing software, I was printing a company check I had received via email from my client who used to mail the check via snail mail. Now all I have to do is email them an invoice that is provided electronically by Qchex.com and all they have to do is fill in the blanks and click on some links to send me a check. I then print it out on my deskjet printer and then take it to the bank and deposit it into my business account.

I have a client that lives in Winder, GA witch is about 70 miles outside of Atlanta. They don't like using credit cards so they usually send me a check in the mail and it sometimes takes days on end to receive it. Because all my work is done from my home office and I don't have to go to a client's site to complete the work let alone pick up a check. It would be very difficult to keep this client if I am delayed in getting paid for my work.

The solutions to the problem was Qchex.com. I sent my client an email that had a link to an invoice with all the line items of my services. Once they clicked on the invoice they were directed to the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connected Qchex.com website where a picture of a check was waiting for them to fill out with all their information regarding this transaction ready to go.

After checking all the information out to make sure it was correct they clicked another button to send the check to me. I then got an email notification that I had received a check and it was waiting to be printed. I then logged in using my username and password to the Qchex.com site and viewed and then proceeded to print my check using either regular paper or VersaCheck blank business checks which you can purchase at any office max or office depot. I suggest that you print a test copy first because you want to make sure you have enough ink and that the paper lines up correctly.

Please use this option first because If you don't you only get one chance to print a live printout. If you don't print it out right you then have to request another check from your client asking permission to print it again. This feature protects the sender from multiple printouts of checks. After successfully printing the check your next step is easy, go to your bank and deposit it. If you would like to see a demo of Qchex.com in action please go to http://www.qchex.com/qc_quickdemo.asp.

Never again will you have to wait for the payment of your product or service via check.

Jeffrey Alexander Brathwaite, aka "JB" is a Internet Technology Coach, Speaker and Trainer. JB prides himself on helping small to medium size businesses who are frustrated with dealing with the Internet. If you are having problems trying to deal with Email marketing, Search Engine marketing or just getting your own website off the ground. Please go to our website http://www.2thenextlevel.com

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Online Entrepreneurs Can Benefit From The Search Engine Wars Between Yahoo and Google

2005-11-03T21:21:00.000+05:00

Yahoo has announced recently that they will be joining Google in introducing an advertising program where advertisers can pay per click. Using this method advertisers can set a budget by selecting how much they are willing to pay per visitor, and how many visitors they can afford per day.

In response to this opportunity sites like www.googlehomebusiness.com have released eBooks, tutorials, and short courses, that offer guidance to website owners looking to advertise their sites by using pay per click search engine programs from Google and Yahoo.

These courses illustrate the process of setting up online campaigns, writing effective ads, focusing on the right market, and strategies for measuring the results of your online campaigns.

?Just like print advertisers hire advertising agencies to design and run their campaigns, online advertisers need to be able to access seasoned advice for advertising online,? said Donny Lowy, who is the author of Selling Online: Beyond eBay.

According to Donny, there are specialized techniques and methods that are needed to properly advertise online. Since the barrier to entry is very low, there are many site owners who are simply throwing away their advertising budgets on ineffective campaigns.

?Low entry barriers mean that anyone can start advertising online because it requires less than $100 to start. People also see this is an easy way to capture leads and increase sales.?

In reality it seems that the majority of online sites are still struggling. While there are more opportunities to advertise online, and at a lower rate than previously, the challenge of capturing sales online seems to be level with past ratios.

?Online entrepreneurs can beat the odds and capture more leads and increase their online sales, but they need to study the steps that proven online businesses have taken.?

The search engine field was equally shared by 8 large search engines during the last five years. But as the many of these Internet upstarts failed, the remaining players were left with a larger slice of the search market. This situation has presented opportunities for small budget advertisers.

At the acme of the Internet fever there were many search engines serving the search market. There were companies like Infoseek, Open Text, Snap, and Direct Hit. Most search engines that sill operate receive their results from established search engines like Yahoo, Google, and Overture.

Since search engine users have grown in sophistication they have come to realize that these results are being fed by the larger search engines. These users have gone direct to the source and now the majority of them rely exclusively on Google and Yahoo.

Studies have shown that Google and Yahoo control 90% of the search engine market, with Google leading Yahoo by 10 market points.

Yahoo has responded by updating their search engine with more advanced features and faster indexing.

Gone are the days when it took months for Yahoo and Google to index a new website. Now website owners can see their sites appearing in the search engines in a couple of weeks if not days.

The competition by Google and Yahoo has allowed website owners with small internet marketing budgets to enter the marketplace faster, and without having to spend an excessive amount on advertising.

One reason being that the search engines themselves realize that the more sites they have indexed, the more users will use their service instead of the competition?s engines.

The new services introduced by these search engines also allows small internet businesses to prosper by taking advantage of the advertising opportunities offered.

Donny Lowy, the CEO of http://www.closeoutexplosion.com, an online wholesale and closeout business, and http://www.wholesalecloseoutforum.com, an educational resource for the wholesale and closeout business, launched http://www.googlehomebusiness.com to show entrepreneurs how to profit from Google and Yahoo.

How Merchant Accounts Benefit Business

2005-10-30T18:56:00.000+05:00

Credit Card Payment Processing

If you operate a website but do not provide your customers the choice of paying by credit card changes are you are losing vast amounts of revenue and business every month. While at first glance it may seem expensive to set up a merchant account, ultimately you will save yourself and make yourself a lot of money providing customers this option.

If you do accept credit cards you want to be sure that you select the best merchant account for your business. Most companies, particularly those based in the United States and Canada, have a ton of different choices when it comes to accepting credit card payments online.

Methods For Accepting Online Payments

For international businesses wanting to accept credit card payments, finding a merchant account may be a bit more challenging, however it can be done and should be done to help boost a slow business. There are basically three different ways you can set up online payments for any business:

- You can set up your own merchant account, usually from your private or business bank.

- You can use an intermediary or a merchant account broker to establish a merchant account.

- You can use a third party service to process online payments for you.

The method you choose will depend on a number of factors including your revenues the size of your business and the number of years you have been in business. Many opt for third party services to provide online payment for clients and customers.

Article by Frank Owen, visit his web site on merchant account for more information on merchant accounts http://www.merchantaccountinsiders.com

Create Your Own Cash Via E-Products!

2005-10-26T11:08:00.000+05:00

You may be wondering how you can sell products online that will be profitable but also how you can cut the middle man out of your profits. Then you are looking at e-products. Now you may be wondering what they are and how you can get your hands on them? It is very easy. E-products are products that are created from your own mind with information that you have gained or found out one way or another. Such as an ebook on "how to make the worlds best tuna fish sandwich" or "how to set up your own server". This information is created by you and put down so that it is useful to others who are in need of this information(for those who don't know how to make a tuna fish sandwich). It gives them valuable information based on your own experiences and helps them with the problems they are facing. The best thing about it is that you own any copyright on products you create and they only take a few minutes of your time to come up with.

The important part about e-products is that they must fill a void of information people are searching for. Usually common knowledge doesn't sell as well, such as an ebook on "how to slice bread" might now sell as good as another ebook on "how to make your own homemade bread". People have to feel that they need the product and that they can't find this information anywhere else. So presenting your e-product is a user friendly professional way is also key.

Once you figure out what to create your e-product on and what it will be(whether it will be an article, ebook, how to guide or something else). You then need to figure out two things: 1. where you will sell it(such as on your website, others websites or on ebay) and 2. How much it will cost. These are two important steps as they will determine your market for your product and also the price. Remember when pricing that if it is too high no one will buy. Also remember that any profit you will make will be 100% yours so keeping prices a bit lower will still give you the same return rate if you were to sell someone else products(probably a better return rate actually).

Whenever you go to create an e-product just make sure to take your time with it. Try as hard as possible to make it the best it can be and also do some research to see what is already out there as well what people are needing. This will allow you to create a nice income while being in full control.

Anthony Jewell has over 6 Years experience in the Web & Graphics World. You can visit my business and join in conversation at Logo2D.com - Logo2D.com Forum

How an Internet Business Can Outperform a Brick and Mortar Business

2005-10-22T19:46:00.000+05:00

Many ?how to become an entrepreneur? type books are being published everyday and people are flocking to franchise fairs to learn how they can ditch the rat race and start the business of their dreams. Many of such people start their brick and mortar business part time while they are still working and because it is offline causes them great stress and a great lack of sleep as they struggle to balance their day jobs and their part time business. An internet business on the other hand, if largely automated, can allow you to make money online even while you are sleeping. This article will highlight several aspects where an internet business can outperform an offline business.

