MightyMerchant eCommerce Blog

Your ecommerce website is live. You’ve got a marketing plan to draw people in to your site and the quality content and usability experience to keep them happy and coming back to you. You’re ready for customers and eager to see your business thrive. The last thing you want to do is turn down an order, right?

Actually, when your ecommerce site is new, a cautious approach to filling orders and shipping is a good idea. For new ecommerce sites considering whether or not to ship internationally, there are a few things to keep in mind which could cause you to avoid shipping internationally or at least delay it until you have more experience and your site is more established.

The two major issues involved in the decision of whether to sell your products internationally are order/credit card fraud, and shipping costs. If your business is based in the United States and you decide to sell internationally, it is likely only a matter of time before you are faced with a fraudulent order. That’s not to say that fraudulent orders don’t originate in the United States, because of course they do, but there are a few reasons why overseas orders are particularly problematic.

Price

One of our new sites, LearningServicesUS.com, sells educational software for teachers. As the site owners were preparing to get their site ready to go live, they were investigating international shipping options and discovered that the shipping to Brazil for one item would be over a thousand dollars! Probably not realistic to consider shipping at that rate. After discussing the options with LearningServicesUS, the verdict was that after they build up clients and sales that they would revisit the international shipping issues and reconsider later. In general, we wouldn’t advise new ecommerce sites to offer international sales, partly for this reason of exorbitant costs, and also because order fraud is much more rampant overseas.

Lack of enforcement

Many developing and Third-World countries don’t and can’t allocate the resources necessary to properly monitor fraud, track fraudulent activity online, and pursue and prosecute thieves. There’s just no money for these tasks. Additionally, the market for stolen credit-card numbers is most active outside of the United States. If you do offer overseas shipping, you may want to consider avoiding orders from certain high-risk countries where fraud is known to be a major problem. Countries such as Romania, Latvia, Belarus and other Eastern European countries have high fraud risks, as does Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana, countries in southern Asia (Phillipines, Thailand, Malaysia) and Middle Eastern countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya). *

What you can do to avoid fraud

It’s wise to have some internal checks in place on your ordering system. These suggestions for protecting yourself from fraudulent orders hold true even for domestic orders, but are especially important if you do decided to offer international shipping.

Avoid shipping to post office boxes. United States Postal Service (USPS) shipping rates are more affordable for overseas shipping when compared to UPS or FedEx, for instance, but USPS can’t track overseas packages and postal service in the destination country may be unreliable.

Compare the credit card billing address to the shipping address. For an overseas order, insist that they match.

Hand review each order over a certain amount. Pick an amount that makes sense for your business and manually review all orders over that amount. If you normally get orders averaging only$100, a $250 order may ring some alarm bells. Consider calling all customers who place orders above this set amount to personally verify their orders. Depending on your product and sales volume, maybe a $500 order would seem suspicious. Just keep in the back of your mind that a “too good to be true” expensive order really may be too good to be true.

Do a BIN look-up. The Bank Identification Number, or BIN, is the first six digits of a credit card. These numbers identify the bank that issued the credit card. The free service at http://all-nettools.com/toolbox, financial allows you to enter the BIN numbers to determine the issuing bank. It’s worth investigating if the issuing bank is located in a country other than where the order is originating.

*source: Scribd

Posted on February 22nd, 2008 by Vanessa
Filed under: Security | 2 Comments »

Adding video to your site doesn’t have to be a difficult proposition. In fact, it isn’t! I have written about adding video before: in a recent blog post about adding multimedia, and in an article in MightyMerchant’s October 2006 newsletter, SiteBeat, about adding streaming video content.

To those of you who have never utilized the services of Google Video or YouTube, the process might seem intimidating. I’m here to tell you that it’s actually quite easy, so if you have ever had the idea to add some video content to your website or blog, there should be nothing holding you back. Let’s take a look at how the process works and why you might want to use video.

Adding Streaming Media

Streaming video or audio files are sent in compressed form over the Internet. The file is played as it arrives, in almost real time. With the advent in recent years of large web content providers such as YouTube and Google Video, the equipment and infrastructure necessary to serve huge quantities of video and audio at little or no cost is in place and provided free for the general public to use in almost any way they like. [Note-As I write this, I just learned via TechCrunch today that Yahoo has relaunched Yahoo Video with some changes to the service. Instead of offering only user-generated content, Yahoo Video is now displaying videos from other Yahoo properties music, movies, TV, news and sports.]

