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 Issue #15 - February 3rd, 2003 Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses
Brought to you by idesignbusiness.com http://www.idesignbusiness.com Issue #15 Monday, February 3rd, 2003 In this Issue: ARTICLES: FREE RESOURCE: Welcome back to another issue of the Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Business. In this Issue, I wanted to focus on an issue that at first glance seems very complicated, but it doesn't have to be. I have learned alot about e-Commerce options in the last few months and I wanted to share my findings with you. I encourage reader feedback, let me know what topics you would like covered in this newsletter. Please direct all newsletter correspondence to newsletters@idesignbusiness.com You can view all past issues of the Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses at the newsletter archive. Click below to visit the archive: Newsletter Archive Neal St. Clair idesignbusiness Advertisement "Only $10.00 to Advertise?" Sure you can, at EzineAdAuction.com it's EASY! You'll reach Thousands of prospective customers in the process.Why Waste hundreds of dollars on advertising when you can test your ad campaigns so inexpensively with us. The answer for a "small ad budget". Click Here to start Saving... http://www.ezineadauction.com/cgi-bin/track/tracker.cgi?idesign ARTICLE e-Commerce: Choosing the right program for your business. If you have a website for your business I am sure you have received email from various sources promoting e-Commerce, shopping carts, secure transactions, and other terms related to accepting payments online. I receive at least 2 or 3 of these messages a week and I decided to research the various options to find out what I really need to accept payments online. The remainder of the article is a summary of my research. First off, let me offer the following warning... investigate any e-Commerce service you are interested in thoroughly before setting it up. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies offering e-Commerce services and they are not all equal. Setting up e-Commerce on your website takes time and can be quite expensive so you want to make sure you select the right service provider the first time! Having said that, let me share my findings with you and hopefully this will help you choose the right service provider for your business and website. There are two ways you can accept credit cards on your website: 1. Create your own Internet Merchant Account 2. Use someone else's Internet Merchant Account An Internet Merchant Account is needed to accept Credit Cards online or off. It allows you to accept credit cards online, process a transaction, and deposit money into your checking account. You can setup your own Merchant Account but that requires an up-front cost and approval based on your credit report. Having your own Internet Merchant Account will save you money on transaction fees. While this is a good idea for larger companies, I have found that for smaller companies the cost and setup is not worth the savings. There are several service providers that have their own Internet Merchant Account and allow companies to use that for their credit card processing needs. The catch is that they charge a little more in transaction fees to cover their expenses of having an Internet Merchant Account. Transaction fees for using someone else's Merchant Account are usually in the range of 2.3% per transaction plus a $.30 flat rate per transaction. If you setup your own Merchant Account your will see that the transaction fees are less, but the difference is minimal and you need to have high volume to really recognize any significant savings. Let's assume you are going to use someone else's Merchant Account to save time and money on the setup. Next, you have to create pages on your website where you will sell products and services. For services, this can be nothing more than a description of your services with a link to your Merchant Account Provider (they will handle collecting billing information and processing the payment). If you plan on selling products on your website, you may need to setup a shopping cart. Shopping Cart software allows your user's to select what products they would like to buy, store them in your virtual "shopping cart," and then purchase all the items at once. This sounds complicated, but many e-Commerce service providers provide the shopping cart for you if you use their Merchant Account (most companies charge an additional fee for this, but some don't). Once you have a Merchant Account and pages on your website where people can purchase your products and services you are ready to go! Hopefully the information above provides you the necessary background to understand e-Commerce. To end this article, I wanted to give you a specific service provider that I recommend and use myself... PayPal Over the last few weeks, I have evaluated several e-Commerce service providers and I have found PayPal's services to be the best fit for small and home-based businesses. There are no setup costs and they provide you everything you need to sell products and services from your website. This includes the ability to accept all major credit cards, free shopping cart and subscription tools for your website, and comprehensive reporting. I have found their rates to be competitive or better then the majority of other companies and they are a name you can trust! I found them to be so good I use them on my own website. If you would like to learn more about PayPal's business services, click below. You can begin accepting credit cards on your website today!. Once you click on the link below, click on the "Welcome" tab at the top of the screen to learn about PayPal's business services. Learn more about PayPal Advertisement Are you using email campaigns to market you products and services, communicate with customers, and generate leads? If not, you are missing out on the most affordable and effective marketing tool available to small businesses. The idesignbusiness Mail Manager handles everything required to execute a professional email marketing campaign including email collection, contact list management, email delivery, and reporting. Learn how you can begin sending e-Newsletters, greeting cards, email promotions and more today. FREE RESOURCE: Each issue of the Internet Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses will include helpful free online resources to promote your website. Looking for a way to accept credit cards online and add e-Commerce to your website? If so, PayPal may be the answer for you. They provide you all the tools you need to begin accepting payments online including shopping carts, subscription tools, and reporting. There is no setup fee so you only pay if you are making money! Using PayPal, you can begin accepting payments online today! Once you click on the link below, click on the "Welcome" tab at the top of the screen to learn about PayPal's business services. Click here to learn more ABOUT idesignbusiness idesignbusiness provides Web marketing and technology solutions for small businesses. We utilize a combination of consulting and technology expertise to create customized and flexible solutions. Please visit http://www.idesignbusiness.com for more information. SUBSCRIPTION NOTICE This newsletter is only sent to opt-in subscribers. If at anytime you would like to be removed from this list, please send an e-mail to newsletters@idesignbusiness.com with REMOVE in the subject line. Spread the word - Please forward to friends and colleagues. Copyright 2002 - 2003 idesignbusiness http://www.idesignbusiness.com |
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