Firstly, an internet business that sells an online service like service that can be highly automated can potentially outperform an offline business. An example of this is Amazon and Travelocity who are able to cut their costs of hiring staff by having people fill up the forms and book their travel tours.

Another similar but related example would be financial websites that have the latest financial figures which is more up to date than any offline financial magazine. The reason for this is because rapidly changing financial information is best transmitted in a medium that can keep up with the pace of change. Financial newsletters and magazines thus are turning to the internet to keep their readers up to date and leave their print versions to be consolidations of the major pieces of news for the week or month. Thus information business ventures that have fast quickly changing content would do better on the internet than offline.

Secondly, the home business industry has the possibility to do very much better online when compared to its offline counterpart. This is due to the availability of online automated sales systems online today which allow any internet business owner to generate leads, qualify and close the leads entirely online. Contrast this with the traditional home based business owner who has to pick up the phone can call through piles of cold lead lists. An internet home business can allow one to make money with very little setup costs as opposed to a traditional brick and mortar business.

A simple analogy would be in order to demonstrate this difference. Offline I have to pay a few thousand for rental store before I can test if a particular product can sell while online all I need to do is to spend a lot less to test the same product online. Similarly to test a new online business concept the return on equity to borrow a financial term is always very great as compared to an offline business.

Finally, niche marketing while not unknown to the offline world, is taken to new heights online where automated internet tools allow an internet business owner to target these highly targeted online niches and exploits them. The successful exploitation of such niche markets online can reap substantial profits for the internet business owner. The reason for this is that while very few people in particular area offline may be searching for a particular item, there might be a huge global demand for that item and as such may be great for the internet business owner. Thus starting an internet business catering to niche global markets may be more achievable with lower equity needed to fund start a startup venture.

In conclusion, the birth of the internet commerce world has unleashed many companies rushing in to cash in on the global rise in internet advertising. Starting an internet business today every than before looks like an ever increasing possibility and more and more people are choosing to start an internet business for the reasons mentioned above ever before to take advantage of the many forms of leverage that an internet business has over an offline business.

Joel Teo is a successful internet home business owner and internet marketer and he can show you how you can start your money making home based business. Go to http://www.massive-profits-online.com to learn how you can start making money by starting your own internet home based business today.

Shopping Cart Abandonment ? Discover 5 Things you can do to Lower Cart Abandonment

2005-10-07T11:06:00.000+05:00

A common frustration among merchants who sell online via a shopping cart is the percentage of people who abandon their cart and leave the site never to return. This is known as the shopping cart abandonment rate. It is not unheard of for companies to experience as high as a 99% abandonment rate. Getting the abandonment rate under control can go a long way towards increasing the income your company earns from their online venture.

1. Don't make them register until they have to

A common complaint amoung web shoppers is the irritation and invasion of privacy they feel when they have to register for a new account before they can even use the shopping cart. If people have to share their personal information with you before they even know if they want to buy from you, they'll often click away never to return. Whenever possible, get them to register after they know how much something will cost them including shipping. This will help them to feel good about your company and will result in more sales.

2. Make it easy for your prospect to find out how much it will cost them

Many people will use your shopping cart to price out what your product will cost them after shipping. On the web, everyone knows that a tangible product must be shipped. Knowing this, the number one cost people are always reluctant to spend on is the shipping. People want to know what the final price they will pay to get it to their door. If this price is reasonable to them, only then will they go through the trouble of registering for an account.

3. High Shipping Costs

Almost anyone who has purchased a product online has run into a company that was charging a sky high rate for shipping. Do everything you can to keep your shipping costs as low as possible. Shop around for a good rate. Try to include a shipping estimator from the company that will be handling your shipping featured on your website. Make it easy for your customers to find it.

4. Keep the number of steps they need to take at a minimum

Many shopping carts take people through four, five or six steps before they can finalize their purchase. Every extra step you force people to take in your shopping cart system is one more chance they have to abandon the shopping cart. Collect as much information as possible in as few steps as it is reasonable for you to take. This will encourage fewer people to click away.

5. Keep outbound links to a minimum

Don't give your prospects an easy way to exit the shopping cart process. Forcing them to click the back button will at least make it more of an effort for them to click away. People can sometimes have second thoughts that an extra link on your website may encourage. For this reason, keep any links on your order pages to only the most necessary.

Overall, if you treat your prospects with respect, make it easy for them to find the information they need, and streamline your checkout process to make it easy for your prospects to buy from you, you'll succeed at making more money and lowering your shopping cart abandonment rate.

This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/, a web hosting company that specializes in helping online business owners increase their website traffic. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely as long as you link back to my website from this resource box.

Grow Your Business Using B2B Emarketplace - Part I

2005-10-06T20:35:00.000+05:00

If you are a small to medium size company and selling or planning to sell products and services over the Net and still did not try out emarketplaces, you are simply loosing a great opportunity!

Research firm eMarketer predicts that worldwide B2B ecommerce revenues will surpass US$ 1.4 trillion by the end of 2003. In the United States alone revenues will total US$ 721 billion. By 2004, the US B2B ecommerce revenues are expected to reach US$ 1.01 trillion and studies show that a significant portion of these transactions will be conducted through emarketplaces.

What is an Emarketplace?

In a broader sense, business to business emarketplace is an online platform where buyers and sellers come to communicate, collaborate and make business transactions. Emarketplace caters a large number of participant companies as a community. The main objective of an emarketplace is to create a venue, filled with features that allow members to efficiently conduct significant portion of business processes on the Net. Emarketplaces are also known as B2B exchanges.

Types of Emarketplaces

There are varieties of emarketplaces available on the Internet to suit your company's specific need.

Public:
These emarketplaces are open to all companies. Virtually, anybody can become a member and conduct business through these marketplaces.

Private:
Membership is restricted and owners of the marketplace decide according to which criteria they will select participants. For example: a large trading company can have its own emarketplace limited to its buyers or suppliers only.

Horizontal:
If the emarketplace works with a large numbers of products and services from different industries, it is called a horizontal marketplace.

Vertical:
Industry specific emarketplaces are called vertical markets. An emarketplace, working solely with suppliers and buyers of cars is an example of this kind of marketplace.

Can your company benefit from an Emarketplace?

Whether you are primarily a buyer or a supplier, participation in emarketplace can generate enormous benefits to your company - both in cost savings and productivity increase.

Benefits that you can have as a buyer

Automate the purchasing procedure
Emarketplaces allow you to send request for quotes to a prospective supplier, receive quotes, send purchase orders and receive invoices within the marketplace system. You can virtually consolidate all your procurement processes in one single place. This process of automation brings significant efficiency to you and saves your transaction processing cost. According to Aberdeen Group, a research company, thanks to B2B procurement systems, businesses can reduce these processing costs up to 70%.

Comparison shopping at its best
Since you can see all the suppliers of a particular product, that you are planning to buy, in one place, it is easy for you to see which one among the suppliers suits you best in terms of quality, delivery time, geographical location, costs etc.

Reduce sourcing time cycle
Most emarketplaces allow you to select multiple offers from different suppliers and create purchase orders in one shot and send. Since you handle all your procurement related correspondence from a consolidated working page, you can see right away answers to requests for quote, invoices, etc. This helps you react instantly and reduce you time in document processing.

Community participation
You can receive valuable feedbacks from other fellow buyers, receive industry-related information, build new partnerships and use the networking ability of a community.

Real time access to current product information
Current information of a product is vital for an accurate buying decision. 24 hours access to supplier's catalog helps you getting most up-to-date information any time you need it.

Control rogue spending
Consolidated and automated procurement and approval method stops maverick buying in a company.

Benefit that you can have as a seller

New sales channel
By becoming a member of an emarketplace, you open a low cost, highly functional and easy-to-use sales channel for your company. You expose your company to a new targeted audience that otherwise would have been untapped to you.

Low customer acquisition cost
Your mere presence in the emarketplace might bring you new customers. Since the buyers come to emarketplace themselves your cost of getting customers through this channel is relatively low in comparison to other traditional channels.

Improve customer service
Ability to have constant interaction through the emarketplace allows you to serve your customers better. You can track the whole ordering process from payment to delivery and bring greater efficiency in customer service.

Efficient information sharing method
When needed, you can instantly update your catalog and inform your customers about changes. Whether you are launching a new product or having a web seminar, through emarketplace you can share the information more efficiently.

Reduce supply chain cost
According to eMarketer, automated supply chain process through emarketplaces can reduce your overhead costs 20% to 40%.

You may ask, if participation in an emarketplace is so beneficial, why companies are not flocking to emarketplaces.

The slower adoption can be blamed on various inadvertent factors:

Many companies had fall short to generate significant sales from their own websites and look at emarketplaces with a dose of skepticism. But as studies show ecommerce endeavors fail, mainly, due to lack of proper planning and marketing, as many site managers take the attitude that build-it-and-they-will-come.