Here is how the process works:

1. Set up an account with a streaming media provider, such as Google Video, Yahoo! Video, or YouTube.
2. Create a video, using basic video recording equipment. For marketing purposes, the video should be of as high a quality as you can afford.
3. Upload your video to your account, using the service’s terms of use. There will be instructions to guide you through the upload process. It’s usually just a click or two, no different than uploading a jpeg image.
4. The service provider will typically review the video for appropriate content, resulting in a short delay before the video is made available to you to post publicly.
5. Some services allow the videos to be set to ‘private,’ so only users you invite can view the videos. In order to post your video on your website or blog, you must allow the video to be public, to be shared, or to be ‘embedded.’
6. The streaming media provider will generate a code or URL to display your video stream. This code can be pasted right into your WordPress blog through the ‘upload video’ feature, or added to your website for other uses.
7. There is a little bit of setup work involved on our end to include the video stream on your website, but typically, it can be accomplished in less than 30 minutes

One of our clients, DenLorsTools.com, sells automotive tools and supplies and mechanics equipment. They created a series of videos which are viewable on YouTube and on their site. Over the past 6 months, their video “Bench Bleeding a Master Cylinder” has been viewed more than 6,000 times. Check it out for yourself by going to YouTube.com and doing a search for “DenLors Tools.” Other videos include Volt Tester Tool, and Using the Robinair 34700 A/C Machine.

On DenLorsTools.com, the videos are placed in the “Tech Articles” category, where one of the most-watched videos is “Honda and Acura Timing Belt Tips, Crank Pulley Tool.”

Marketing benefits of video

Obviously, the primary benefit is free advertising! Each time someone views DenLors’ videos, they’re getting a message like, “Free shipping $99 and up at DenLors Tools.com.” or information about the various products they sell and pricing. This is permission-based marketing at its best. The people viewing his videos are choosing to watch them, they’re interested in the subject already, and all DenLors Tools owner Dennis has to do is put the message in front of them.

Dennis explained some of the benefits he has seen from including video: “Customers do mention the videos when they call and we have noticed an increase in sales on some of the products featured in the videos. We even had a salesman from the manufacturer of the Honda crank pulley tool (Powerbuilt) contact us to say he saw it on YouTube and that it was a great idea.”

Ideas for integrating video into your site’s content

The popularity of video sites like YouTube can’t be underestimated. People turn to videos for entertainment and information. There are lots of ‘how to’ type videos on YouTube already, so it’s natural that people would check there for ‘how to’ information on auto repair and tools, like what Dennis has created.

What can you offer? A tour of your facility? The making of a hand-crafted object? How to use or install one of your products? Before and after project images?

The possibilities really are endless.

Posted on February 15th, 2008 by Vanessa
Filed under: Multimedia | 3 Comments »

Don’t sacrifice the customer experience on your website! Normally, striving to give a potential customer personal attention would be considered a good thing, but I came across a site yesterday that took that goal a little too far, and sacrificed their website usability and the customer experience in the process.One of our clients, InnocraftDesigns.com, is a full-service home remodeling company that specializes in CAPS certified “Aging In Place” home accessibility remodeling. This means that they work with aging seniors to remodel their home with walk-in showers, safety bars in the bathroom, doorway widening for wheelchair access, and things like that to allow them to continue living in their own home as they age. Inno-Craft Designs is a local dealer for EZ Access ramps (www.homecareproducts.com). Installing wheelchair ramps is a big part of the Inno-Craft Designs’ accessibility remodeling.As I was making an effort to build some incoming links for this client, I checked out the EZ Access website. As a dealer for their products, I wanted to make sure that EZ Access was linking to my client. On the home page there is a “Find A Dealer” search button, which of course I clicked on.Instead of taking me to a page of “locate by State” or “enter your ZIP code” or something like that which I was expecting, I am taken to a form entitled “Information Request,” with first name, last name, phone number, email address, city, state and ZIP code as required fields.This surprised me for a number of reasons, one of which is that their primary target buyers are the disabled and the elderly. Many elderly people are going to be reluctant to provide this type of personal info just to locate a store. Not to mention the fact that they may not have an email address. What happens in that case? I could imagine a lot of confused people. Secondly, there was nothing on the page to indicate what would happen next. Would someone call me? Should I check my email? Would clicking submit give me what I wanted?I fill out the information and click submit, hoping that the next page will provide me some useful info. But it doesn’t, it merely says, “Thank you for your submission” and a close window button. What about that dealer info I wanted? I close the window and poof! It disappears, along with my personal information and their opportunity to really connect with a potential customer.At this point, I start making myself some lunch, totally confused about what would happen next. To their credit, a friendly sales rep called about 5 minutes later. When I explained what my intentions were, the lady said the website was previously set up to locate dealers by ZIP code but the owners wanted to provide a more “personal experience,” because people sometimes don’t understand the type and length of ramp that they actually need for their situation.Got it, but there’s a big gap here between the good intentions and the implementation. EZ Access is a great vendor with high-quality, useful products and an obviously responsive customer service department. But after going through their website as a customer would, I found a simple, positive way that they could improve the site experience of their visitors with the addition of one or two sentences on that Information Request page. A little more effort and they could have some really informative content in place about how they want to provide for the best customer experience by making sure their needs are properly met. Without this, it’s a missed opportunity to connect with customers and an example of customer service gone awry.

