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Maximize Your Results | Advanced Techniques & Information
Leverage The Power Of Credit Card Processing To Maximize Your Sales
The success of your business rests upon your ability to generate sales and profit on your website. Accepting credit cards is vitally important, but you can't just set up credit card processing and wait for the sales to come in. It is critically important that you understand the issues, so that you can properly implement credit card processing to MAXIMIZE your sales.
Below you will find some of the key strategies, techniques and advanced information that will enable you to optimize your website and maximize your sales.
Credit Cards - Everything You Need To Know
In order to become a serious competitor in your marketplace, you need to accept credit cards on your website. Accepting credit cards online is the easiest, and most inexpensive investment that an online business can make, in return for such a dramatically huge increase in sales, and profitability.
We can now jump right in and analyze some of the key issues that you must be aware of, in order to operate a profitable website...
You Must Turn Your Website Visitors Into Paying Customers
This must almost sound too obvious to state, however it is something that is so obvious it is often overlooked altogether. Have you thought about what percentage of your website visitors turn into customers?
Statistically speaking, once a website visitor has left your website, they almost never come back to purchase. Not even if they bookmarked your website. Why is that you ask?
Most people go online to research, not to buy. A visitor at your website is usually there to learn what they can of your services, and then continue on their way to find out more information of a similar nature, usually from competitors.
So you may be asking -- what can you do... well read on:
You Must Capture Your Customers Attention And Close The Sale -- IMMEDIATELY!
Internet surfers have very short attention spans. Once your visitors have come to your website and left, you have lost the sale. It is that simple. To combat this, you must have an extremely simple ordering process.
To restate that -- you must collect payment the INSTANT you have your customers attention and interest. YOU MUST CLOSE THE SALE IMMEDIATELY.
Most of your customers will not want your product bad enough to record what they want, email or telephone you for the order, and then write out and mail a check. If you think differently then you are kidding yourself. You will be losing almost all of your sales that you would have otherwise made with almost no additional effort.
Your customers should arrive at your website, find out the information they are looking for and then effortlessly find themselves on your order form.
You should be able to speed them through the entire purchase process before the customer even has time re-think whether or not they wish to purchase. The easier it is for your customers to order, the more sales you will make. Convenience, convenience, convenience.
Do You Know How To Find Out If Your Competitors Stealing Your Customers?
Every moment that you waste with an inefficient order process, is one more moment that your customer can lose interest and cancel the order. Real time credit card transactions COMPLETELY solve this problem. Your customers can pay online the second they can decide what they want to purchase, its completely automated, and instantaneous for both you and the customer.
As I mentioned above, most web surfers come online to research products or services they are interested in. If they do not buy on your website, they will continue to research at your competitors website. There is where the term "competition" really comes into play.
If your website visitor leaves your website, and ends up purchasing with your competitor simply because they have a better payment process, you have lost a sale. Unfortunately that one sale you lost is not the worst part...
How Many Sales Are You Gaining Or Losing? Get LIFETIME Customers
Once your website visitor has shopped with your competitor, they become your competitors customer. This is very undesirable because it is almost impossible to win back customers who have developed a relationship with your competitor.
They have purchased from your competitor, been happy with the products or services -- so where do you think they are going to go the next time they need similar products or services again?
The LIFETIME value of these customers is tremendous. Do NOT lose customers to your competitors because of an innefficient or inconvenience payment process. Close the sale immediately and increase your market share. You can generate lifetime customers for your business. The profit potential of these recurring purchases greatly outweighs the one-off purchase.
Be Efficient - Automate Tasks & Maximize Your Time
It is important to assess how much time you spend per week doing routine office work such as invoicing and keeping your books up to date.
Most online businesses that operate without real time credit card processing spend at least one third of their time on accounting, invoicing, tracking payments, and other office chores.
The question is - "why"? This investment of time is wasted, and wasted time is lost profits. Why spend time waiting for a check to come in the mail, taking it to the bank, waiting for it to clear, updating your books, monitoring your balance for NSF charges, and other time consuming tasks.
Automated credit card transactions solve about 90% of these problems. This time saved can be re-invested straight back into the business, in more effective manners, such as marketing and promotion which drive more sales, and increase profits.
Do Your Customers Trust Your Website?
You must overcome your customers fears, doubts and reservations about purchasing in order to make the sale. When it comes to the internet, the only criteria your website visitor has to go by, is by looking at your website.
If you go to a website, and see that it does not accept credit cards online, you know it is not a serious player. It is an instant red flag that KILLS sales.
If a customer looks to purchase, and sees that secure credit card payment facilities have been implemented, they instantly know that they are dealing with a legitimate company and not a fly-by-night operation. Nothing else can so immediately and completely ease your customers fear of purchasing. Removing this fear and making the customer feel that this is a secure, sensible purchase, is ultimately what will lead them through to the completion of the purchase process.