Many conservative suppliers claim that their business depends on close relationship with local buyers. In reality, you can also get access to local untapped market through emarketplaces. Another aspect - you can bring efficiency to your business by co-adopting an emarketplace along with your buyers.

Many elderly executives are not very tech-savvy and afraid of adopting new technologies considering them too complex. In reality, e-business is virtual implementation of real life business processes and not very difficult to embrace.

Fear of price shopping by buyers is another factor, why suppliers are reluctant to use emarketplaces. The ability of emarketplace to emphasize all characteristics of the product in product content and demonstrate buyer-specific pricing should eliminate this fear.

Many, mistakenly, consider that participation cost in emarketplace is very high and will hurt their bottom line. The expenses related to emarketplace membership are, usually, a mere fraction of what you can save from the use of its different features.

What to look in an Emarketplace?

As an online venue, where participants expect to conduct substantial part of their business processes, emarketplace has a large range of useful features:

Product catalog based on an industry-standard classification system

Product search capability within the marketplace and e-catalog

Buyers and sellers search capabilities

Supply chain process, i.e. request for quote, quotation, purchase order, billing system, etc.

Directory of members

Shipment tracking

Simple system of adding and editing products

Simple offer posting system

Ability to promote products with special offers, sales, and discount

Apart from these, some emarketplaces boast other interesting features like auction and reverse auction, new product listing notification, business forum, XML interface, Internal messaging system. Naturally, implementation of these features may vary significantly emarketplace to emarketplace.

Where to look for Emarketplace?

The best place to find an extensive list of emarketplaces is the B2B directory site: http://www.bocat.com.

The open directory project DMOZ has a good list of emarketplaces. However, not all listings in both of these places are, in reality, emarketplaces. Some of them are simple trade boards. This list is located at http://dmoz.org/Business/E-Commerce/Marketplaces/

Yahoo! directory is not organized well enough to locate emarketplaces. They are scattered under the subcategories: Vertical marketplace builders, Trade directories and even Trade.

Forbes magazine has a quality list of many B2B companies including some emarketplaces. You will find the list at: http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2b/main.jhtml

To be continued in next issue: Selecting the right Emarketplace.

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he has wide experience in Business Consulting, International Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace with solutions to start and run online business. You can contact him at mailto:nowshade[at]rusbiz.com, http://ezine.rusbiz.com, http://www.rusbiz.com

Outsourcing Your Ecommerce Order Fulfillment

2005-10-06T18:57:00.000+05:00

When your eCommerce business grows to the point where you can no longer package and ship the orders yourself, it?s time to begin outsourcing your order fulfillment. Although all order fulfillment centers offer the same basic services, their individual methods and costs will help you choose one over the other. When selecting an order fulfillment service, keep the following in mind:

Location

Order fulfillment warehouses are located all over the country. It?s more important to select a warehouse that is close in proximity to your customers than to select one that is close to your business. For example, if your warehouse is located in California, and most of your customers are located on the East coast, your shipping rates will be higher than if you had a warehouse located in Kansas. Fulfillment centers located in the middle of the country will be able to ship to both the east and west coast for similar prices.

Size

Fulfillment warehouses range from small business with just a few employees to large companies such as UPS. Select a fulfillment service that can meet your daily order fulfillment needs. Do you have consistent orders each day or do your orders spike? If you have orders that spike, be sure to choose a fulfillment center that can handle the extra workload and still ship the orders within the agreed timeline.

Shipping Options

Most fulfillment centers offer a variety of shipping options. Make sure the fulfillment service you select offers all of the shipping options you currently offer your customers and the shipping options that you may want to offer in the future.

Turn-around Time

Each fulfillment warehouse has it?s own policy regarding order processing. For example some fulfillment centers will ship all orders that arrive before 1pm on the same business day. If you miss the 1pm deadline, the order is shipped the next business day. This could impact your customers if a next-day order is placed after 1pm. In this case, next day shipping turns out to be two-day shipping.

Order Entry

Order entry methods can be very important when considering a fulfillment service. The most common methods include:

Forwarding individual order invoices to the warehouse
Entering each order on the fulfillment center?s web-based system
Emailing an Excel spreadsheet with all order once a day

Each method has a different affect on your business. For example, you may save money by manually entering orders into a web-based application, but it can be tedious if your business grows to the point where you have more orders than you have time to enter. You may pay a higher price to automatically email each individual invoice to the warehouse, but it may be worth the extra costs to have orders may be shipped as they arrive. Same day shipping could give you the edge over your competitor. On the other hand, if you have a high volume of orders, you won?t want to individually enter each order into a web-based system and may not want to pay the extra charge of having individual orders emailed to the warehouse. If you don?t mind shipping the next business day, you can send an Excel spreadsheet containing all of your orders once a day. Choose a warehouse that offers an order entry method that meets your business needs and fits your budget.

Communication

Communication is an important part of every business. There will be times when you need to contact the fulfillment center to modify a customer?s address or cancel an order. Select a fulfillment center that is available via phone and email. You should not have to wait more than a few hours for a return email or call from the fulfillment center.

Error Rate

Mistakes will happen. Some customers will receive the wrong items or the items will be shipped to the billing address rather than the shipping address. When interviewing potential fulfillment centers, ask about their error rate and their process for remedying the situation. For example, do they issue UPS call tags to pick up the incorrect item and pay to ship a replacement item? Will they ship the replacement item at a faster rate to compensate the customer?

Costs

Each fulfillment center operates under a different payment schedule. Some use sliding scales and require contracts while others charge per order or per item with no contracts. You will also be charged a base fee to store your inventory at the warehouse and an additional fee per pallet or per item. Be sure you have a clear understanding of the fulfillment center?s costs and any contracts.

When choosing a fulfillment center, create a checklist of the features you would like. Interview a member of the warehouse staff, as well as, their references to make sure the warehouse will meet the needs of your growing eCommerce business. When you outsource order fulfillment, the time that you normally spend packaging orders, managing inventory, and dealing with returns, can now be focused on growing your business. Use this time to expand your product line, enhance your online image, promote your business or expand into new markets.

About The Author

Danna Henderson started ZIP Baby in order to provide parents with comprehensive breastfeeding information and a large selection of parenting products. For more information visit Breastmilk Banks.

Online Payments Make It Easy For Your Customers To Buy

2005-10-05T23:31:00.000+05:00

In the last column we discussed the process of credit card enabling your brick-and-mortar business. I pointed out that research has shown that accepting credit cards can help increase revenue and speed up cash flow. This week we will look at setting up an online payment system for your business website. If you think hooking up a brick-and-mortar location with a credit card system stymies most bankers, try asking them how to do it on your website.

The fact is most banks can provide you with the merchant account needed to accept credit card payments online, but beyond that, they have little to do with the process. Even larger banks may only have a single person on staff that is tasked as the "credit card processing expert" and if that person ever goes on vacation, you're pretty much out of luck (voice of experience talking here, folks).

I have helped many clients set up online credit card processing systems and more than once I've had to sit down with the bank issuing the merchant account and educate them on how online payment systems work. Don't believe me? This is a direct quote (here's the Bible, here's my hand) from the manager who was in charge of processing Internet merchant account applications at a local bank, "When someone pays online how do they swipe the credit card in their computer..."

You will need the following to accept credit cards on your website: (1) an electronic shopping cart system; (2) a payment gateway service; (3) a credit card processor; and (4) an internet merchant account issued by a bank or other financial institution or service bureau.

Here's how online credit card processing works. (1) Your customer submits his credit card information at checkout on your website. (2) The shopping cart software sends the transaction to the gateway. (3) The gateway routes the information to the processor. (4) The processor contacts the bank that issued the customer's credit card. (5) The issuing bank approves or declines the transaction. (6) The processor routes the result back to the gateway who then passes the result back to the website shopping cart system. The entire process is done electronically and takes seconds to complete.

We covered most of these elements last week. Here's a quick refresher for those who missed the basics, then we'll talk about the shopping cart system you'll need to implement on your website.

Payment Gateway Service: The payment gateway service comes into play when a customer submits their credit card information to the webpage form. Think of the gateway service as the middleman in the process. The website's shopping cart checkout system electronically submits the credit card to the gateway service that then routes the information to the processor for approval.

Credit Card Processor: The credit card processor is an electronic data center that processes the credit card transactions coming from the gateway company, ensures that the charge is valid, then settles the funds in your merchant account.

