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How To Select The Right Shopping Cart For Your Online Business Store

February 2, 2012 by Liz 4 Comments

What Works for the Buyer

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Keeping an online shop is taking your business to a completely new level. Until you had your online store, your clients were walking up to you to buy your products or services. But now, with an online facility, you are offering them a totally different experience. You are stepping forward and taking the river to the thirsty child! It’s important that the quality be worth it.

There are two things that come into play here:

  1. Your existing clients buy online.
  2. New people come across your site and buy.

In both cases, the user experience has to be great.

Once again, there are two important factors here:

  1. You – the seller
  2. Your shopping cart – for the buyer

Both the factors need to appeal to your buyer. So, your website needs to look and feel authentic – in a way, that your buyer doesn’t feel he’s going to be rugged! And your shopping cart has to be user friendly, comfortable and convenient – to make the buying experience a pleasure!

Here’s how you make it happen by selecting the right shopping cart for your online business:

1. The Look

Your shopping cart should match your website layout, ideally. It should look like your cart, for your buyer! And it should be easy to use. Don’t have complicated tabs; settings features that make the buyer suspect your intensions!

2. The Display

It is important for the cart ot display all the information relevant and important to the user. Along with the products selected, the cart should show the exact price clearly. If you are offering discounts, they should be visible to encourage your user to buy.

3. The Compatibility

Server issues are the last thing you want on your online store. The user can not afford a transaction error or a compatibility problem. If you are launching on the virtual space, you need to take care of technical issues. There’s no cashier sitting on the web page giving out the change! Your server and your cart, hence, need to roll together.

4. The Payment

The above discussion brings us to payment and processing questions. The payment processor on your shop online – cart should support credit and debit card transactions. Checking whether the gateways are working right for you is almost mandatory.

5. The Support

There’s always going to be something that goes wrong! God forbid, but some unforeseen circumstances can lead to problems or concerns. How are you equipped to deal with it? This is an important question that should be answered before you plunge into the virtual shopping scenario. Plus, in case there is a problem, how soon can you resolve it? Support is, hence, something that influences the strength on your online store.

There are various open source shopping cart downloads available for you to select from and install on your website. One of the key features to note here is that the premade software you are planning to use should be easy to edit or should have a template format to suit your requirements. The look and feel should go with the perception that your website creates. So, take time out to evaluate the shopping carts and find the one that suits you the best. After all, turning your e-commerce business into a profitable one could be a matter of only a few ‘right’ choices – for you and for your buyer.

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Author’s Bio: Divya Rawat writes about e-commerce and Website Development at SEO Company inetzeal.com. Divya also writes ezinearticles and other resources.

Thank you, Divya!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, eCommerce, LinkedIn, shopping cart

6 Tips to Consider When Choosing a Payment Processor

January 6, 2012 by Liz Leave a Comment

The Right Tools and the Right Partners

If you want your online business to be successful, you need to choose the right tools for the job and the right partners for your situation. For example, one of the decisions you’re going to need to make early on is how you want to process payments. Unless you’re going to set up a fully-functional merchant account, that means a payment processor.

Payment processors are ideal when you’re first getting started. They give you the flexibility to accept credit card payments without jumping through the technical and financial hoops a merchant account requires. However, if you don’t choose the right payment processor, you’ll wind up with just as many technical hurdles and probably a higher cost, too.

Here are some of the most important things to consider when choosing a payment processor:

1. Start with security.

If you’re going to build a reliable online business over the long haul, you need a secure payment processor. Today’s web customers are security savvy. They’ve been bombarded for years with horror stories of online transactions gone wrong.

There are two areas in which your payment processor needs to address these security needs:

  • PCI compliance. PCI compliance is the basic level of security standards required by the credit card companies. Some payment processors implement their own PCI compliance, while others use a trusted source to do so. Either way, make sure your payment processor provides that level of security.
  • Fraud prevention. There’s another aspect to payment processing security you need to have. Fraud prevention methods – the two most common being Address Verification System (AVS) and CVV (Card Verification Value) – protect both you and the consumer. These are simply ways to make sure that the person using the card really is who they claim to be.

Poor security on the part of your payment processor means more unhappy customers and more charge-backs.

