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I Take Credit Cards. Should I Accept Bill Me Later, Paypal or Google Checkout?
With so many payment options available, which methods should you accept? The rule of thumb is to take whatever payment methods your customers offer. This doesn’t mean to suggest that you accept every payment method imaginable (most e-commerce operators shy away from payment in, say, live animals…).
It does mean to listen to your customers and try to be flexible enough to accept any reasonable payment methods that they actually want to use. As you decide, take into account your own financial situation, your demographics and price points. Remember, the methods you choose should match your customers’ needs and buying patterns.
What follows is a brief synopsis of each of the major alternative methods:
PayPal
What is PayPal? PayPal is an online payment processor owned by eBay. PayPal allows customers to create a PayPal account and pay for purchases using their credit cards or bank account. The buyer’s credit card or bank account information is never sent to the merchant – PayPal sends the merchant money instead. This protects the buyer’s information from being shared with endless different businesses and narrows the risk of having their personal information fall into the wrong hands.
Basically, PayPal works for—EVERYONE! Unless you have a good reason not to accept PayPal, accept it. Your customers will thank you.
PayPal Benefits:
• Already integrated with your Yahoo! store
• Rates are comparable to most merchant accounts
• Over 150 million online shoppers use PayPal worldwide
• Privacy: Actual credit card information is only seen by PayPal and not shared with merchants – this protects customers if a merchant compromises payment information
• Typically, PayPal users prefer to pay with PayPal because it gives them a single place to manage all of their purchases
• PayPal also offers express checkout
(Using express checkout, your customers’ information is already saved and populated for them so they don’t have to retype everything again. Because of this, express checkout conversion can be 40% higher than other modes of checkout.)
Bill Me Later
What is BML? Bill Me Later offers financing to your customers. When purchasing through your site and Bill Me Later, your customers are able to purchase high ticket items with no money down and no payments for 90 days!
Who should consider incorporating BML? Merchants who are doing at least $5M a year in online revenue and selling higher ticket items are obvious candidates.
Bill Me Later Benefits:
• Offers affordable payment terms
on high ticket items (jewelry, computers, etc)
• 50%+ increase in average order value, up to 150% when combined with promotional financing
• Easy integration through the industry’s largest payment processors, so authorization and settlement flow through existing interfaces
Google Checkout
What is GC? Google Checkout is a
fast, convenient checkout process that allows customers to buy from you with a single login.
Which businesses are the best candidates? Anyone advertising on the Google Adwords platform with an e-commerce website that is compatible with Google Checkout should consider GC.
Google Checkout Benefits:
• $50 in free adwords
• 21% discount on FedEx shipping
• Free credit card processing (as long as your sales don’t exceed 10 times your Google Adwords spend)
• Google Checkout users click on ads 10% more when the ad displays the Checkout badge and convert 40% more shoppers who have not used the Checkout in the past
• Checkout’s Payment Guarantee protects 98% of Checkout orders on average – when an order is guaranteed, you get paid even if it results in a chargeback
Summing Up
Each of the above methods has its strengths and each should be strongly considered, based on your business. PayPal is widely trusted by consumers who shop actively but want security. Bill Me Later offers credit options which can be particularly attractive to high ticket shoppers. Google Checkout offers the ability to buy with a single login and falls under the highly-trusted Google umbrella. Consider your business, consider your customers and choose accordingly.
All posts by Justin Rattigan | E-Mail the author
My Site is Down – Now What?
As we all know, websites sometimes can go down from circumstances beyond your control. It’s important to be prepared for when this happens so you can navigate the bumpy times with as little impact as possible to your business. There will be occasional problems with your site. What follows are some ideas for handling a site shutdown or slowdown. We’ll review steps you can take to protect yourself before a site crash and what to do when the unthinkable becomes real.
If Your Site Appears to be Down
1. Check your website provider’s system status page or call them directly to see if it’s a known issue.
2. Call other operators. Ask friends to check from alternate locations to see if they’re experiencing the outage. Sometimes local Internet carriers have routing problems; it might not be the store.
3. Report it. If the site is down and not listed on the updates page, contact a support representative to report the outage.
If Your Site Goes Down
Follow a plan to save as much business as possible. You must let customers know that you know you’re having a problem and you need somewhere to send them to protect your business.
Option 1: The Easy Way
Before it happens: Make a landing page informing customers that your site is experiencing issues and give them a phone number where they can place orders. Keep this on an externally hosted account separate from your main store and keep the page hidden until you’re ready to use it.
When it happens: If your site goes down and you think it will be down for more than a few minutes, quickly switch your DNS settings to point to the landing page you created. This will inform customers and allow you to save some of the orders.
Option 2: The Hard, Better Way
Before it happens: Create another store on another platform with another web host. Keep your second site updated at least once per month so it is as close to a mirror as possible. Make sure to password protect the site, so it doesn’t get “spidered†and picked up as duplicate content.