Internet Merchant Account: An Internet merchant account is a bank or account in which funds from online sales are deposited by the processor. Merchant accounts are usually issued by banks that are associated with the major credit card services like Visa and MasterCard. Be aware that many banks will not grant merchant accounts to Internet merchants as they are often categorized as "high risk ventures." This policy varies widely and in the end, the granting of the merchant account will come down to economics from the bank's point of view. If the bank sees even the smallest iota of risk, you will not be granted the account.

Fortunately, the growth of online sales has given rise to an entire industry of merchant service bureaus that will grant you a merchant account and everything else you need to accept online payments. The fees are usually higher, but it's better than not having an online payment system at all.

Shopping Cart System. To accept online payments you must have what's called a "shopping cart system" that allows the customer to select and purchase products from your website. A shopping cart system typically consists of three components: the product catalog, the shopping cart, and the checkout/payment system. The product catalog is the component that displays the items you have for sale on the website. The shopping cart system is the component that allows your customers to select products by clicking to "add items to cart," and the checkout/payment system is the component that allows the customer to complete the checkout process and pay for their purchase with a credit card (or in some cases an electronic check). It is the checkout/payment component that communicates with the gateway system to complete the transaction.

Adding a shopping cart system to your website can be a simple or highly complex task, depending on the system you select. The cost of shopping cart software ranges from free (for simplistic form-based systems) to very expensive. Which shopping cart system is best for your business depends on a number of factors, including the product you're selling, the depth of your product line, the purchase options you wish to offer customers, the inventory control functionality, and the extent of automation you desire.

There are numerous companies who can assist in the setup of your shopping cart and online credit card payment system. These companies typically charge several hundred to several thousand dollars for their services, but like anything you get what you pay for, so always use a company with good references in this area. When you're dealing with something as important as credit card processing and cash flow, bite the bullet and get it done right the first time. The money you spend now will be returned many times in increased sales volume from credit card customers.

The most important thing to remember when setting up an online payment system is this: online it's all about security and privacy. Though online credit card processing has been around for years there are still many people who are uncomfortable giving their credit card number online. These are the same folks who do not hesitate to give their credit card number over the phone or hand their credit card to a waiter who disappears with it for ten minutes. Online credit card processing is much less susceptible to fraud and abuse than of those scenarios.

Small Business Q&A is written by veteran entrepreneur and syndicated columnist, Tim Knox. Tim's latest books include "Small Business Success Secrets" and "The 30 Day Blueprint For Success!" Related Links: http://www.smallbusinessqa.com http://www.dropshipwholesale.net

How To Eliminate Credit Card Refunds From 'Digital Thieves'

2005-10-05T22:22:00.000+05:00

Can you encounter the number of times where a Credit Card Sale was generated, only to receive a "Refund Notification" from your contracted e-commerce processor on behalf the "customer"?

Welcome to the electronic world of "cyber-shoplifting".

Unscrupulous surfers, disguised as potential "customers", systematically opt to ordering goods (using credit cards) in electronic form of delivery, only to request a refund minutes or days later after receiving the product.

The "cyber thieves" consent the well-known "loophole" of specific e-commerce processors who deploy a "no questions asked" refund policy.

Some... might concur to the predicament that a "liberal refund policy" boosts sales, but it is statistically verified that these claims are unthinkingly based gross sales figures, where refunds are *not* accumulated to extract the "net profit" (minus refunds).

In numerous cases, the cyber thieves (or else called freebie hunters) automate their thievery, by using pre-made templates to ask for a refund, in order to save time and reap as many digital products as possible, for gratis.

A portion of cyber thieves, download a digital product, whether ebook or software, only to illegally sell it online at eBay or sell it in "warez sites".

Optimistically, these unprincipled pinches are either prosecuted to the fullest extend of the law, for infringement of copyrights, or face imprisonment along with heavy fines.

So if you want to avoid getting targeted by cyber thieves (and losing thousands), the wisest approach is to conduct business with an e-commerce processor who will protect you against dodgy "freebie hunters" (see http://traffic-engine.net/stormpay for a genuine payment processor).

After all, it is *your duty* to forming your own "refunds policy", not your processor's.

About The Author

George Papazoglou is the author behind http://cyber-software.com

This article may be freely distributed / republished, as long as it contains the author's credits and the precise entirety of the provided article, titled: "How to Eliminate Credit Card Refunds from 'Digital Thieves'".

Web Store - Why Do You Need One?

2005-10-04T21:55:00.000+05:00

Internet has opened a new era of business opportunities. Each day, thousands of new consumers are joining the Internet. More and more companies are adopting Internet as their primary sales and distribution channel. According to Forrester Research -The survey of 130 U.S. companies indicates consumers spent $76 billion shopping on-line in 2002. This represents a 48 percent increase over 2001, and projections for 2003 come close to $100 billion, representing 4.5 percent of total retail sales.

As a business you probably understand that in order to stay competitive you must integrate ecommerce to your present business strategy. A little research will show you that there is an extensive array of technology and solutions for enterprise and web store building available in the market. You also perceive that ecommerce sites can cost you from a mere couple of hundred bucks to hundreds of thousand of dollars. How to choose something from so many options that will exactly fit your present need?

Although, this might look like a daunting task, a little preparation will definitely help you taking the right decision in your quest for an appropriate ecommerce solution. To understand your requirement better and create a proper ecommerce strategy, you have to ask yourself a number of questions. Below I jotted down some of the questions that, hopefully, will spur your imagination.

What should be the look of my web store?
Do I need a database for my product catalog?
How should the purchase order generate on my web store?
Do I need to handle different pricing system for dealers, wholesalers and end customers?
How do I bill my customers?
How easy can I make my web store to navigate?
How many search options should we have?
Can I show my customers a product comparison table?
What should be my merchant account gateway system?
Finally, how much should I invest to build my web store?

If building an ecommerce site from scratch feels too overwhelming to you and you are a small business, my suggestion is - to build a web store with one of the providers similar to Yahoo, Bigstep, Rusbiz etc.

The web stores that you can build directly on the Internet have all the necessary features like shopping cart, product catalog and payment gateway as any regular ecommerce site. In most of the cases, you construct web store online from templates and easy-to-use editor and you hardly need to know html or other script languages.

You can order your Web Store from Rusbiz right now.

The benefits of using a web store that you can build online are enormous.

Quick to build: If you have all the materials handy, you can build a web store within a day.

Easy in use: You don?t have to be a rocket scientist to build a fully functional ecommerce site. Step by step procedures of making pages from templates allow anybody to create a professionally looking web store in no time.

Affordable: Although, some of the providers charge commissions on your sales, as Yahoo does, in most of the cases your expenses are less than US$ 100 a month to have a good web store.

The only disadvantage you have with this kind of web stores is you might not be able to give the customized look and feel to the site as you intend to. Then again, once you start generating enough sales through your web store, if you must, you can always build an ecommerce site by hiring web design companies.

If you are still hesitant in starting online business using web stores I would suggest you to read the following eventual benefits that you may have from ecommerce.

Increase your sales & profits

If you are a brick and mortar company, online commerce will definitely increase your sales and with it profits.

Enhance your company image

Today, even small companies understand the importance of having a website. Planned, sophisticated and professional website creates positive image of the company and help building brand name.

Reduce costs and save money

If required features are available on the website practically all business processes are possible to carry out on the Internet, which allows you to reduce overhead costs, costs incurred due to documentary mistakes, document processing costs, etc.

Improve customer service

Frequently Asked Questions pages, forums, Internal Messaging Service, chat lines, etc. all these features help you effectively running your customer service.

Become a global player

Thanks to the reach of Internet you are no longer confined to a certain geographical boundary any more. You can sell products to any place of the world 24 hours a day.

Add sales channels

By joining e-marketplaces and B2B exchanges you can significantly increase the number of sales channels available to you.

Reduce supply chain cycle

If you automate supply chain processes through Internet, you will be able to shorten the entire cycle from months to days. You will be even able to eliminate certain phases of your supply chain process.

Market products and services

There are numerous ways of getting traffics on your site and popularize your products. In fact, you can get more people in your web store than it is physically possible to accommodate in a bricks-and-mortar shop.

Compete with large companies

On the Internet you may successfully compete with the behemoths of your industry and even curve market shares out of them.

Low start-up costs

Normally, starting a brick and mortar business requires significant cost involvement. On the Internet - opposite is true! To start a business online you hardly need any major investment.

No entry barrier

As you know, many businesses in real world are tightly controlled by certain groups. On the internet there is no such barrier! Anybody can start any business of his choice.

No need to close existing sales channels

By adopting Internet as a sales channel you do not loose anything as your web store only complements existing sales conduit.

If you are new to ecommerce world, I would advise you to go slow! First create a plan with long term and short term objectives. Try implementing your plan gradually. Make sure that you do not spend too much money on your initial ecommerce project. Remember! Over 80 percent of all software projects do not finish in time within the budget; and do not work as planned!