2. Find payment processors that are compatible with your existing system.

Payment processor choice almost always comes at a later stage of development than shopping cart choice. What this means is that you’re limited from the get-go to choosing a payment processor who offers compatible service with your shopping cart.

While payment processor support isn’t usually a consideration when choosing your shopping cart software, it probably should be. Your choice of payment processor directly affects your bottom line. While it shouldn’t be the sole determining factor in cart choice, it should be in the mix.

3. Look at all of the fees.

Different payment processors charge different fees. It’s easy to get caught up in the per-transaction fee, but you need to look at the big picture. A company with a low set-up fee might seem ideal, but after a couple thousand transactions you’re going to have paid way too much in transaction fees.

Try to build a reasonable sales model, and plug in all of the associated costs of each payment processor over the first six months you’re in business in order to get an accurate comparison.

4. Understand support for multiple cards and currencies.

If the vast majority of your website customers are going to be located in the U.S., you don’t need to worry too much about multi-currency support. On the other hand, if you’re promoting a global product or service, you don’t want currency to be a barrier to entry for your customers. Some payment processors are only able to accept U.S. payments, so find out ahead of time what restrictions exist.

The same holds true for different types of credit cards. If you’re dealing in a high-end product or service, you want to make sure that your processor can handle American Express and probably Discover, as well as MasterCard and Visa.

5. Identify special billing needs.

Depending on your business model, you might have some special billing needs. For example, you might be offering a subscription-based service, and so you’ll need to make sure that your payment processor supports Automated Recurring Billing (ARB).
Alternatively, you might want or need the ability to process customer transactions manually via a virtual terminal. This is useful, for example, if you take telephone orders.

6. Don’t get hung up on pay out details.

Sometimes, you’re anxious to get things up and running and get revenue flowing in. More than one online business has rushed into a contract with an online payment processor because they believed they’d get paid quicker.

Over the long haul, this shouldn’t be a concern. Don’t choose a payment processor just because they make weekly (as opposed to monthly) payouts. If your business is running that close to the edge in terms of cash flow, find other ways to keep things moving, such as increasing investment capital.

Your online business is only as strong as the tools you use. Choose a payment processor that creates a smooth, secure transaction for your customers, opens up your products or services to the largest possible market, and lets you maximize profits.

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Image Credit: Some rights reserved by 2Tales
Author’s Bio:
Sara Schoonover is Vice President of Ticket Kick , a California company that helps drivers get red light tickets and other traffic tickets dismissed by helping drivers through the trial by written declaration process.

Thank you, Sara!

Love learning this stuff!

Be irresistible!
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, eCommerce, LinkedIn

Cool Tool Review: Wazala

August 5, 2010 by Guest Author Leave a Comment

Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Cool Tool Review: Wazala
A Review by Todd Hoskins

A few years ago, small companies were constantly complaining about the eCommerce divide – the cost and headache of setting up an online store, collecting product images, managing transactions, and the dreaded shopping cart was separating the haves from the have-nots.

Wazala, formerly Vendr, allows anyone to be in the “have” category. It’s a huge breakthrough for small companies that have hard goods or digital goods to sell, but don’t have the resources for NetSuite. The technology has been there (Volusion comes to mind), with plenty of “turnkey” solutions.

The difference with Wazala is that it is a pop-up store, a store within your site. You don’t need a new domain or designer, or additional software. With copied and pasted code, I had a store on my WordPress blog in less than 10 minutes.

vendr

Costs range from free (up to 5 products) to $30/month for up to 250 products. Inventory tracking, product categorization, search, coupons, and discount codes are available for larger stores, along with integration for bookkeeping and fulfillment. Payments can be processed through PayPal or Google Checkout for all stores.

The one missing element is integration with affiliate programs, which is reportedly being developed. For now, if you run a successful blog or are a small to medium sized company, Wazala is a super, simple service if you have your own products to sell.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 2/5 – Sell direct and have just a few products? Then, yes.

Entrepreneur Value: 4/5 – 15 day trial gets you into eCommerce

Personal Value: 2/5 – Try selling your knitted cardigans on your blog. Why not?

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Filed Under: Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, eCommerce, store, Todd Hoskins, Vendr

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