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Member You - A Guide to Online Shopping Options/Providers/Carts
Affiliate marketing programs over the years have proliferated into a multi-million dollar market. Affiliate marketing programs which were once a rarity have now become the norm for Internet marketers. These affiliate programs have allowed many people the opportunity to start their own online business and to reap the profits of other individuals labor.Affiliate Marketing is a true Win-Win situation.Affiliate marketing programs are pretty much the same regardless of the products or services being offered. Someone or some company offers an individual the opportunity to sell their products for them at either a set amount per sale or a specific percentage of every sale.All you, as the Affiliate Marketer have to do is advertise and generate traffic to your website or their website and get others to purchase the product or service. Simple isn't it?Yes, Affiliate Marketing is a pretty simple concept and it is currently one of the most touted “businesses” on the Internet.As an Affiliate Marketer, you have advertised the “product”, generated traffic from articles and search engines, visitors have gone to your website, viewed the offer and sad to say, they may have left without purchasing. Do not fear – with Affiliate Marketing, your visitors don't have to purchase the first time, the second time or maybe even the twentieth time that they look at the offers.Virtually every reputable affiliate marketing program offers up “cookies” that hold these visitors as “your customers” for 30 – 90 days. Many programs actually keep cookies for up to a year.These
3. The In between options
So after all that, there are some inbetween options available to people that do not want the full flexibility and cost associated with option 2, but would like to adopt a more professional and powerful approach than option 1. There are two main ways to have this half way house:
1. Many payment providers also allow you to use their secure servers to process transactions. This means that you will still need an IMA to receive the payments but will not need the SSL certificate on your site as they will do the secure part for you. You can also normally make the payment pages on their server look like yours pages, and so the customer is more often than not none the wiser.
2. You could use Worldpay they are well known and trusted and have been around a long time. This solution is where they give you an IMA and payment provider service all in one via their service WorldDirect. This takes out the pain of getting an IMA from a bank, and you also won't need the SSL certificate for your site as they will handle the secure part for you. They do this on a quote by quote basis and this available via filling in this request form.
So what are the pros and cons of these Inbetween approaches?
Pros
* They take out the hassle of at least some of the full blown ecommerce route by providing some of the services from the same place.
* This normally means you need to spend a little less money.
Cons
* You don't have the full flexibility fo the full blown option.
* You also don't have the full simplicity of the all in one option.
* You still need a shopping cart.
Conclusion on In Betweens:
The inbetween options can be very useful to many businesses as they can get away from the Paypal a
Online affiliation is very much in the Internet. Million websites has become affiliate website to get money to sale products and services around the world. Online affiliation is one of alternative to get money ?easily?. Before Internet become very popular like nowadays, affiliate business has spreads around the world especially to distribute their product and services. This article discusses how to build offline affiliate business. This is preliminary article before you entry to this business.Offline affiliateOffline affiliate business is business to sale third parties products and services. You are not needs having your own product and services but you can sale other corporate products and services. This product like: chemical, machinery, mechanical, water treatment tools, toys, inflatable, household, etc. Your task only promote and sale their product in your local area. Company that gives us right to sale their product called principal.In this context, you will become reseller, distributor or representative. Reseller and distributor is agency of the product to sale with right create price from basic price that given from principal. However, if you become representative, then you will only act as agent with no right to conduct commercial transaction. You will only take action as spoke person but you will get commission too.To become an affiliate of principal, usually, you must apply with their mechanism. My experiences our company contacts target principal and introduce our company to interest with the product or services. Send introduction letter to this corporat
This seems to come up in a lot of different places from different people so i thought I'd try and write an encompassing overview of the different options and routes out there, or at least the main ones. There is a lot of discuss here. I will cover:
* You need ballpark figures
* Some definitions
* Different options on how to take payment
(All in one, Full blown, and the inbetweens)
* Different shopping carts to choose from
* Conclusion
This article is not that long (even though it may appear so) and I fell it is very informative about your different possibilities. The conclusion at the end I would read even if you don't read the rest!
Benchmarks
Now there are quite a lot of different possibilities to start trading on the Internet and many of these decisions are based upon a few criteria you need to decide ball park figures for before you start your search:
* How many transactions you will make in a time period (normally a month)
* The average order value (e.g. the basket size)
* And therefore the total cash you see yourself processing
The reason that these are important is that many payment providers base their fees on these values and so having some kind of estimation will allow you to compare the packages more effectively.