About The Author

Nowshade Kabir, Ph.D., is the founder, primary developer and present CEO, of Rusbiz.com, a global business to business e-commerce portal with feature like storefronts, aggregated catalog, e-marketplace, trade leads, internal messaging system supply chain solutions, etc. With a doctorate in Information Technology, Dr. Kabir has worked an advisor to government projects and has over 12 years experience in International Trade. An author of many B2B and business related articles; he publishes a bi-weekly E-zine for online business community. You can subscribe to his newsletter free of charge from http://www.rusbiz.com.

nowshade@rusbiz.com

Short Story: The Benefits of Shopping Online

2005-10-04T18:28:00.000+05:00

Maria?s new lifestyle: Short story about the benefits shopping on the Net has given to a dedicated artist.

I?ve got this strange friend; her name is Maria. Maria?s always been a little weird but now things have gotten unworldly altogether. You see, Maria?s an artist; she?s into sculpture in particular, of which she specializes in the manipulation of Perspex with a blowtorch. Lately I haven?t seen too much of her as she?s hooked up the Internet. Actually not many people at all have seen her recently; she says she?s working on a big project.

Now that she?s got the Internet she reckons she can focus a lot more on her work without distractions. She doesn?t ?waste? time doing grocery shopping anymore. Now she orders all her food and household items. She says if she?s extremely busy, her weekly list is saved into the computer, and she just clicks on ?order? and the usual stuff is delivered to her door every week. No more driving, parking, searching for stuff, standing in line, dealing with bored and under slept cashiers. I?m starting to think it?s not such a bad idea. Maria is pretty proud. She?s now organizing for a local greengrocer to deliver her fruit and vegetables too.

Maria has always had a ?thing? for Donald Duck. On the Net she?s found all these rare collectable dealers like Ebay. When she?s not warping Perspex into postmodern configurations representing the need for a more spiritual existence, she?s thriving in the consumerist world of finding and bidding for Donald Duck comic books from the 1950?s. Last I heard a friend said she?s actually starting to look like a duck herself!

All this Internet shopping is pretty new to me, it sounds like it really could help a lot of people out. However for recluse artists it could be the final straw for friends and family who may never see their buddies again! Nah, its cool-I just hope Maria?s new project isn?t a giant Perspex Donald Duck. I don?t think the world needs any more Donald Ducks!

I just got back from Maria?s place. You?re not going to believe what I saw. She was actually having a party, and I wasn?t invited. Maybe she thinks I?m boring compared to her new friends. She says she met them on the Internet, a whole bunch of people into Donald Duck! One guy was actually dressed up like Yosemite Sam-gun belt and all! It seems I?m the odd one out.

Before I left her place she showed me her new sculpture. I underestimated her newfound love. It?s a giant computer; inside it is filled with the heads of all her friends (me included). Of course none of us had human mouths, smiling duck beaks adorned all the heads, a definite sign of the Internet?s powerful influence, and of the collective warping of today?s society!

About The Author

Jesse S. Somer is a human hoping to show his fellow Earth citizens the beautiful opportunities the Internet is making available for all our lives.

M6.Net

http://www.m6.net

Using Drop Shipping for E-commerce

2005-10-04T17:13:00.000+05:00

Thanks to the ubiquity of the internet, online virtual businesses have become very popular business opportunities. Online retail stores are gradually playing a more important role in our lives than the traditional ?brick-and-mortar? retail shops. Over the last few years, a new concept called ?Drop Shipping? has emerged with the coming of the internet. Drop Shippers are basically wholesalers who are willing to ship their products directly to your customers. This article aims to provide readers with an introduction to the current state of the E-commerce industry, Drop Shipping and its benefits, and the promise it holds for the online retail community.

Online Drop Ship businesses are now very popular home-based business opportunities. According to a Forrester Inc. report, online retail sales will grow at a 25% annual growth rate over the next five years. Online retail sales will reach nearly $230 billion and account for 10% of total US retail sales by 2008. On Ebay, more than 430,000 people are making a full- or part-time living from the auction site. Many of them use Drop Shippers to auction their products. Hence, with such strong statistics, the internet entrepreneur can hope to start a retail business now and still claim a portion of the ever-growing market share.

The Drop Ship model offers many unique advantages over the Wholesale model:

1) You do not have to spend a fortune on the huge inventory of wholesale stocks before you start a retail business. This translates into a very low business startup cost. There is no risk of purchasing large quantities of stock, and finding that you cannot sell off your goods because they have become obsolete among consumers. Therefore, with the variety of products offered by your Drop Shipper, it becomes feasible to test which products have a strong demand over the internet without losing a fortune on each test.

2) Another prime advantage of a Drop Ship business is that there is no need to worry about shipping your products to your customers. You do not have to provide storage space for your goods, nor do you have to incur warehouse costs. Your Drop Shipper will take care of all the logistics and shipping of your Drop Ship business. In fact, most Drop Shippers are willing to label their products with your company name on it, so it will appear as if you are the one who shipped the products to your customers. The shipping cost for each product is also reduced, because your Drop Shipper can ship your products directly to your customers. A higher profit margin is achieved because of the reduction in unnecessary shipping costs.

3) Drop Shipping is also unique in that it allows you to ?sell high, then buy low?, instead of ?buy low, then sell high?. Your risk involved in your retail business is dramatically lowered as you get paid up front for your products, making a profit on each sale.

4) There is no minimum quantity restriction on your orders. From your website catalogue, you can sell as much of your products as you want, and you can leave the indenting of stocks to your Drop Shipper. The quantity of products which you can sell over your website is only limited to your market demand, and your marketing efforts.

The process of setting up a Drop Ship business can be distilled into a few simple steps. First, you do some research over the internet over the niche market that you would like to target. Once, a strong demand for your products has been established, you contact the Drop Shipper of your choice and set up your business as the retailer of the products you want to sell. Next, you design a website complete with product catalogue and credit-card-accepting functions. The product descriptions and images can be obtained from the Drop Shipper, in most cases. After which, you need to drive large volumes of traffic to your website through internet marketing. Some visitors to your website will be converted to customers if they find your offers attractive enough. They place orders at your website and they pay you the retail prices, up front. You email the orders to your Drop Shipper, who will ship the products to your customers directly. Of course, the retail price will have to be marked up to include shipping costs as well. Since the Drop Shipper charges you the wholesale price for their products, the profit margin you earn is simply the difference between the retail and wholesale price.

Internet businesses, in general, have also many strong advantages over ?brick-and-mortar? businesses. Startup costs are generally very low, and this is well suited for those aspiring entrepreneurs working on a shoestring budget. The costs for conducting a Drop Ship business will be mainly software for setting up and marketing your business. Some examples will include shopping cart software, email marketing software, search engine promotion software, and so on. Other costs would include the web-hosting fee and also the wholesale costs of the products. In most cases, the Drop Shipper will require you to pay them a small deposit to signify your commitment and to prevent fraud.

With the low startup costs for a virtual business, you can keep trying different forms of business or different marketing methods over the internet without losing a fortune on your efforts. You can ?lose little? over many unsuccessful endeavors, but ?win big? on the few business models which you get right.

Perhaps the most attractive aspect of an online business is the ability to automate it and let it generate income on its own. This is largely possible due to software to automate the business process, like shopping cart software and email autoresponder software. Thus, Drop Ship businesses can run 24/7 without you being present physically to run it. Imagine having the freedom to do whatever you want without being an ?employee? for your business! All you need to do is to get the basics of the business up and running, like the website design and product catalogue. After which, you consistently market your website over the internet to get a recurring volume of traffic to your website. This will bring you recurring sales and allow you to make a decent living over the internet. You can repeat this process again and again with other markets of your choice. In the long run, this will bring you multiple streams of income. Online Drop Ship businesses are thus strong examples of assets that generate passive income.

In conclusion, the e-commerce industry is still very promising despite the dot-com bust a few years back. With the introduction of Drop Shipping, the hassles of conducting a retail business over the internet have been dramatically reduced. As the industry is still relatively young, entrepreneurs should get in the e-commerce game early to establish themselves as strong market players of the future.

You are welcome to reprint this article as long as you include the Author?s resource box with the article.