When it happens: If your site goes down and you think it will be down for more than a few minutes, quickly switch your DNS settings to point to your secondary store.
Shopping Cart Issues:
Approach with preparation and prevention.
Before it happens: Create a banner mentioning that your shopping cart is having problems and encourage customers to call in their orders. Also create a variable that allows you to display emergency text on all of your item pages. Get help from a programmer unless you are comfortable with store programming.
When it happens: Activate the banner, update the emergency text and put a message on your shopping cart. Publish your site and checkout settings so your customers can see the message and you can save the orders.
It’s important that you have a plan in place in case your site goes down, whatever it may be. While the above are strictly worst case scenarios, if your volume is high enough, it’s better to be safe than sorry!
All posts by Justin Rattigan | E-Mail the author
Keeping Customers After the Holidays
Just about now you have the feeling you’re doing something right. Sales are up, perhaps double or triple what you’ve done the rest of the year. If you’re in e-commerce, these are the salad days. But we all know that after the glow of Black Friday and Cyber Monday subsides, you face the challenge of converting holiday traffic into regular shoppers. How do you keep your customers, customers? You do it by engaging in outbound marketing with catalogues, fliers, cards, coupons and e-mail. It’s part of the larger process of customer retention.
Take Care of Business
First and foremost, when you have them, treat them right. Customer service is an investment in your business. Fill orders promptly. Return phone and e-mail messages in a timely fashion. We all suffer from shopping anxiety at the holidays, so do your best to extend a calming hand through cyberspace. The best way to get customers back a second time is treat them right the first time.
Snail Mail Works – for a Price
Once the holiday season ends it is crucial to keep in touch with your customers. The old technology ways can work if they’re done well. Fliers, brochures, catalogues, and coupons can all be effective if they’re well-designed. But it is a fine line between a catchy snail mail offering and plain old junk mail. Too many businesses cut corners on design and their expensive mailers end up going straight from the mailbox to the trash. Understand the importance of making a good impression in a medium as expensive as print. Hire a pro. And expect to pay a premium for print.
You Found Them in Cyberspace!
E-mail is a cost-effective solution to keeping the customers you found, but the challenges are the same. How do you get customers to read what you send them? The good news is that e-mail is much less expensive than snail mail. The bad news, bad e-mail has a name: spam. Your job is to cut through the clutter, and a good message is a good place to start. A well-designed, interesting message gets through more often.
There are Services for that¦
If you are serious about mass e-mailing customers, you’ll also need the help of an online application for list management and e-mail delivery. eBiz Insider recommends Campaigner from Got Corp. Once your e-mail template is saved to your Campaigner account, you simply update it with your latest contacts and content to ensure captivating, professional looking e-mail campaigns every time. Campaigner manages your e-mail list. It automatically adds people who order from you so you don’t have to update lists by hand. Campaigner will track un-subscribers as well. If people don’t want to receive your e-mail it will automatically suppress them from future sends. Campaigner tracks important information like how many people actually opened the e-mail you sent and how many clicked on the links you provided in your e-mail. The information is out there. Take advantage of it to ensure success.
Many Happy Returns
Right now people are knocking at your cyber door. They liked you well enough to buy the first time; don’t let them become one-timers.
All posts by Justin Rattigan | E-Mail the author
How Happy are Your Customers?
If you want to know how your customers feel, ask them. Much of the feedback you receive will be anecdotal and can help you feel your way through customer relations. But the fact is, we all like numbers. We can�t empirically conclude whether our customers like us, but we can get a strong clue. It�s called Net Promoter.
Net Promoter is widely accepted as the single most reliable indicator about a company�s ability to grow. It was first introduced by Fred Reichheld in his book, The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth.
Net Promoter asks your customers to answer a very simple question on a scale from 0 to 10: Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?
 The answers are tabulated and responses fall into 3 categories:
Promoters – Promoters are customers who are very enthusiastic about your company. They will not only continue to purchase from you, but they will recommend your company to their friends and neighbors.Â
Passives – Passives are satisfied customers, but aren�t enthusiastic about your company. They can be lured to competitors offering special deals or lower prices.
Detractors – Detractors are unhappy customers who are looking for someone other than you to do business with.Â
To find out your Net Promoter Score, simply subtract the total percentage of detractors from the total percentage of promoters.
Obviously, having a customer list full of promoters will help grow your company naturally. If the majority of your customers love you, they will tell their friends, and their friends will tell their friends, etc. This will reduce your marketing spend in the long term and your customers will keep returning.Â
Having too many detractors will harm your business. You�ll spend the money spreading awareness about your products, only to lose your customers (and their friends) to competitors.Â
The highest growth companies (Amazon, eBay, Dell) have Net Promoter Scores ranging from 50-80%. The �average� company has a score of about 5-10%.Â
Companies that have negative scores mean that they are creating more detractors than promoters each day.