Once you have decided these there are three basic routes you can take to Internet trading. The first thing to keep in mind is that there is no right or wrong route - no route will fail completely compared to another one - but it is best to get the one which fits your business correctly.
Definitions
Before I go into the different routes I think it will be useful to define a few terms. Don't worry about them for now as they will all be used in context below and so will make much more sense:
* Internet Merchant Account (IMA): This is effectively a bank account that allows you to recieve payments over the Internet directly into your account. These are normally purchased from your bank and vary in cost but normally are around ??200. This does involve speaking to your bank, filling in forms, checks etc etc. This DOES not have to be from your current bank, so shop around.
* Payment Gateway: A company that actually takes the payment over the Internet. They provide the payment processing systems to talk to the credit card companies and such like.
* SSL Certificate: This is a certificate that you can purchase for your website that means you get that padlock in the bottom right of your screen (or wherever it may appear on different browsers). These can cost from around ??150 a year and is dependant on your hosting company and current set up.
Payment options
1. Use an all-in-one solution.
These are the solutions that can provide you with everything that you need in one place - the shopping cart, the payment system, the lot. The most well known of these solutions is Paypal.
With this solution, there is no need to get an IMA off your bank, no need to engage a seprate payment provider and no need to purchase an SSL certificate. This is why they are very popular with small business as there is almost 0 set up cost (just your time and any time you/your developer needs to integrate it into the site). Paypal makes it's money from the fees it charges on transactions. The costs as of time of writing are available at:
https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside
As you can see these are based on the total transaction value per month. So what are the pros and cons of this approach?
Pros:
* You don't need an IMA, Separate payment gateway or SSL Certificate
* It's easy to use and to set up (with some basic web knowledge/developer)
* With no monthly fees you don't need to worry about dry periods of little or no purchases as you only pay when people buy.
* Paypal is a well recognised name by a lot of people and so trust is already there. Although it also has to be said that because they are so big they are the subject of regular fraud attacks (email fraud mainly) but deal with it reasonably well.
* From the above it can be seen this can be perfect for micro to small businesses with basic needs.
Cons:
* If you are dealing with high value transactions or transactions on a very regular basis, Paypal's fee structure will work against you and be less profitable.
* Paypal can be perceived as a 'cheap' solution by people as it is so easy and cost effective to set up people may not take you as seriously as you need them to to trade with you: this depends largely on what products you are selling and your perception in the market place. E.g. you wouldn't sell Aston Martins through Paypal.
* Their shopping carts and shopping tools are not very flexible and so they may not be right for your business needs. Although Paypal can get more advanced with the aid of a good developer if you still don't want to go the IMA routes (But this will incur further costs of the developer of course).
* Paypal isn't always the quickest. It sometimes can add extra steps to a transaction.
Obviously every extra step added is another chance to lose your customer. This step is added by Paypal to encourage people to sign up for their account before they purchase. There are ways around this, but that is more advanced use of Paypal.
Conclusion for Paypal:
Paypal is very effective for small enterprises you want as small as possible start up costs and a pay as you go attitude to Ecommerce. It is simple and fast to set up and you need no extra bits and pieces apart from the possibility of employing a developer to intergate the Paypal system with your website.
2. Use all separate parts.
The complete opposite to the Paypal solution is to go all out for a full blown Ecommerce solution that is fully flexible and in your control. This involves purchases the IMA, getting in touch with a payment provider and buying an SSL certificate for your site. There are many providers around but I have had good dealings with Protx and also heard that Sec-Pay are good.
This allows you to have a completely bespoke shopping cart solution that has integrated payment pages. At no point will the customer be sent to anyone else to pay and no payment provider logos will appear unless you want them to to back up the credibility of your system. You take all their details on your site (hence the need for the SSL certificate)
Pros
* Full flexibility to do whatever you like in your entire payment system.
* No possible confusion for the customer between your site and the payment site (although this is less important these days)
* Normally no Pay per transaction fees: a flat monthly fee is the normal way of dealing with these payment providers, or a flat fee per transaction, just not a percentage.
Cons
* Expensive and time consuming to set up due to dealing with the Bank, Payment providers and also your Hosting company.
* You will need a good web developer to integrate it all together.