About the Author: Ray Yee is the founder and president of Dropshipperscentral, a website which provides a wealth of informative articles, tips and resources on everything you?ll ever need to know about setting up a Drop Ship Business and marketing it. Click here for the Wholesale Drop Ship Directory from http://www.dropshipperscentral.com

10 Second Internet Person, sound familiar?

2005-10-03T18:25:00.000+05:00

Some people do not understand the Internet idea of online commerce, but then again some people do not understand themselves either. To fully understand Internet Commerce you really only need to monitor your ?clicking habits? for a few days to see where you are going and what if anything you are buying. The modern Internet Consumer is there and gone, in a click of any eye, if you do not grab us with good stuff, SEE YA, we are out of here and the speed of light. However you can also make money on that fact and Google AdSense is just one way. Before you go hog wild on the Internet concept of making money in a virtual world you need to educate yourself a little; one of the books I recommend is:

?The 10 Second Internet Man@ger, Survive, thrive & drive your company in the information age? By Mark Breier.

Mark is one of the key people behind Amazon.com, an early .com that won. Why because of their team and there relentlessness. Armin A. Brott was a co-author and former Marine, Commodities Trader and MBA. He is also insane, just like the modern day Internet Person. It appears that is what it takes, these guys are as crazy as the Blitz Marketing Team at The Car Wash Guys in the deployment of their market dominating campaigns.

The book dives into instant information, use of inter-office e-mail, dealing with high-strung individuals all kicking butt. It talks of balance, fun on the team and winning. He sights the venture capital game, investment banker crowd and all the people it takes to please the crowd. They go into an in-depth evaluation of customer feedback and sales in the e-commerce world. If every .COM CEO would have read this book fewer would be gone today. The book is about a five hour read but worth it.

It goes into everything from the tricks of the trade, strategies to beat the competition to tactics that are necessary to move mountains. Some of these strategies have changed but the concept behind them remains the same.

I recommend the book to everyone, but feel that some companies are even more dedicated to winning than they were at Amazon.com. I thought that some of the hard work complaints were invalid because that is what it takes and that is life. If you cannot cope get out of the fire, strong survive. I got the feeling that some of these guys at Amazon were yuppy pricks and whimps on the fire line; but their way worked for them, so hats off to their team. We work that hard everyday at my company and you probably do to; they did it using other peoples money, big deal. But no matter what you think they did do it indeed. If it is really that tough on them then do not take the money in the first place. They asked for it and they got it. At least they were willing to pull though on their commitments to the shareholders and drive hard at the market.

All in all this book was good and had some great advice for managing e-mail, electronic communication, when not to have a meeting, when to get a life, when to ask for more, when and how far to push the troops, what to say to the media, investors, VC, and investment bankers. How investment bankers use your information on other projects and why it is important to make deals fast and why loose lips sink ships. I could not agree more with 80% of this book. The other 20% was information only important to a .COM or to Amazon itself. Some of the stories to illustrate points in this book were great and pointed to the real life inside of this fast passed company. Next on the reading list is Amazon.com, the story of the bookseller itself.

I recommend this book to anyone sitting on their butt and wondering what it takes to survive and to win in the age of the Internet. It is fun to win but the stakes are high and only a few can actually do it. So buy it, read it and think on it, thanks, click out to your right on one of the side bar items. SEE YA

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs

Shopping Carts and the E-Aisles

2005-10-03T14:36:00.000+05:00

Have you ever gone to the store and thought you only needed a few things so you didn?t grab a cart? The next thing you know your hands are full and groceries are crashing everywhere making a big mess. If only you had gotten a cart. Shopping carts are not necessary on your website as long as you do not mind doing a little extra work (just like carrying all those groceries) and processing each order individually. If you choose to forego having a shopping cart on your site, it is important to remember you will have to calculate all the taxes and fees yourself. This delay will ultimately kill your sales.

The system I use allows you to enter your credit card number, buy the product, and receive authorization all in about fifteen seconds. It will also send a confirmation e-mail to whoever is shipping the product, without me touching a thing. A system like this is perfect for someone who travels a lot and does not have time to sit around entering numbers and expiration dates. The shopping cart will help to eliminate many of those problems and will boost your sales. This is a fast-paced world, if people have to wait even an hour to buy, they probably won?t.

Tom Antion provides entertaining speeches and educational seminars. He is the ultimate entrepreneur, having owned many businesses BEFORE graduating college. Tom is the author of the best selling presentation skills book "Wake 'em Up Business Presentations" and "Click: The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing." It is important to Tom that his knowledge be not only absorbed, but enjoyed. This is why he delivers his speeches laced with great humor and hysterical jokes. Tom has addressed more than 87 different industries and is thoroughly committed to his client's needs. http://www.antion.com

Google to Compete with PayPal?

2005-10-03T14:18:00.000+05:00

PayPal is secure in its domination over the electronic payment industry, at least for now.

Following reports that Google planned to launch a new Internet payment service (nicknamed Google Wallet), Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, denied that Google would be directly competing with PayPal. He did, however, acknowledge that Google has plans for some type of electronic payment service.

Without revealing any details, Schmidt emphasized that the Google payment service will not offer the same sort of ?person to person, store-valued payments system? as PayPal provides.

The Internet commerce industry was rampant with rumours of the new Google service following an e-commerce conference hosted by securities firm Piper Jaffray. Speculation that Google Wallet would encroach on PayPal territory was reinforced by the appearance of a June 20th article in the Wall Street Journal which stated that Google was planning an online payment service to compete with PayPal.

PayPal is a unit of eBay and generates almost 25% of total eBay revenue. It is used by consumers for making a wide variety of Internet purchases. It allows purchasers to use their credit cards without divulging their credit card numbers to merchants. PayPal takes a percentage of each transaction and had revenues of $233.1 million in the first quarter of this year.

Most of Google?s revenue comes from online advertising and this expansion into online payments was seen by many in the industry as yet another example of the rivalry between the two companies.

Google is a giant in Internet commerce with revenues of $3.2 billion last year. A payment service that competed directly with PayPal would be a serious blow to both PayPal and eBay.

Google maintained silence about the rumours until Schmidt?s comments last Tuesday. Without elaborating, he stated that Google?s payment service would be an extension of its existing advertising programs.

This article may be redistributed freely on the Internet or in ezines as long as the resource box and hyperlinks remain intact.

Ross MacIver is the director of Best Online Content. We provide quality content for your web site and offer a full range of design and SEO services.

How to Gain Your Visitor's Trust

2005-10-03T02:30:00.000+05:00

If you are serious about selling on the world wide web and being successful, your number one priority must be gaining your visitor's trust. Without trust you won't sale much and that's really being optimistic. How do visitors know that they can trust a web site enough to buy? In this article I'll show how to gain the trust of your visitors.

The first impression can be everything. Studies have shown that visitors can determine almost immediately whether they can trust you or not. Making it essential that you have good, clean and professional looking web design. The web design should be easy to the eye and easy to navigate. It should also load fast and require nothing to download in order for it to be viewed, such as flash and Java.

Provide your visitors a way for them to contact your business. Many visitors will look for this information, some don't even realize they do. If you don't provide it you are sure to lose sales. They need to know this information, just in case they need help or want to return the product or want to make a comment. You need to provide a mailing address, phone number and email address/contact form.

Secure Sockets Layer certificate is also important part of gaining your visitor's trust. Secure Socket Layer is a protocol that sends encrypted data over the Internet. Secure Sockets Layer certificate shows that all information being transmitted on your web site will be passed on securely and is protected. Some people will not even think about buying from a web site that don't at least offer this as an option.

Testimonials can be a wonderful way to gain your visitor's trust in your product or service. Testimonials show that people that have bought from you are pleased with your product or service. Also, never make up testimonials, this can hurt you more then it helps because it's not too hard for you to be caught in the act. This may lead people to believe that all your testimonials are fake and that you can't be trusted.

Internet surfers are ever more looking at the privacy statement on web sites because of the fear of personal information getting into the wrong hands. You need to let your visitors know exactly how you will be using their information you collect and how you'll be storing it. Visitors need to know if their information will be sold or shared with any third party and if you sale or shared the information with any third party, what information will you give out?

Also what security measures will you take to protect the information you have collected and how can they change or delete any of their information? It's also a good idea to get your privacy statement certificate by an organization that's well known and trusted. Most of these organizations make sure your privacy statement is fair to the internet surfers.

Money back guarantees are becoming very popular and for good reason, they show that you are confident in your product or service and that you have nothing to hide. It removes all risk to your customers and makes them much more likely to buy from you. Further more, remember to honor all refund requests in a timely manner without fighting with them. Just suck it up and give them the refund.

Provide a sample or trial of your product or service. This will allow your potential customers to test out the product or service before making any commitment. Some potential customers may have never got the product or service from you before because of the fear that it wasn't what they really wanted and needed. Just like offering the money back guarantees, this too will show that you are confident in your product or service and that you have nothing to hide.

Getting endorsements from an another well known and respected organization(s) or person(s) will help prove your claims. The integrity and expertise of the person or organization endorsing your service or product also plays a role. Someone that's consider an expert about one of your service's or product's subject would be better then someone that don't know much or anything about it.

