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Flo2Cash Payment Gateway Feedback

January 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I have gone through the process of changing one of my clients over to Flo2Cash payment gateway from PayPal and wanted to report on their reaction. ‘Absolutely delighted‘ and ‘Fantastic‘ and ‘This is saving me so much time!‘ are just some of the comments from Gina Roberts of Soapcraft.

When I was telling her about Flo2Cash she wasn’t totally convinced at first, thinking that Paypal was more cost effective. I did a comparison from a couple of months trading of what she was paying in fees to PayPal and what the cost for Flo2Cash would be and she was very surprised at how much she would be saving. PayPal has some hidden costs from transactions from people who are not PayPal customers themselves and that actually drives up the cost quite a bit. [Read more...]

Filed Under: e-commerce

Online Payments – Flo2Cash

November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Transacting payments over the internet has become more commonplace today, from the first online shop in 1994 (research from Wikipedia) to the multi-billion dollar business it is today (see PayPal’s quarterly results).  The public seems to be more confident about buying stuff online despite the phishing scams and fraud which also has increased exponentially.

As a web developer I have a number of clients with online stores and one of the issues that they face is getting their customers through the online payments checkout process as smoothly as possible. Cart abandonment is when the shopper fills up their cart and them does not proceed all the way with the sale. So getting the confidence and trust of our shoppers is a priority and there are a number of elements that need to covered to make a successful online shop.  This article addresses one of them [Read more...]

Filed Under: e-commerce

Email Marketing – Is It Effective?

October 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I have been doing some reading on the effectiveness of email marketing – or sending out newsletters via email- and was surprised at how it stacked up against social network profiles and optimising websites for organic search. Here are some facts and figures for those who like to read them. [Read more...]

Filed Under: email, Marketing

The Best Websites Make You Rich

August 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Winning Website DesignWhat makes a good website great? Is it increased traffic to the site? Is it visitor engagement? Is it increased turnover? It is none of these things, although all of these items help toward the one goal we look for in a successful business. The best websites will increase your bottom line. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marketing, website traffic

NZ Business Losing Out

August 7, 2011 By 2 Comments

Are New Zealand businesses losing out because of the lack of a website? MYOB Business Monitor recently published a report  showing that businesses with websites are performing better. Here is the link to that report. The report is a pdf and is dated July 2011 – it is at the top of the list at the time of writing.

The report states that: [Read more...]

Filed Under: About the Web, e-commerce

RapidCart – A Rapidweaver Shopping Cart

May 13, 2011 By 3 Comments

A Case Study (Part of the e-Commerce Series)

Mangawhai Party Hire websiteThis article is a case study of one shopping cart solution. Note that I am not an affiliate of either Realmac Software (Rapidweaver)  or Omnidea (RapidCart) but have used both these products on client’s projects, and am offering my opinions as a web designer.

My client, Mangawhai Party Hire, wanted a shopping cart that wasn’t actually a “shopping” cart. they wanted their customers to load up a cart for a quote rather than a purchase. Their aim in this was to have personal contact with the customer to ensure the customer was completely satisfied before committing to the hire booking. So for this project I needed a cart which could have the invoice customised to read “Quote” and not “Invoice” and surprisingly this wasn’t easy on some carts. [Read more...]

Filed Under: e-commerce, Rapidweaver Tagged With: , , ,

Is PayPal the King of Online Payment Methods?

May 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Cash RegisterYou are starting an e-commerce shop and people keep mentioning PayPal, but what is it? If you are new to e-commerce you may not have thought too much about online payment methods. You dream about making that first sale – but not how the money gets from the customer’s pocket to yours!  There are several ways of approaching receiving online credit card payment, [Read more...]

Filed Under: e-commerce

What Sir Baden-Powell Can Teach Us About
e-Commerce Success

April 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Robert Baden-Powell was a British Army officer born 1857 – died 1941 and during his life was the founder of the Boy Scout Movement. I bet you can see where I am going with this can’t you! His most famous motto was “Be Prepared”, and what a great motto that is. E-commerce success depends on preparation, but Baden-Powell had a few more notable quotes, as we shall see.

Our attention spans aren’t very long these days so you may fall asleep half way through this next quote of his, but stick with this as it’s an important lesson. “If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain more than you can by talk.” One wit has been heard to say “We were given 2 ears and 2 eyes and only 1 mouth for a reason!” Baden-Powell was a little more succinct with another famous quote of his “There is no teaching to compare with example”.

The preparation needed for your e-commerce store needs observation. Go shopping yourself. You can get all the way through a sale and stop short [Read more...]

Filed Under: e-commerce, How To Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Set up an E-Commerce That Sells

April 3, 2011 By 2 Comments

Why would anyone set up an e-commerce website that doesn’t sell? Of course people don’t do it on purpose, but the truth remains that there are e-commerce sites that do not sell anything!  I find myself going through the same basic tips and advice with people when they come to me for advice. So I thought I would impart some of my wisdom in a series of articles.

My experience with e-commerce sites started with  soapcraft, which made a sale within half an hour of the site going [Read more...]

Filed Under: e-commerce, How To

Launching my new 0800 number

September 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

0800 4 ALIRAT

October 1st not only marks the new GST regime, but the launch of my 0800 number. 0800-4-ALIRAT appropriately enough. I have quite a few out of town clients, (even clients overseas- although the 0800 number isn’t going to help them!) and I want to be accessible. [Read more...]

Filed Under: google, Marketing
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