Cross Loader Blog

When businesses want to be successful, almost every time they trace all information related to the customer and the business and what does and does not work for them. After all, the customer is king!

When they say that some things never change, perhaps they were referring to the way that business will continue to remain customer-centric. And this is true even though the domain of the internet has unveiled a different kind of space for one to expand or even begin their business, while constantly keeping track of their business success through using tools that assist with web analytics.

Very simply, Web Analytics is “the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data in order to understand and accordingly optimize web usage”.

Now, there are two types conducted normally such offsite and onsite web analytics. The former does not require a website of your own to conduct market and business research but the latter does since its objective is measure your website’s performance against a few success indicators that have been set. Once data is collected, decisions can be made to improve the website or its marketing campaign, which can greatly impact the profitability of the business.

There are a large number of metrics that are used to determine how one can determine if a website is delivering to its maximum potential, and some of the popular ones are Hit, Page View, Bounce Rate, Session and Page View Duration, Frequency and Click.

Some of the popular software that is used for Web Analytics is Google Analytics, Yahoo! Web Analytics, Woopra, Webtrends, Webtrekk Q3, VisiStat, Clicktale and Bango Mobile Web Analytics which just require you to define the key performance indicators of your business and track them using this software.

Among several online options to send and receive money that buyers and providers have, we can safely conclude that Paypal is one of the safest and most popular ways to transact online despite the ever-increasing popularity of its competitors like Payoneer, Xoom and Moneybookers with the reason for its popularity being that it is so easy to use while vendors can receive payments through both bank accounts and credit card without any hassles.
As internet shopping grows in popularity each year, online entrepreneurs are experiencing a surge in business whether it is in regards to services or goods. And since the integration to a shopping cart can be completed in minutes, vendors will be more than happy to make use of this simple yet effective service.

And if you have not used this option yet, here are the steps to integrate Paypal into a shopping cart:

Step #1: Open a Premier or a Business account (if you do not have one already).
Step #2: Select Merchant Tools/ Services
Step #3: Look for Website Payment Standard and select that option with the mouse.
Step #4: Look for the tab, Payment Options, and click on ‘Create one now’ for any button that you prefer.
Step #5: Enter relevant information in step 1, 2 and 3 and select ‘Create Button’
Step #6: Select the HTML code that appears and paste it along with the HTML code of your website.

And now, you have created the simplest method to be paid through Paypal, and however there are other ways by which you can be paid by credit cards and bank accounts. All you have to do is look around on the Paypal Developer’s page for instructions.

Almost every ecommerce entrepreneur selling a product is interested in one thing only which is how to generate leads and therefore increase conversion rates when potential customers visit their website. To be honest, there are several ways by which one can do this keeping in mind that it is a matter of experimentation over time that will bring you success.

Here are a few tips to improve website conversions:

1) Build a professional, easy-to-use website that has a good headline, opening paragraph, call to action for customers, and sales copy that provides appropriate information and differentiates your product benefits from the rest while also using attractive visuals to capture the customer’s attention.

2) Use every internet marketing methods possible (such as PPC, SEO etc.) to generate ONLY potential customers to your website. You have to remember that your target audience is a customer who needs your product and not just anyone who is surfing the internet.

3) Make it easy as easy as possible for the customer to buy from your website. Also, ensure that they sign up for your newsletter which could keep them posted on the latest developments.

4) Provide customers with easy paying options as well as offering different payment options that will appeal to a wide range of customers.

5) Always remember to upsell similar products that customers might also like, by providing them deals if they purchase a couple of items instead of just one.

6) Finally, always use Google Analytics to check for the most popular kind of products as well as the least popular as well as several other statistics made available that will only increase the conversion rate of your website.

A chargeback can be defined as “the process of taking back funds for a particular product or service from a merchant’s account after the money has been paid to the merchant”. Normally, chargebacks occur due to reasons such as customer dissatisfaction, fraud or fraud prevention, authorization issues and processing errors.

For whatever reason, the end result is that the customer now has both the product and his payment restored to him, leaving the merchant with nothing and if that’s not enough, an additional chargeback fee for his ‘troubles’.

As it is unrealistic to expect chargebacks to never occur, one can take appropriate steps to ensure that as many of these transactions as possible can be avoided:

1. As soon as you receive a payment for selling a product, provide the customer with the complete details of the transaction which will serve as reminder so that he will not ask for a refund just in case he/ she has forgotten about it.

2. If a customer requests for a refund and contacts you first, issue a refund immediately after asking for the reason why or else you can expect a chargeback issued from the issuer bank shortly. Not only will you lose the customer but will have lost the money as well.

3. Thirdly, if a customer is dissatisfied, then it is better that you do refund their money without trying to sell them anything else in order to avoid chargebacks.

4. In the case of fraud, it is a good idea to ask for assistance in checking the credit of customers, and if you suspect theft, you can ask the customer for a copy of his credit card receipt which can be sent to the bank for verification. This is another way you can avoid chargebacks as well.

Running a business over the Internet seems to be the next big thing, at least for most folks who consider themselves ‘tech-savvy’ or power internet users. And of course, all this starts with a website. It’s pretty obvious that obtaining a website and setting it up has costs involved mostly in the interest of generating revenues for the business in question. And in order to find success, revenue models have to be adopted much like strategies that businesses in the real world adopt.