Matt Colyer is the owner of the Superior Webmaster. He also is a php, CGI and ASP developer.

7 Suggestions for an i-Mom Friendly Web Site (e-commerce news and statistics)

2005-09-29T13:31:00.000+05:00

The Internet began as a male dominated medium, but those days are long gone and merchants are advised to make sure their websites are female friendly to faciliate the rising surge of busy i-Moms shopping online for their family and friends.

Women now account for 51.7% of Internet usage according to a 2005 Lucid marketing study but that's only the tip of iceberg. When it comes to online purchasing, women are clearly leading the way. According to a Bizrate survey, women accounted for 62% of online purchases in the fourth quarter of 2004!

The above statistic shouldn't be that surprising when we consider that women are busy household managers and make many financial decisions across the United States. According to Small Business Administration, "women currently make up 80 percent of consumer spending. They currently purchase more than half the automobiles that are sold in this country. They consistently purchase more groceries, apparel and durable goods than men and they have become the primary ones to make healthcare decisions in 75 percent of American households."

Other research shows that women are less likely than men to use the Internet for entertainment purposes, but rather they are looking for information, household tips, low prices, and, especially, ease of use in purchasing online.

Merchant Strategy

The following seven recommendations will make your website a friendly home for busy moms online.

1. Make your website easy to navigate. A specific product should be easily found and only be a few clicks away from anywhere in the website.

2. Provide in-depth product information. The more product comparisons, reports and reviews you can add, the less likely they'll leave your website to round out their research.

3. Provide quality graphics. Seeing and feeling is of course the best way to examine and test a product, but the shortage of time has trumped that luxury. A quality fast loading image is extremely desirable.

4. Offer a maximum selection. Whether in your store or on your website, this always makes sense.

5. Maintain competitive pricing. The Internet facilitates easy price comparisons, if your prices are too high, it won't be a secret. Check the prices of your competitors.

6. Offer a variety of shipping options including gift wrapping. Women buy the great majority of family gifts. Merchants who gift wrap will get a lot of free advertising by word of mouth.

7. Offer excellent customer service. If there's a problem, a return or a question, there's nothing like a friendly voice by telephone.

Personal Story

During last Christmas, I noticed a tremendous scene. At my in-laws about 8 of us were sitting in the family room together. Some of the men were watching sports on television, others were chatting, while my wife, mother-in-law and daughter were online at three computer terminals on a long table in the same family room, all shopping for the holidays. They were comparing, giving each other advice, had their credit cards out, and were getting it done. Presents were being picked, wrapped and shipped all over the country. My mother-in-law gets the credit for realizing that she could keep the whole family together by moving the computers into one living area. Everyone was having a great time. Make your online store female friendly and you'll receive a loyal clientele for years to come.

Rick David writes a feature column for Merchant America a nationwide provider of credit card, debit card and check verification services for merchants. Rick also writes a comedy column entitled, Don't Laugh, It Could Happen To You

For online merchant account information click here.

Selling Online for Newbies

2005-09-28T18:27:00.000+05:00

If you are interested in selling online, it is quite easy to get started. First of all you must have a product or service to sell. The product or service can either be yours or someone else's. If you decide to sell someone's product in an affiliate program, try to know as much about the product as possible.

To get an idea of the type of product you are interested in selling online, you should think about what sort of things you are interested in buying. If you are interested in cars, you can sell anything from model cars to books on cars. You can even provide information on applying for car loans. If you choose a great enough product or service, you can find many ways to sell this product and would be only limited by your imagination.

After you have chosen a product you must create a website. If you have knowledge of website design, you can have your website up and running in a few hours, or less if you purchase and use pre-formatted website templates.. However, if you have no idea what to do to even get started with creating a website, you should hire someone to do this for you.

Depending on the city you live in, there will be local computer stores available that offer website design and hosting. Or if you have a family member or a friend that sells online, you can ask them to recommend someone to you. Your website is important because it will be the first thing your customers see before they buy what you are selling. If you retain the services of a design company, make sure you buy a web hosting package with enough storage and bandwidth to handle the traffic you will have. You can ask for feedback from other webmasters who have used the same design company or for feedback on ways to improve your website. Being able to allow customers to pay online and providing customer support is essential as well.

When you have gotten your website uploaded, now is the time to market your website. This part is crucial to the success of your business. You are unable to sell online if no one visits your website. You can market your website through a number of ways. For example, placing ads in classified sections both offline and online. As well, you can make brochures and hand out business cards. Also using banner and link exchanges with other high traffic sites can provide quality traffic and increase your business.

Until The Next Time,

Dr. J. Elisha Burke

Dr. J. Elisha Burke, an educator and entrepreneur, has been involved in various business enterprises via his business, Burke Publications for 11 years. Dr. Burke is an educator, writer and motivational speaker on a variety of topics. He is also known for his expertise on nonprofit organizations and grant proposal writing. Dr. Burke can be contacted at http://burkepublications.com at http://news.burkepublications.com or jeb@burkepublications.com

Selecting Your Niche In The Wholesale Business

2005-09-28T15:58:00.000+05:00

If you have recently started in the wholesale business one of the first challenges you will notice is the highly competitive nature of the wholesale business. For starters, pretty much anyone can enter the wholesale business and call themselves a wholesaler simply by having a case of merchandise that they are looking to sell.

Then on the other end of the wholesale spectrum you have large wholesalers who work hand in hand with manufacturers and importers who can offer close to cost prices simply because they are working on volume.

While the average wholesaler is looking for special deals, many times the true deals are reserved for large wholesale customer who can buy in volume directly from manufacturers and importers.

So how can a new entrant to the wholesale market place stay competitive, and at the same time beat out the ever growing level of competition?

According to Donny Lowy, the CEO of www.closeoutexplosion.com and www.wholesalequest.com, ?For starters, the first decision that a wholesaler needs to make is to decide what his or her focus will be.?

By selecting a niche within the wholesale business, the wholesaler will be able to learn how to serve that niche well, and will soon learn the ins and outs of that segment of the wholesale business.

Once the wholesaler has made that decision the next step in developing a solid wholesale strategy is to find products that are needed in that niche that have unique features to them.

So if a wholesaler is selling to retail watch stores, and the wholesaler has decided to focus on selling silver watch bands, then the wholesaler might decide to offer glow in the dark silver watch bands.

While that type of product will definitely need some selling to be introduced into the retail market place I can assure you that it will help the wholesaler capture a decent percentage of the market place if done successfully.

The key is to select a niche within your wholesale business, and then introduce a unique product to that marketplace that the more established and larger wholesalers are not offering.

By following this effective strategy with your wholesale business you will be able to gain a foothold in even the most competitive wholesale markets.

Donny Lowy is the CEO of http://www.closeoutexplosion.com, an online wholesale and closeout business.

The Five Steps of E-Commerce

2005-09-26T11:08:00.000+05:00

You set up a retail business, you advertise in your local newspaper, you get customers coming into your store, and you receive payment at the cash register. Create an online store, and...how do you get customers? How do you receive payment?

The concept is the same, but the steps are different.

Step 1: Create your website

If you don?t have web design skills, you can hire a qualified web designer to create a website for you, or you can use an online site builder. Think of it as hiring an architect and an interior decorator compared to setting up shop in an existing store.

Using a web designer

With the services of a web designer, you can have a unique website template and website customized to your specific needs. A web development team can also add features such as Flash headers or any programming needed for your site. If your company image is critical, a custom-designed site that conveys the right professional image is a must.

Using an online site builder

An online site builder is the budget way to go. With site builder programs such as Site Studio, your website can be online within minutes. A step-by-step menu allows you to choose a layout and colors, and then add a site description, a logo, and content. Your template may not be unique, but your content will.

Step 2: Set up an e-commerce store

Your customers will browse at your website, select some items, and then pay for them. When you set up an e-commerce shopping cart, you?re providing a way for your customers to bring their purchases to the cash register. The program you choose will allow you to enter your products in the database and allow shoppers to choose products when they click on ?Add to cart? or something similar.

Two well-known shopping carts, osCommerce and Miva Merchant, both allow you to do these tasks:

? Add, edit, and delete product categories and other information
? Set tax rates and charge tax
? Receive payment via numerous online and offline payment processing methods
? Bill customers
? And much more

osCommerce

osCommerce is an open source program. Store owners can set up their online stores using osCommerce with no costs involved. For small stores, it has all the features you need for an online store. Drawbacks of osCommerce are that customization is not easy, and online stores using osCommerce tend to look similar.

