If
you don't accept credit cards because you don't have merchant
accounts, forget it!
You MUST be able
to accept credit cards online if you plan to do business over
the net. If you can't, you will lose over 60% of your
business. Customers on the net are impulsive and want
everything NOW. If they have to get off the
net to phone you (most families only have one phone line in
their house) OR, if they have to write a check, fill out an
order form, address an envelope and put it in the mail you can
forget about doing any kind of volume. You have to make it easy
for them to order! Would you believe that 80% of the orders
I am currently receiving for my products are placed with credit
cards?
Credit cards will
also give you a measure of credibility because your business
will not seem like a "basement operation". They will
not only quadruple your business because credit
cards offer convenience, but they make your job a lot easier
as well:
- Not as many
trips to the bank (everything is deposited electronically).
- Easier and
"cleaner" paper-trails for sales records.
- No bounced
checks (credit cards are almost like getting cash).
- Easier to trace
orders for customer service.
- ...and many
other benefits.
I will show you
how to get your own credit card merchant accounts for only $40
a month a little further down this page. The broker we deal
with has a 98% approval rate and can almost guarantee to get
you merchant accounts at extremely low rates (plus they will
bend over backwards to make sure you are satisfied not to mention
that they include all the software and tech help you need to
make your order system fully automated).
Automation
Is Crucial For Your Success
There are three
ways people should be able to order, all of which have to be
automated if you truly want to be successful. As I mentioned
before, if you don't do this, you will be a slave to your business
every day (including weekends and holidays) just processing
orders. That leaves little time for marketing your business,
as most of your time will be spent doing administrative work.
In brief, customers
should be able to order:
- Directly Online.
- With an 800
number (24 hours a day, seven days a week with live operators).
- Postal mail
("snail mail") or fax.
Lets go over each
of these in detail:
Online:
My orders are accepted and processed on a secure server while
the customer waits online. Then, software charges the credit
card company which deposits the money directly into my bank
account. The order is automatically emailed to my fulfillment
company who ships the order the next day and also sends me a
copy of the order by email for my records. I also allow the
customer to order with a non-secure form, which will be explained
further on.
Note:
A secure server is a computer server that can accept and transmit
confidential information (like credit card numbers) without
the risk of someone intercepting the transmission and "stealing"
the information. It is all done through encryption techniques.
Almost all browsers (unless they are very old) support secure
server transactions.
800 number:
I deal with a company that accepts phone orders 24 hours a day
on a 1-800 line with live operators (this is the same company
that processes my email orders), and then, pack, and ship them
out. I send them a few hundred items every couple of weeks so
they can maintain their stock, and I get a fax every night telling
me what 800 number orders came in the previous day, what was
shipped, and how much was deposited in my bank account. You
will find it will cost you between $5.00 to $7.00 per order
to fill using the 800 number (they charge about a buck a minute
to take the order over the phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week).
Please note that when you are starting, you may just want to
get an 800 number attached to your regular business phone numbers
and take orders 9-5 when you are in the office (your local long
distance carrier can arrange this easily). Then as you get more
orders, transfer this responsibility to a company like the one
mentioned above.
Snail Mail
or Fax: My customers can also send a check or money
order by mail, or fax the order form with their credit card
number to me. Most people will order online, and if they feel
uncomfortable giving out their credit card number they will
call the 1-800 line ( it is rare to receive many orders via
snail mail or fax). The fulfillment-company receives a copy
of the order, ships the product and then mails me the order
forms and checks they receive, once a week.
I do nothing
except get a report of what was sold through any of the ordering
techniques, and everything is done automatically.
I can go away on a vacation for a week or two and the
whole system runs as though I were there, doing all the work
myself. I can't emphasize enough, how important
this is. All I need to do is simply look at my accounts at the
end of the week (or end of the day) to see what sales I have
just made.
Why is this so
important...?
You want
to concentrate all of your time on marketing your product or
service, not on paperwork, processing and shipping orders...
especially when you have a successful product or service!
With my four successful
online businesses, I would have a full-time job just processing
orders if I had to do them everyday. There would be no time
to market my products and increase my sales, let alone time
to try new marketing possibilities.
Let me repeat what
happens: The orders are placed by your customers, the money
is deposited in your bank and the product is packaged and shipped
without you touching anything. The only thing you have to do
is drop by the bank once a week in order to deposit the checks
sent by the fulfillment company, for incoming orders. You don't
have to answer the phone or even log on to the net every day
to check orders. Everything is done automatically.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR: Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how
to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to
$2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all
his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools,
and resources that he's used to grow $25 into over $60 Million
in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/892189
Article
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