Conclusion for full blown Ecommerce:
This should only really be considered if you are going to be taking a high volume of transactions at a reasonable order value per transaction. Due to the set up costs and ongoing costs you need to have a minimum number of orders to be processing to make sure you break even. There is also a high development cost associated with these sites.
3. The In between options
So after all that, there are some inbetween options available to people that do not want the full flexibility and cost associated with option 2, but would like to adopt a more professional and powerful approach than option 1. There are two main ways to have this half way house:
1. Many payment providers also allow you to use their secure servers to process transactions. This means that you will still need an IMA to receive the payments but will not need the SSL certificate on your site as they will do the secure part for you. You can also normally make the payment pages on their server look like yours pages, and so the customer is more often than not none the wiser.
2. You could use Worldpay they are well known and trusted and have been around a long time. This solution is where they give you an IMA and payment provider service all in one via their service WorldDirect. This takes out the pain of getting an IMA from a bank, and you also won't need the SSL certificate for your site as they will handle the secure part for you. They do this on a quote by quote basis and this available via filling in this request form.
So what are the pros and cons of these Inbetween approaches?
Pros
* They take out the hassle of at least some of the full blown ecommerce route by providing some of the services from the same place.
* This normally means you need to spend a little less money.
Cons
* You don't have the full flexibility fo the full blown option.
* You also don't have the full simplicity of the all in one option.
* You still need a shopping cart.
Conclusion on In Betweens:
The inbetween options can be very useful to many businesses as they can get away from the Paypal ap
You're planning to pursue a new career, but how can you be sure your choice is a good one? Consider the following five career factors.1. Your Passions People often overlook their own passions when it comes to making life-defining decisions. Perhaps your dad always said you should be a business major because you'd be guaranteed a high-paying job after graduation. Or your mom nudged you into teaching because you'd be able to find a job anywhere in the country. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with being a teacher or a business person, but if those occupations don't fit your fancy, you'll be miserable a minimum of eight hours a day, five days a week.2. Your Commitments Let's say you've pinpointed your dream career, but you'll have to work nights for two years before you can get on a more regular schedule. You need to carefully consider these career factors to determine whether they're something you can and/or want to handle. Do you have a family to support? A job that requires you to travel 35 weeks out of the year might not be in your best interests. Your future needs fall under this umbrella of career factors as well -- is the new career you're considering conducive to raising children one day?3. Necessary Skills Consider this the "Do I have what it takes?" portion of the career factors checklist. If you know you're not a people person, for instance, a psychology career probably won't be a good fit. But there are plenty of practical skills you can learn to prepare you for your dream career. Perhaps you like working with your hands, and y
* Internet Merchant Account (IMA): This is effectively a bank account that allows you to recieve payments over the Internet directly into your account. These are normally purchased from your bank and vary in cost but normally are around ??200. This does involve speaking to your bank, filling in forms, checks etc etc. This DOES not have to be from your current bank, so shop around.
* Payment Gateway: A company that actually takes the payment over the Internet. They provide the payment processing systems to talk to the credit card companies and such like.
* SSL Certificate: This is a certificate that you can purchase for your website that means you get that padlock in the bottom right of your screen (or wherever it may appear on different browsers). These can cost from around ??150 a year and is dependant on your hosting company and current set up.
Payment options
1. Use an all-in-one solution.
These are the solutions that can provide you with everything that you need in one place - the shopping cart, the payment system, the lot. The most well known of these solutions is Paypal.
With this solution, there is no need to get an IMA off your bank, no need to engage a seprate payment provider and no need to purchase an SSL certificate. This is why they are very popular with small business as there is almost 0 set up cost (just your time and any time you/your developer needs to integrate it into the site). Paypal makes it's money from the fees it charges on transactions. The costs as of time of writing are available at:
https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside
As you can see these are based on the total transaction value per month. So what are the pros and cons of this approach?
Pros:
* You don't need an IMA, Separate payment gateway or SSL Certificate
* It's easy to use and to set up (with some basic web knowledge/developer)
* With no monthly fees you don't need to worry about dry periods of little or no purchases as you only pay when people buy.
* Paypal is a well recognised name by a lot of people and so trust is already there. Although it also has to be said that because they are so big they are the subject of regular fraud attacks (email fraud mainly) but deal with it reasonably well.