Miva Merchant

While Miva Merchant carries a price tag of $995, some web hosts offer Miva Merchant licenses with their hosting plans. If you choose Miva as your shopping cart, be sure to host your site with a host that provides Miva support. Its learning curve is steep, and it requires the support of people who know how to work with it.

With the price and the steep learning curve, you get more features, and you can customize the program more. Add-in modules can be bought that perform a number of tasks. In addition, a strong support community is available in the Miva user group forums.

Step 3: Get a merchant account and payment gateway

When customers arrive at the checkout counter, you need a way for their payments to be transferred from their credit card accounts to your bank account. The method you choose may depend on your sales volume.

For high-volume sales, an e-commerce merchant account plus a payment gateway will meet your needs. A merchant account provider authorizes the transfer of payments to your account, and a payment gateway transfers the information from your customers? financial institutions to yours.

Most merchant accounts have setup fees, transaction fees, monthly fees, and statement fees. The transaction fees are less than what you?d pay using a third party credit card processor such as PayPal. With all the fees, however, the overall cost is typically lower only if your monthly sales volume is over about a thousand dollars.

For medium and low volume sales, PayQuake and PayPal are viable options.

PayQuake

PayQuake offers three merchant account types to choose from. Although they all require payment gateways, the two smaller plans have no monthly minimums. You can upgrade to a higher or lower plan if your needs change.

PayPal

PayPal has become a household name. Customers can send payment through PayPal via credit card or via money that they transfer into their PayPal account. While the fees per transaction are higher than with merchant accounts, there are no setup or monthly fees, and you don?t need a payment gateway. You pay only when you have financial transactions.

Step 4: Create a secure payment environment

A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate enables you to receive credit card information securely from your customers. When a payment page is using SSL data to encrypt data, a small image of a lock appears at the bottom right of the screen.

Some web hosts offer SSL certificates as part of their hosting packages. If your web host package doesn?t include SSL certificates, you can purchase one separately.

With PayPal, no SSL certificate is required.

Step 5: Generate traffic

Your products are on display in your newly designed store, your shopping cart is set up and ready to use, and you have everything in place to be able to receive payments securely. Now all you need are customers.

This is where marketing comes in.

? Submit your site to search engines.
? Advertise your site.
? Keep your company name in front of your customers with a regular email newsletter.
? Add more content to your website to keep it fresh.
? Monitor your website traffic to see where it?s coming from and how you can increase traffic for key content areas.

For related information, see these pages:

? Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimization
http://articles.websitesource.com/seo_do_it_yourself_8_16_2005.shtml
? Promote your Domain
http://www.websitesource.com/domains/domain_promotion.shtml

Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com with experience in the website hosting industry.

Cyber Banking

2005-09-25T22:11:00.000+05:00

The use of electronic cash as a means of transacting internet business may prove to be an acceptable alternative to credit card payments. It is reported that the withdrawal of major players from the attempt to develop e-cash is a significant setback. ??The use of digital or electronic cash in e-commerce transactions could lead to difficulties for Revenue auditors. Revenue auditors have traditionally had to grapple with the lack of controls associated with the cash economy. The increasing sophistication of business transactions and the development of a variety of payment methods have meant that cash payments have become a diminishing feature of business transactions.?

Look here the power has been restricted under the section 94 of C of Cr.P.C. (Act V of 1898) for getting access to banking records, ??Provided that no such officer shall issue any order requiring the production of any document or other thing which is in the custody of bank or banker as defined in Banker? Evidence Act, 1891(XVII of 1891), and relates or might disclose any information which relates to the bank account of any person except??

The first and lesser problem relating to the regulation of Internet commerce for tax purposes is the uncertainty of whether current laws will even apply to financial transfers on the Internet. By requiring very specific documentation of every transaction the government can attempt to extend the regulations that apply to paper based banking into "cyber banking". Nevertheless, it appears that this legislation will primarily be targeted at technology such as automatic teller machines and wire transfers, but will not contemplate newer banking applications such as the Internet. For example, the requirements that consumers receive receipts and periodic statements reflecting electronic transfers of money do not make sense when applied to stored-value cards that operate independently of a bank account. Stored value cards will likely replace cash to a significant degree as we move towards an increasingly paperless society.

The developments in electronic payment systems have the potential to create "electronic money." Electronic money is a broad term, and just as electronic money systems differ in their technical features, they also differ in the extent to which they create issues for tax returns. Depending on the type of system used, electronic money can be either an advantage or a disadvantage for collection of taxation.

The electronic money poses a tax evasion potential similar to that created by paper money. This raises the issue of whether the evasion potential is manageable and what must be done to manage it. It is possible that the techniques that have been developed over time to combat evasion using paper money can be adapted and expanded to combat evasion through electronic money.

The Electronic money creates opportunities to deposit unreported income in a bank or other financial institution. As a result of electronic money's advantage in transmitting large amounts of money with relative ease, combined with the continued use of cash, the problem of an underground, unaccounted for economy is likely to be exacerbated.

Electronic money and the Internet substantially increase the ease and safety with which bank accounts can be opened abroad, letterbox companies and trust accounts can be established abroad, and funds transferred anonymously. Such accounts are, of course, subject to the reporting requirements for foreign financial accounts.

The writer is an advocate of High Court and practicing immigration and corporate laws in Pakistan since September 2001. He is a self employed and pioneer in research on electronic commerce taxation in Pakistan. His articles were published widely in the critical areas of cyber crimes, electronic commerce, e-taxation and various other topics. He wrote LL.M thesis on titled ?Legislation of electronic commerce taxation in Pakistan? in which he provided comprehensive legal proposals for statutory reconstruction of tax laws for purpose of imposition of taxation on e-business in Pakistan. Currently he is conducting is research on topic ?Electronic commerce taxation: emerging legal issues of digital evidence?.

Author can be contacted by adil.waseem@lawyer.com.

Web advertising e-Marketing Places!

2005-09-25T06:38:00.000+05:00

Overview:

What is web advertising?

Internet Advertising is popularly known as web advertising. Internet webadvertising giving Opportunity to the advertiser to target geographic country wise, subject wise, targeted Customers only from more than 200 countries worldwide. Online Advertisers having a full control on Advertising budget in web advertising. as per performance results, advertisers can increase or decrease budget of webadvertising.

For getting started Internet online web advertising, you or your company must have online Products/services catalogues website. This website will be your online sales channels, your Online office or your online shopping store/shop. Your prospective buyers will come through Internet search engines or many other following online places we are discussing here. You must have a good web traffic analysis tool to know about performance of your online e-marketing efforts. This online visitor?s traffic analysis tool must provide keywords details which is your prospective buyers typing in search engines and business to business trade directories, this tool also must provide geographic details of prospective customers visitors of your website.

Why web advertising?

Internet becoming a biggest marketplace and growing rapidly day by day. Online emarketing can bring buyers traffic through using web advertising.

Types of web advertising emarketing places:

1. Keyword Marketing: keyword selection and optimization, submissions can help you to bring prospective buyers traffic on your website through keyword marketing you can fetch huge traffic on your website, coming by typing your products/services keywords in many leading search engines.

2. Backlinks creation: Text link Advertising - Many text link providers offering text links backlinks on high page rank (high pr) WebPages. These high pr Backlinks can be helpful to increase pagerank of your web pages on your website. your website can grab more and more traffic through search engines if your websites more and more webpages gets high pr and increase link popularity.

3. Pay per click (PPC): Many leading search engines and business to business (b2b) trade Exchange directories offering PPC links web advertising promotions campaigns in economical Packages. This innovative result oriented web advertising pay per click campaigns can increase customers traffic on your website for your products and services.

4. Banners advertising: Since last many years banners are very popular in web advertising. Banners are very useful to increase your online brand value. Nowadays Pay per Click banners can bring buyers on your website as well as PPC banners can help you to build online brand building on Internet.

5. Search Engines Submissions: Search engines are marketing places where your prospective Customers are coming to find your products and services so that your web site must be Indexed in various search engines and also must be listed in all business to business trade Exchange directories. Your mantra is submissions in search engines every day, every hour, every moment to increase buyers traffic on your online store 24x7x365.

6. RSS and Blogs: Rich site summary (RSS) is latest XML technology which can help your Website to increase pagerank and online customer?s traffic on your website.

7. Forums: Bulletin boards, egroups are online communities where you can discuss your Products/services information. You can also start your forums on your website. forums are very usefull to know about your buyers feedback. Forums are very much search engines Friendly.

8. Online Shopping Stores: Many leading portals helping companies to create online shopping Stores and increase buyers traffic on your website.

Yogesh Ahire is e-Marketing Consultant in Mumbai/India and Author of ebook "e-Marketing Whitebook"

URL: http://www.e-guru.org, http://www.branch-automation.com