Twenty Steps to Internet Marketing 8 - Thou Shalt Obtain a Payment Source and Ebook Delivery System - Internet Marketing Australia

If a customer can go to your site, drop products into a shopping cart, and pay by credit card, that is ecommerce .

When you collect your money, that is happiness.

You need a way to collect money on the Internet. You will want to accept credit cards for sure. You may want to accept certified checks. Some sites accept direct deposits.

I say, to start out, accept Visa® and MasterCard®.

At one time I was selling books on the Internet from a business hosting site. There I was easily able to add what we call "ecommerce" and was able to accept the aforementioned cards, and for a small extra monthly fee, American Express®.

That site allowed me to enter products descriptions and other sales information into a pre-designed web page (I had a choice of design). When a person clicked on a product, it went into a shopping cart. Discount coupons could be accepted. The customer was billed automatically for any needed taxes, and shipping and handling cost.

When I look back on "what I got for the money" using that system, I think that perhaps I should have stayed. But the reason I left was simple enough. I was selling a good quantity of product, but I was not making enough profit to suit me.

Now, if everything including product delivery had been automatic, I would still be there. But I had to fax in the orders to my supplier and make sure he got paid. I was using print advertising in major national business magazines to drive traffic to my site, which was my main cost of operation. But like I said, the profits were too low to suit this greedy old man. Future sales from the same customer were not significant.

The above ecommerce host is not a secret. I just don't like to make major recommendations in the area of finance. If you email me, I will tell you who it is.

Many beginners and old hands use PayPal® for ecommerce. The reason is that it is convenient and inexpensive. You simply sign up for a free account and then use their shopping cart or single-payment code to collect the payment.

You must get the product to the buyer. You can do this in several ways. If it is an ebook or .pdf file, the system will email your instructions to the buyer on how to receive or retrieve it.

If the product is durable goods, etc., you will have to handle the delivery. I suggest that you email the customer immediately on receiving the order to thank him or her, to assure that the product order is in process, and to let the customer know that as soon as you get the tracking information on the shipment, that you will give him or her that information.

When the order is shipped, provide the tracking information and any needed instruction on what should be done if it appears that the package has been damaged, etc.

In every email, thank your customer for the order.

If you handle thing in this way, you will get the nicest letters from your customers. You can use them as testimonials IF you get the customer's permission.

You should receive an email telling you that PayPal® has received a payment and deposited the money into your account. I don't always get these notification letters. Some how they are lost. For that reason, I suggest that you check your PayPal account often.

Warning: Many PayPal® accounts are shut down when a non-approved URL is found on a (your) web site. What this means is that PayPal® has a dispute with someone. They punish you even though you have not done anything wrong. I was shut down for months and others have been (and are still) shut down for longer periods. In my case, I thought that all I had to do was to remove the URL from my sites. Not true. You must have the URL link (your affiliate site link) removed by the troublesome vendor. Now if you think that is easy, think a again. I had to threaten the vendor with legal action twice and finally had to have my son, who is an attorney, threaten him twice. I finally got the URL canceled and PayPal® immediately put me back in business (at a significant dollar loss to me). I might mention that I received good value from the offending site, so that was not the problem. The reason my URL was not removed was because of the dispute. Only PayPal® understands the tenacity of their position and the legalities involved. A Suggestion: If you are using PayPal® for ecommerce, then be very careful when you purchase anything through PayPal®. Watch out for those sites that smell "fishy" and may be a scam. You must remember that PayPal® has a responsibility to protect the public from scams. To do that, they will punish you severely-even if you are as innocent as a lamb. If you are concerned about a program, perhaps you should contact PayPal® before you join up. They might give you a comforting answer or a warning to help you make a decision. Well, you may not get an answer at all. They don't always answer me.

I love PayPal® because with PayPal®, you get a shopping cart and your money immediately plops into your account.

What a lovely sound!

CLINK!

The HTML code you get from PayPal is coded to protect you. Remember that if you are selling an ebook, you will have to tell PayPal where to find the book on your website. For example, you convert your document to a PDF file using your word processor and you upload it to your site. As an alternative, you convert or write the document to HTML and you upload that to your site where it can be found by authorized folks, the buyers.

Another way to get in business for some of us is to list ebook products on ClickBank® and let them collect the money.

AND ClickBank® has thousands of affiliates who will sell your product for you. ClickBank® will pay your affiliates too.

With ClickBank, they write checks every two weeks.

(You also can sell products listed on ClickBank®.)

Good tutorials on using ClickBank® are found on the Internet. Find a free one.

They are so nice at ClickBank®.

More on selling later.

Full Speed Ahead!

Fly Old Glory