Here�s how to measure your Net Promoter Score
Step 1: Ask your customers one simple question:Â Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague? Have them rate their likelihood on a scale from 1-10
Step 2: Total the responses and determine the percentages for each response. To do this, divide the number of responses for a certain answer by the total number of submissions for the survey, and multiply that by 100.
For example:
 Answer   # of responses      %
      0                 25              6.25
      1                 20                5
      2                 15              3.7
      3                 30              7.5
      4                 10              2.5
      5                  5              1.25
      6                 20                5
      7                 30              7.5
      8                 35              8.75
      9                 85             21.25
     10                125            31.25
Step 3: Add the percent of promoters (people who selected 9 or 10) together (e.g. 21.25 + 31.25 = 52.5)
Step 4: Add the number of detractors (people who selected 0-6) together (e.g. 6.25 + 5 + 3.7 + 7.5 + 2.5 + 1.25 + 5 = 31.2)
Step 5: Subtract the total detractors from the total promoters (e.g. 52.5 – 31.2 = 21.3%)
The answer is your Net Promoter Score.
If you need software to help you track your NPS responses, I like an application called Survey Monkey. It�s cost-effective and easy to use. Visit www.surveymonkey.com for more info.
For more information on Net Promoter, visit www.netpromoter.com.
Pay Attention to Your People — Your most important customers are your promoters and your detractors. Do not rest on your laurels with either group. Find out why your promoters like you and why they recommend you to others. Make sure you do to others what works so well with these folks. Your detractors are also very important. Not as customers, but as a mirror to your business. Why don�t they like you? How have you failed them? You have even more to learn from your detractors than from your promoters. Use anecdotes, use numbers, but whatever you do, pay attention to your customers.
All posts by Justin Rattigan | E-Mail the author
Generate Sales with Viral Marketing
It was the cover story in the New York Times Magazine. A woman comes to a barbecue with a brand new chicken product. She was happy to share this new product with dozens. The people were happy with the new treat. She was happy to be showing her friends something new. The company which made the chicken product was happiest of all. You see, the woman was their �Buzz Agent.� Not only was she sharing food with her friends, she was marketing.
Word-of-mouth marketing is a trendy and fast-growing phenomenon online. The new terms for this old way of spreading the advertising word are called �buzz marketing� or �viral marketing.� The basic strategy is to get customers to talk about products with friends and colleagues. Some Buzz Agents approach strangers in stores as fellow shoppers. The trend is growing, and recent surveys suggest that nearly half of online marketers will engage in some form of viral marketing this year.
Be Good to Your Customers
The Word Of Mouth Marketing Association, WOMMA defines viral marketing as �the art and science of amplifying genuine consumer enthusiasm.� That�s a general statement with many specific dynamics. Basically, though, an effective buzz marketing campaign needs happy customers who will then spread the word about your business. So take care of business. Make your e-commerce site easy to navigate and provide solid customer service when people visit.
Remember, any good business will generate most of its revenue from loyal customers. That�s why you take care of them first. When they�re happy they can become real buzz agents for your company. We don�t recommend bad companies to our friends, after all.
More small online businesses are finding that direct marketing through their customers pays dividends and helps them stand out from the competition. They do it by turning customers into sales reps. There are several ways to turn active consumers into active boosters of your business.
Be Obvious. Your product pages and your home page should all contain a �Send this page to a friend� option. It�s a relatively inexpensive modification.
Be Generous. If you want customers to promote you, encourage them with discounts and special deals. One solid performer is the offer: �We�ll give your friend 10 percent off and we�ll give you 20 percent off.�
Be Exciting. Every e-commerce operator looks for the �wow factor.� After all, marketing is the indirect way of engaging customers and successful viral marketing campaigns have included such wide ranging tactics as games, contests, white papers and e-card campaigns.
Be Imaginative. Brant Shapiro of SMARTbomb.com, an e-commerce site that specializes in nutritional products and information, is dabbling in viral video. �My company had some video clips [about supplements and health-related issues],� Shapiro says. A colleague referred Shapiro to fliqz.com, a video-sharing site. �I realized that I could take the embedded links and use them on my site,� Shapiro says. �I made a little video room, where people can see the videos and send them on to friends. We noticed that �forward to a friend� is used more with the videos than the products.� Either way, people are engaged. They�re one step from shopping.
Be Great. Special offers, discounts, games and videos are fine, but compelling content is still the best way to excite customers and get them to enthusiastically promote your site. Stand out with presentation, prices, promotions and products.
Going Viral. Some of the most successful word-of-mouth campaigns were designed by experienced viral marketing agencies, but not all of them. It is very possible for small companies to create their own successful buzz campaigns with a little money and a lot of imagination.
Who knows your business better than you do? Who knows how great a deal is better than you do? There are probably a slew of companies that sell what you sell. But you know why you�re better than the others. You know what makes you special. Think along those lines. Think of how to make your customers want to tell others about you. You�ll come up with something. If you can�t, get out your wallet and call in the pros.
All posts by Justin Rattigan | E-Mail the author