* From the above it can be seen this can be perfect for micro to small businesses with basic needs.
Cons:
* If you are dealing with high value transactions or transactions on a very regular basis, Paypal's fee structure will work against you and be less profitable.
* Paypal can be perceived as a 'cheap' solution by people as it is so easy and cost effective to set up people may not take you as seriously as you need them to to trade with you: this depends largely on what products you are selling and your perception in the market place. E.g. you wouldn't sell Aston Martins through Paypal.
* Their shopping carts and shopping tools are not very flexible and so they may not be right for your business needs. Although Paypal can get more advanced with the aid of a good developer if you still don't want to go the IMA routes (But this will incur further costs of the developer of course).
* Paypal isn't always the quickest. It sometimes can add extra steps to a transaction.
Obviously every extra step added is another chance to lose your customer. This step is added by Paypal to encourage people to sign up for their account before they purchase. There are ways around this, but that is more advanced use of Paypal.
Conclusion for Paypal:
Paypal is very effective for small enterprises you want as small as possible start up costs and a pay as you go attitude to Ecommerce. It is simple and fast to set up and you need no extra bits and pieces apart from the possibility of employing a developer to intergate the Paypal system with your website.
2. Use all separate parts.
The complete opposite to the Paypal solution is to go all out for a full blown Ecommerce solution that is fully flexible and in your control. This involves purchases the IMA, getting in touch with a payment provider and buying an SSL certificate for your site. There are many providers around but I have had good dealings with Protx and also heard that Sec-Pay are good.
This allows you to have a completely bespoke shopping cart solution that has integrated payment pages. At no point will the customer be sent to anyone else to pay and no payment provider logos will appear unless you want them to to back up the credibility of your system. You take all their details on your site (hence the need for the SSL certificate)
Pros
* Full flexibility to do whatever you like in your entire payment system.
* No possible confusion for the customer between your site and the payment site (although this is less important these days)
* Normally no Pay per transaction fees: a flat monthly fee is the normal way of dealing with these payment providers, or a flat fee per transaction, just not a percentage.
Cons
* Expensive and time consuming to set up due to dealing with the Bank, Payment providers and also your Hosting company.
* You will need a good web developer to integrate it all together.
Conclusion for full blown Ecommerce:
This should only really be considered if you are going to be taking a high volume of transactions at a reasonable order value per transaction. Due to the set up costs and ongoing costs you need to have a minimum number of orders to be processing to make sure you break even. There is also a high development cost associated with these sites.
3. The In between options
So after all that, there are some inbetween options available to people that do not want the full flexibility and cost associated with option 2, but would like to adopt a more professional and powerful approach than option 1. There are two main ways to have this half way house:
1. Many payment providers also allow you to use their secure servers to process transactions. This means that you will still need an IMA to receive the payments but will not need the SSL certificate on your site as they will do the secure part for you. You can also normally make the payment pages on their server look like yours pages, and so the customer is more often than not none the wiser.
2. You could use Worldpay they are well known and trusted and have been around a long time. This solution is where they give you an IMA and payment provider service all in one via their service WorldDirect. This takes out the pain of getting an IMA from a bank, and you also won't need the SSL certificate for your site as they will handle the secure part for you. They do this on a quote by quote basis and this available via filling in this request form.
So what are the pros and cons of these Inbetween approaches?
Pros
* They take out the hassle of at least some of the full blown ecommerce route by providing some of the services from the same place.
* This normally means you need to spend a little less money.
Cons
* You don't have the full flexibility fo the full blown option.
* You also don't have the full simplicity of the all in one option.
* You still need a shopping cart.
Conclusion on In Betweens:
The inbetween options can be very useful to many businesses as they can get away from the Paypal a
A recent leadership study in the United States in 2006 by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, sponsored by US News & World Report, offered the following data: • 70 % of Americans believe there is a leadership crisis today. • Americans have lost confidence in leadership in five sectors: education, religion, business, Congress, and the executive branch. Only medical and military leadership have more than a moderate level of confidence. • In no sector did confidence increase from last year. • Only 38 % believe their leaders have high ethical standards.Many see crisis here; I see opportunity. The leader you have been waiting for is you. You lead by your example. You lead by communicating clearly to others what needs to be done. Leadership is teaching and inspiring others to get it done. Leadership is influence. We begin to lead when we stop complaining about others and start inspiring them with our vision and our example.Why should people follow you? Peter Drucker said in an interview with Forbes Magazine that Harry Truman had the charisma of a dead mackerel, but his staff practically worshipped him. It was because his integrity was impeccable. Harry always said what he meant and meant what he said. Yes meant yes. And no meant no. How's your integrity? Do you tell the truth (with compassion) or do you tell people what they want to hear?It is time that those of us who are disappointed in leadership step up, and become leaders ourselves. It is time that those of us who are managing start leading. It is time that those of us who are leading l
* It's easy to use and to set up (with some basic web knowledge/developer)
* With no monthly fees you don't need to worry about dry periods of little or no purchases as you only pay when people buy.