Posted on February 7th, 2008 by Vanessa
Filed under: Web Design and Usability | No Comments »

A Moment of Silence.

Netscape Navigator, the iconic browser which brought the web to the majority of Internet users, will not be updated anymore. Ah, Netscape, you were my guide when I first set out to explore this brave new world of the Internet. Its introduction as an easy-to-use way to navigate ushered in the new era of the age of commercial Internet, and the white N rising above the Earth became so familiar.

When it first launched in 1994, Netscape was designed to be user-friendly and became the most used Internet browser through the 90s. When Microsoft wanted a share of the popularity, they licensed the source code from Netscape’s developer and created Internet Explorer. Netscape continued to rise in popularity until Microsoft began offering Internet Explorer free with Windows 95 and later versions. Users switched wholesale, and Netscape’s profits and popularity continued to dwindle. It fared no better when it was bought by AOL in 1999.

AOL recently announced it would no longer issue updates for Netscape as of February 1, 2008, effectively killing the once-great browser. But, in an ironic twist, Netscape’s original developers created a new, better, more flexible browser the world knows today as Mozilla Firefox. Like the ashes from the phoenix, Firefox is now my browser of choice, and the one which makes my work easier thanks to its open source code and customizability. Kinda poetic isn’t it?

Read Netscape’s official announcement.

Posted on January 31st, 2008 by Vanessa
Filed under: Industry News | No Comments »

There are a few tools I use quite often, either in creating these blog posts, writing informative articles for posting on the MightyMerchant site, or in creating our monthly email newsletters.  These tools really help me create a professional, attractive finished product, and I know they will help you, too. Best of all, they don’t cost any money to use! (Exception being istockphoto, which is inexpensive enough that it’s practically free.)

I wanted to share with you three of the tools I use to create visually appealing documents, and also introduce one resource for inspiration that a client shared with me.

As a business owner, you have probably had many occasions to create PDF files. These file types are pretty standard in the business world for sending and receiving documents. A suite of three downloadable programs is available from pdf995.com for Windows users. Pdf 995  allows you to create and save files in PDF format and offers a ton of features.

As I’m writing blog posts or articles, I frequently find that I want to take a screenshot of something I’ve come across to illustrate whatever point I’m making…a screenshot of a Google search result, show a how- to of something I’m writing about, or just capture a web page image to send to someone as an example. I use Skitch constantly. It’s is incredibly easy to grab anything happening on screen to share with someone else–an image of an IM screen, an email, anything. And once you’ve grabbed the image, their built-in editing menu lets you add text, resize, and save your images in a history folder. When you’re ready to use the images, just drag and drop. One drawback is it is only for Mac users, however, anyone using Windows who needs a free screen grab program can check out Mirekw.

In case you have ever wondered where the images that illustrate most of my blog posts come from, look no further. istockphoto.com is an invaluable resource for low-cost high quality images. For as little as $1 apiece, you can download images to use for newsletters, blog posts, brochures, or your website that illustrate any theme you can imagine, from business success to happiness.

Finally, Karen from InnocraftDesigns.com, shared her favorite website, simpletruths.com. InnocraftDesigns specializes in home remodeling  which allows people to remain in their own homes as they age–walk-in showers, wheelchair access and other home accessibility projects. It’s a rewarding job and one that allows people to live more comfortable lives as they age, but it’s also a job that leaves Karen feeling like she needs her own inspirational lift every now and then. (We can all appreciate that, can’t we!) She appreciates the weekly uplifting videos she gets emailed to her in the newsletters, and if you ever wanted to know where to get some of those inspirational slogan posters, this is your place!

Got your own essential resource you use in managing your business? I’d love to hear about it.

Posted on January 24th, 2008 by Vanessa
Filed under: Best Business Resources | No Comments »