Make More Money Per Sale
Quite simply, people who buy with credit cards are not as concerned with price as customers who pay by cash or check. The typical customer who pays by credit card is more interested in convenience than price. This means that it is easier to make the sale, and you can even raise your prices, and make more money per sale, without it negatively impacting the number of sales you make.
Automatic Recurring Billing
If you offer a service or a product that requires a monthly fee, then credit card acceptance will save you a HUGE amount of time and effort in your regular day-to-day administration work. With credit card acceptance you can automatically bill your customers credit card on a regular basis, ensuring your payment, and reducing the hassle of paperwork and invoicing. This removes the problem of having customers who forget to remit their payment.
Improved Efficiency
This is one aspect of credit card acceptance that cannot afford to be overlooked. Credit card acceptance greatly reduces your day-to-day administration tasks because the payment process is completely automated. This will not only save you time and money on your office administration costs, but will eliminate the large time delay it takes for your checks to come in the mail. Even after getting your check in the mail you must take it to your bank, and wait for it to clear. Then, if there are any NSF charges you must go through the process again...
Beyond greatly reducing the time involved in doing your paperwork, and reducing your operating costs, credit cards offer another very significant advantage:
More Free Time To Market, Promote and GROW Your Business
The time that you save on doing your day-to-day administration tasks is TIME YOU CAN RE-INVEST BACK INTO MARKETING AND PROMOTING YOUR BUSINESS. The importance of this is so significant, that it simply cannot be overstated. If you are not working to grow and expand your business, then you are just standing still while your competitors pull ahead.
By becoming more efficient you can direct more of your efforts towards promoting your business and updating your website, which in turn drives more sales and generates further profits. It is a win-win situation!
Cost Comparison
There is no magic formula that I can give you to calculate exactly how much credit card acceptance could benefit your business. The points I have listed here are just the tip of the iceberg, but should certainly help you to see how accepting credit cards is an important part of operating a successful e-commerce website.
One thing you can be certain of, is that for the small investment of time and money it takes to put credit card transactions on your website, the return will be INCOMPARABLY LARGER.
In comparison, the same amount of money invested into advertising would only be able buy a small classified add in the back of a local newspaper, that ran once a month.
You Are Only As Big As Your Logo
The internet is an interesting medium, in the way that even a small company can look large if they have a properly implemented website.
Customers look for a number of things when purchasing on the internet. These things that they look for ease their fears, earn their trust, and eventually lead to the sale.
In most cases what customers look for is:
• A clean, effective, professional design
This is very important - it is the same as in real life. You wouldn't go to a job interview wearing a dirty shirt and an old pair of sweatpants.
Your website is your internet appearance. It should be clean, and professional. Another important note while on this topic is broken links - customers see broken links as a very clear sign of a neglected website, that is obviously not being updated and monitored. Make your design clean and professional, and make sure you have no broken links, and your customer will be instantly getting a good first impression.
• Real People
This is a very important, often overlooked aspect. People like to know they are doing business with real people. If they can't easily get a human voice on the phone, or a response from an email, then they instantly worry that if something goes wrong with the sale, that they might not be able to get in contact with you. This doubt that is inserted into their mind is very hard to remove once it's there. The solution is to prevent this problem from ever happening. Provide telephone numbers, respond to emails promptly, and let your customers know that you are there to assist them if they need help. Most importantly, they should get the feeling that your business is a legitimate, real business, operated by real people, who are ready, willing and able to help them with any questions or concerns that they may have.
• Credit Card Acceptance
If a website accepts credit cards through a professional, secure ordering process, then customers have the ease of mind knowing that they are dealing with a real business, and not a fly by night operation. By accepting credit cards online you offer not only convenience, but instil a sense of trust into your customers. They can see that you have obviously taken the time to implement proper payment procedures, which really hammers home the sense of trust and professionalism, which ultimately relieves the buyers fears and finalizes the sale.
If you are wondering why your website has traffic, but few sales, it is quite possibly because you either don't accept credit cards, or do accept credit cards, but do so in an unprofessional, non-user-friendly way.
Final Thoughts - An Assessment Of Your Situation
You should now have enough information to be able to weigh out the benefits of credit card acceptance, and determine if implementing credit card transactions on your website would benefit your business.
If you need further help to determine if credit card acceptance would benefit your business, then contact us, and we would be happy to discuss your situation, and answer any questions that you may have.
1. Return to Maximize Your Results
1. Click here to find out what you get when you apply
2. Click here for the critical questions you must ask before selecting your credit card processor
3. Click here to see a listing of our rates
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