Pay Online

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:

1. Not as many trips to the bank (everything is deposited electronically).
   
   
2. Easier and "cleaner" paper-trails for sales records.
   
   
3. No bounced checks (credit cards are almost like getting cash).
   
   
4. Easier to trace orders for customer service.
   
   
5. ...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).

In brief, customers should be able to order:

1. Directly Online.
   
   
2. With an 800 number (24 hours a day, seven days a week with live operators).
   
   
3. 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.

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.