* Paypal is a well recognised name by a lot of people and so trust is already there. Although it also has to be said that because they are so big they are the subject of regular fraud attacks (email fraud mainly) but deal with it reasonably well.
* From the above it can be seen this can be perfect for micro to small businesses with basic needs.
Cons:
* If you are dealing with high value transactions or transactions on a very regular basis, Paypal's fee structure will work against you and be less profitable.
* Paypal can be perceived as a 'cheap' solution by people as it is so easy and cost effective to set up people may not take you as seriously as you need them to to trade with you: this depends largely on what products you are selling and your perception in the market place. E.g. you wouldn't sell Aston Martins through Paypal.
* Their shopping carts and shopping tools are not very flexible and so they may not be right for your business needs. Although Paypal can get more advanced with the aid of a good developer if you still don't want to go the IMA routes (But this will incur further costs of the developer of course).
* Paypal isn't always the quickest. It sometimes can add extra steps to a transaction.
Obviously every extra step added is another chance to lose your customer. This step is added by Paypal to encourage people to sign up for their account before they purchase. There are ways around this, but that is more advanced use of Paypal.
Conclusion for Paypal:
Paypal is very effective for small enterprises you want as small as possible start up costs and a pay as you go attitude to Ecommerce. It is simple and fast to set up and you need no extra bits and pieces apart from the possibility of employing a developer to intergate the Paypal system with your website.
2. Use all separate parts.
The complete opposite to the Paypal solution is to go all out for a full blown Ecommerce solution that is fully flexible and in your control. This involves purchases the IMA, getting in touch with a payment provider and buying an SSL certificate for your site. There are many providers around but I have had good dealings with Protx and also heard that Sec-Pay are good.
This allows you to have a completely bespoke shopping cart solution that has integrated payment pages. At no point will the customer be sent to anyone else to pay and no payment provider logos will appear unless you want them to to back up the credibility of your system. You take all their details on your site (hence the need for the SSL certificate)
Pros
* Full flexibility to do whatever you like in your entire payment system.
* No possible confusion for the customer between your site and the payment site (although this is less important these days)
* Normally no Pay per transaction fees: a flat monthly fee is the normal way of dealing with these payment providers, or a flat fee per transaction, just not a percentage.
Cons
* Expensive and time consuming to set up due to dealing with the Bank, Payment providers and also your Hosting company.
* You will need a good web developer to integrate it all together.
Conclusion for full blown Ecommerce:
This should only really be considered if you are going to be taking a high volume of transactions at a reasonable order value per transaction. Due to the set up costs and ongoing costs you need to have a minimum number of orders to be processing to make sure you break even. There is also a high development cost associated with these sites.
3. The In between options
So after all that, there are some inbetween options available to people that do not want the full flexibility and cost associated with option 2, but would like to adopt a more professional and powerful approach than option 1. There are two main ways to have this half way house:
1. Many payment providers also allow you to use their secure servers to process transactions. This means that you will still need an IMA to receive the payments but will not need the SSL certificate on your site as they will do the secure part for you. You can also normally make the payment pages on their server look like yours pages, and so the customer is more often than not none the wiser.
2. You could use Worldpay they are well known and trusted and have been around a long time. This solution is where they give you an IMA and payment provider service all in one via their service WorldDirect. This takes out the pain of getting an IMA from a bank, and you also won't need the SSL certificate for your site as they will handle the secure part for you. They do this on a quote by quote basis and this available via filling in this request form.
So what are the pros and cons of these Inbetween approaches?
Pros
* They take out the hassle of at least some of the full blown ecommerce route by providing some of the services from the same place.