As the intent is to not have your eyes glaze over while perusing through ‘jargon’, one can classify three different revenue models that are common over the internet.

Revenue Model #1: Also known as the ‘retail model’, where you sell or auction products online from either your own online store or using established sites like eBay etc. What needs to be kept in mind is that the products you pick are crucial to success as well as the option of either using established sites or your own online store.

Revenue Model #2: This one is known as the ‘affiliate model’ in which you can promote or sell other people’s products online. One does not have to deal with every aspect of the business (as it is not your business anyways) such as its customers or their orders and supply. All you have to do is pick who you want to work with and then proceed to sell their products for a commission of about 5% to 75%.

Revenue Model #3: This one is the toughest of the lot which requires you to create your own products and services, and appoint other people to sell them for you. Popular items such as eBooks, CDs, DVDs and software can easily be sold, and can prove lucrative and a long lasting business.

Most businesses, in this current scenario, would be wise to make their online presence felt, by switching to the conducting their business using the ecommerce method. Not only can you make an impact on local customers but to almost everyone around the world who is in need of products or services that you might be offering.

And it’s no surprise that even small businesses are flourishing with decreased administration costs as well as more and more customers using the internet to make purchases, with the promise that 53 % of customers that have already bought a product online are happy to buy again.
So here are a few basic tips that will help you expand your online business as an entrepreneur:

Tip #1: Provide adequate information about the company and what it does, to visitors on your site.
Tip #2: Two clicks should be all for visitors to get the information they want, and site maps can play an important role for visitors to access information that might determine the outcome of a sale.
Tip #3: All text on pages should indicate quality copy (spelt correctly and make sense) as well as using appropriate fonts and sizes. In addition, try and not use unnecessary technical embellishments that make the site inaccessible to some customers.
Tip #4: Ensure that your website has all the necessary monetary tools required to help customers make prompt payments.
Tip #5: Finally, make sure that you keep your website updated with the latest products and services as well as hire experts in online advertising and search engine optimization to reach out to ONLY your target audience.

Let’s say you want to buy an American product online, and then need it to be delivered to your address outside the United States. Most American retailers do not have the logistics in place to send the products outside the U.S and if they do, they charge way too much or take too long to forward it to the customer.

So, what do international customers do? Do they put up with these delays or excess fees?

Not any longer. You’ll be glad to note that mail forwarding services act as the perfect solution to these needs. How it works is that there are various independent ‘mail and parcel forwarding services’ in the United States that will provide you with a U.S address (not a P.O Box address) which is unique to each of these providers, an after receiving your parcel or mail, will forward it promptly to your address using the likes of DHL, UPS and Fedex.

Apart from just forwarding your mail and parcels, some of these services also provide you other services such as the consolidation and repacking of your mail and parcels, online monitoring that will give the status of your package, scan and fax service as well as a personal shopper service that will help you make purchases using the payment method that you have, just in case it is not accepted by other merchants or even find bargains that you would not be able to access otherwise.

Websites such as myus.com, use2me.com, usglobalmail.com and bongous.com are prime examples of mail forwarding services that require you to register with them according to membership plans that are available while also paying a monthly fee for their services.

There’s no better way to direct traffic to your website by using article writing as a method. Almost everyone one today searches the internet today for information using keywords on search engines, and sooner or later, any article that has been written with quality and optimized correctly could be accessed from online directories. The real advantage of writing online articles, though, is that they always remain on the internet instead of ads that are here today and gone tomorrow.

So, here are some tips that will help you if (and when) you decide to use this form of internet marketing for your website:

Make sure that the articles that you write are relevant enough for this year and for the next five years or so. This will ensure that the information you’ve written does not get outdated, and will continue to rank high, which means that people will continue to read the article all year long.
Quality should not be sacrificed for quantity. Ensure that just because you write many articles that you write purely within your niche, use verbiage that is easy to understand by common folk and most of all, be concise and informative in your articles as well.

Find good article directories that will help you promote your product based on the article that has been written and high in rank when it comes to search engines.

Finally, choosing an appropriate title while also using keywords and phrases to your niche will go a long way in helping you to use this marketing tool successfully.

For any aspiring online business to succeed, internet marketing can serve as an excellent tool to increase your revenues. However, much before one sets off on a trailblazing campaign to promote your product or service, perhaps here are a couple of things that you should think about.

Firstly, think about building a professional site which creates the right impression about you and your business, and will largely determine whether a customer will stay on the site to buy your product. Untidy sites are counterproductive to aforementioned ‘impression’.

The good news is that the number of online shoppers increases by the day, and so this positive trend should be encouraging to most serious Internet entrepreneurs, which translates to more leads, and if you market your product well, more sales.

However, once you built your website, you work does not end there. So here are some internet marketing strategies that can help find a faithful customer base going forward.

The first (and most common) method is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which means that you have to position your page using the right ‘words’ (in a nutshell) which can be successfully achieved if your sales copy is written out well. The second part to this is to understand (and apply) the rudiments of SEO strategies that can be used to move higher in search engine rankings.

Apart from this, one can use text or banner ads based on several revenue models that are made available by webmasters of sites that have a large number of potential customers visiting them.
Finally, in addition to having useful content on your site that also has links to other sites, and vice-versa, this can be another way by which you can drive traffic to your site.