* This normally means you need to spend a little less money.
Cons
* You don't have the full flexibility fo the full blown option.
* You also don't have the full simplicity of the all in one option.
* You still need a shopping cart.
Conclusion on In Betweens:
The inbetween options can be very useful to many businesses as they can get away from the Paypal a
Are you worried about your sales slumping? Are your first quarter numbers looking lower? Is your pipeline looking softer than you'd like it to be at this point even though the economy is strong? Here's an idea that you can use to quickly pump up your sales. Its' called the 90 day sales blitz. The whole premise behind this is to rally the whole company around doing everything it can to support the sales team to close deals, expand the pipeline, get more opportunities into the forecast, and close deals that have been out there languishing for some time. Create a sales turn around plan with your team by pulling together everybody from sales, marketing, and operations and figuring out where's the low hanging fruit in the short term that we can go pick in order to bump our sales numbers up in the right direction.Where are our best opportunities that can close the fastest, what can we do to create more opportunities quickly through lead generation? How do we do direct mail or outbound telemarketing campaigns into our prospecting list? How can we create a compelling offer that we'd put on our website so that visitors who come through and find us from keyword searches decide that they want to convert and become quick sales leads that can be closed faster. What can they do to incentivize those that are searching for my products and services to call in immediately and speak to a sales rep? What sort of premiums and bonuses can I give to them to quickly bring me new sales opportunities?So a good 90 day sales blitz starts by getting all of your people together, sitting down and figur
2. Use all separate parts.
The complete opposite to the Paypal solution is to go all out for a full blown Ecommerce solution that is fully flexible and in your control. This involves purchases the IMA, getting in touch with a payment provider and buying an SSL certificate for your site. There are many providers around but I have had good dealings with Protx and also heard that Sec-Pay are good.
This allows you to have a completely bespoke shopping cart solution that has integrated payment pages. At no point will the customer be sent to anyone else to pay and no payment provider logos will appear unless you want them to to back up the credibility of your system. You take all their details on your site (hence the need for the SSL certificate)
Pros
* Full flexibility to do whatever you like in your entire payment system.
* No possible confusion for the customer between your site and the payment site (although this is less important these days)
* Normally no Pay per transaction fees: a flat monthly fee is the normal way of dealing with these payment providers, or a flat fee per transaction, just not a percentage.
Cons
* Expensive and time consuming to set up due to dealing with the Bank, Payment providers and also your Hosting company.
* You will need a good web developer to integrate it all together.
Conclusion for full blown Ecommerce:
This should only really be considered if you are going to be taking a high volume of transactions at a reasonable order value per transaction. Due to the set up costs and ongoing costs you need to have a minimum number of orders to be processing to make sure you break even. There is also a high development cost associated with these sites.
3. The In between options
So after all that, there are some inbetween options available to people that do not want the full flexibility and cost associated with option 2, but would like to adopt a more professional and powerful approach than option 1. There are two main ways to have this half way house:
1. Many payment providers also allow you to use their secure servers to process transactions. This means that you will still need an IMA to receive the payments but will not need the SSL certificate on your site as they will do the secure part for you. You can also normally make the payment pages on their server look like yours pages, and so the customer is more often than not none the wiser.
2. You could use Worldpay they are well known and trusted and have been around a long time. This solution is where they give you an IMA and payment provider service all in one via their service WorldDirect. This takes out the pain of getting an IMA from a bank, and you also won't need the SSL certificate for your site as they will handle the secure part for you. They do this on a quote by quote basis and this available via filling in this request form.
So what are the pros and cons of these Inbetween approaches?
Pros
* They take out the hassle of at least some of the full blown ecommerce route by providing some of the services from the same place.
* This normally means you need to spend a little less money.
Cons
* You don't have the full flexibility fo the full blown option.
* You also don't have the full simplicity of the all in one option.
* You still need a shopping cart.
Conclusion on In Betweens:
The inbetween options can be very useful to many businesses as they can get away from the Paypal a
The doctor often examines the tongue to determine the general state of health of the patient. The tongue is the organ used by the body for communication. Similarly, we determine the morale level and state of mental health of the company by examining the manner of its communication. What the heart and mind think, the tongue speaks.In sick companies, negative comments and rumours abound. Such negative energies that can sap away the morale and fruitful concentration of the company. It is quite easy to ascertain the state of health of the company. If you spend some time talking to the staff individually and you will soon be able to learn about the negative state of health of the organisation. The staff usually know the cause of the problems and the solutions to them.In addition to talking, the tongue can be used to chew, mix, taste and swallow food. Even when you are sleeping, your tongue is busy pushing saliva down the throat to be swallowed, otherwise you will be drooling all over the pillow. Similarly corporate communication is the tongue of the organisation and is the way all business entities interact with each other during the course of business. . Corporate communication also serves multiple functions of improving corporate image, strengthening teamwork and corporate culture as well as handling difficult situations and customers. How an organisation communicates with its employees, its extended audiences, the press and the public at large will reveal its corporate character and values.The importance of communication especially the spoken word
3. The In between options
So after all that, there are some inbetween options available to people that do not want the full flexibility and cost associated with option 2, but would like to adopt a more professional and powerful approach than option 1. There are two main ways to have this half way house:
1. Many payment providers also allow you to use their secure servers to process transactions. This means that you will still need an IMA to receive the payments but will not need the SSL certificate on your site as they will do the secure part for you. You can also normally make the payment pages on their server look like yours pages, and so the customer is more often than not none the wiser.
2. You could use Worldpay they are well known and trusted and have been around a long time. This solution is where they give you an IMA and payment provider service all in one via their service WorldDirect. This takes out the pain of getting an IMA from a bank, and you also won't need the SSL certificate for your site as they will handle the secure part for you. They do this on a quote by quote basis and this available via filling in this request form.
So what are the pros and cons of these Inbetween approaches?
Pros
* They take out the hassle of at least some of the full blown ecommerce route by providing some of the services from the same place.
* This normally means you need to spend a little less money.
Cons
* You don't have the full flexibility fo the full blown option.
* You also don't have the full simplicity of the all in one option.
* You still need a shopping cart.
Conclusion on In Betweens:
The inbetween options can be very useful to many businesses as they can get away from the Paypal approach which can have a bad perception with some customers and also lacks some flexibility. It also allows them to not quite go as far as the Full blown approach as in many cases this is unnecessary considering the volume and value of transactions.
4. Conclusion of Payment options
It's all about what's right for your business and that's why you needed those benchmarks at the start - look at the cost to benefit analysis of each payment option and which will give you the best return considering not just the number of orders and their value, but also try and put a value on the intangible aspects:
* The perception of Paypal vs Worldpay vs Your own Payment pages for instance
* Do you want to have people logging in to buy and save their details? (Need to go full blown for that one really)
* What kind of service/product are you offering? Premium? Stack them high, sell them cheap?
Now, a very brief looks at shopping carts...
Shopping Carts
With shopping carts there are four main routes you can follow to decide what to have on your website. This decision is highly linked to what you decided above as your route.
1. Carts provided by your all-in-one provider. Paypal can provide a basic shopping cart system for you for instance.
2. Use one of the many cart solutions out there that require no technical expertise to implement and then can be hooked up to your chosen payment provider. An example of one of these is EKMPowershop is an example of one of these. These do tend to lack some flexibility that you may need but are cost effective at around ?20 a month + your payment provider fees.
3. Use one of the many Open source products available. These generally will need to be hosted on your website and will need a web developer to set them up for you but can be quite cost effective when implemented correctly. One of the best examples of these is ZenCart.
4. Get a web developer to build a bespoke cart for your business. This is a more expensive option than the others normally but will give you complete control over how the process functions, what details you take and what happens afterwards as well as much more.
Conclusion
It can be a minefield choosing a Payment provider and a shopping cart solution. The aim of this article was to try and show you that there are several options out there and to consider them all carefully before choosing the one you want. Very often this kind of ill informed choice can lead to money lost at something that is either ineffective or overkill for what you needed.
Many web developers may suggest that you need a full bespoke solutions because it can do this, that and the other; but what you need to consider is whether you need it to do these things and whether the associated cost outweighs the benefits.It's all about what's right for your business.
In today's society it needn't cost the earth to get a shopping system up and running on the web - but you have to be realistic about what you will get. As with all things in life, you generally get what you pay for. As a closing note, I would like to mention that there are far too many cowboy web developers out there in the same way there are many cowboy builders: they kind that you may not realise until it's too late. Get recommendations, look at people's testimonials and just do a little homework.
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