Do You Have a Marketer's Mindset?

Before you get started in this industry, you have to analyze your own mindset to see if you have what it takes to be an online entrepreneur from conception to fully-functional success operation. It’s not enough to say you want to make money or be your own boss.

Everyone wants those things, but not everyone can achieve those goals. It takes a special person. You don’t have to be a workaholic or be willing to engage in questionable marketing tactics. You just need to have a few characteristics that are common to most successful Internet marketers.

This industry requires deep commitment. If you’re the type to change jobs with your moods, then stick to a 9-5 gig. You’re building a business and it takes time, effort, and tweaking to make it work.

Perseverance and a positive attitude can make or break an entrepreneur. You’re going to have down times. Every marketer does. Something will go wrong – whether it’s a freelancer who didn’t deliver on time and threw off your launch date or a JV partnership that fell through. If you panic and shut down, you’ll tarnish your reputation as a true professional.

The great Internet marketers don’t fly by the seat of their pants. They believe in being meticulous planners. They make schedules and plans for their day, week, month, year, and even further down the road.

They plan every step of a launch before the product development even begins. They plan every single detail they can think of. The more meticulous you are with your plans, the fewer things there are that might go wrong.

To become an authority in your niche, you need to exude confidence. Even if you’re worried, anxious, or unsure of yourself, what you project must be that you have it all together – you can’t be paralyzed by fear.

Are you willing to be a student for life? No successful marketer gets to the top and stops learning this industry. That only means you’ll eventually become the prey of another hungry marketer who’s stayed on the ball with up-to-the-minute solutions and practices in your niche so that they can become king of the mountain when you let your guard down.

You have to know how to get from point A to point B on your journey to achieving financial independence. Do you know what you’ll say when your in-laws or spouse questions your “career?” If you’re a fearless marketer, the inquisition won’t bother you a bit.

If you aren’t sure how to develop a blueprint for your success, don’t know how to set and achieve goals, or have a mindset that’s not in sync with that of victory, then work on those things before you quit your day job and set off on this voyage. You want to be mentally prepared for the ups and downs along the way.

Merchant Accounts: Storing Your Money

Do you have a bank account? Most people do. It is where you keep your money instead of a mattress. For business owners, certain accounts are designed to hold the revenue that you generate from credit card sales.

There is no shortage of people looking for ways to defraud others. The credit card industry recognizes that and requires merchant accounts for any business that processes credit cards. It can be offline or online. Through a physical store, credit cards are run through a machine and manually processed. For the purpose of this article, we will be dealing with merchant accounts for eCommerce businesses.

With eCommerce, any merchant that accepts credit cards uses the services of a payment gateway to facilitate their transactions. They are handled automatically through this service account and each transaction logged.

A merchant account is not like your typical savings or checking account. The account is just used for credit card payments. There are options for choosing a merchant account. Choose according to fee schedules and additional services provided to you for using their bank.

Internet businesses have another account that they have to use called an Internet merchant account. This is an account that is set up to temporarily hold funds from credit card transactions. On a schedule that you agree upon, the money is then transferred from this account to your merchant bank account.

You probably already guessed but there is a trail of fees along the way that you are subject to pay. For one, there are fees for holding a merchant bank account just like any other account. You will have one time fees and monthly maintenance fees. For each transaction that they process, there is a per transaction fee. With the addition of the Internet merchant account for eCommerce, fees apply there.

The payment gateway service account is also subject to fees. To subscribe you will have one time fees and monthly maintenance fees. The gateway will also set transaction fees.

When choosing any of these services for your eCommerce business, be prudent. Do your homework and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Fee schedules need to be clearly listed and broken down by the banks and service providers so that you know exactly what you are paying and if it is worth it. Any financial institution that withholds this information could be hiding something and you may want to pass on them.

There is a cost to doing business online and offline. Know where your money is going and be able to track all your transactions through reliable merchant accounts and payment gateway services.

eCommerce Security: What You Need to Know

The Internet has opened up a new chapter in business commerce. It has also opened up a new way for criminals to steal your information and your life. Customers are more aware of the sites they visit and where they input their information.

Protecting Yourself

To build a client base, you will want to build a list of some sort. List building is a marketing strategy to connect with more potential customers. You can create email and direct marketing campaigns. Creating your own list will yield a more focused group of potential customers than buying one.

Business owners like you use opt-ins to help generate that list. Ask visitors to provide email addresses and other information to receive newsletters, coupons or other freebies. At the bottom of your opt-in pages, be sure to use a disclaimer statement. This statement assures your customers that their information will not be shared with a third party. If it will be shared, you specify which information and for what purpose.

Types of Security

There are different types of security measures that you can take to protect your virtual storefront. The information given by the customer has to be private to the rest of the world, not able to be tampered with or altered in any way, authenticated and received properly. Whatever types you use, place a digital representation of that authentication on your storefront checkout page. It’s like hanging a certificate behind the counter in a physical store.

Digital signatures are a way of authenticating the sender and receiver of information. When making a transaction you can ask for a password as a digital signature. Have you seen those boxes with jumbled letters and numbers they ask you to copy in the box? That can be used to verify who you are.

Remember the digital certificate on the storefront? Customers can verify that you are who you claim to be using that certificate. This prevents you from being “had” by bogus merchants wanting your money.

SSL stands for secure socket layer. You may have seen those initials or seen the closed or open lock on a website page. You can click on the lock to view certificates and find out if the site is encrypted. Behind the scenes, information is encrypted using a public key and a private key. The public key is used for encryption and the private key is used for decryption. From the customer to the server, to your server to the payment gateway and the credit card issuer, several layers of security come into play.

Firewalls are used to block unwanted intrusions. You may have one on your personal computer. A firewall for your website will block others from tampering with any customer information that you save on your server.

Security is a part of keeping your business information in your hands and providing good customer service. You have the technology at your disposal to keep your customer data safe from predators.

Site Navigation: Finding Your Products

Don’t you hate looking for a product to buy and getting routed through several web pages before you even see a picture of the product? Everyone else does too. If you want visitors to turn into customers, creating an eCommerce site that is easy to navigate is paramount.

Navigation?

Think of navigation on an airplane or on a ship. The navigational system lets you know that you are heading where you want to go. It also signals you when you are off-course.

You can use site maps for navigating your website. A site map lists the breakdown of where you can find useful information on the site. It includes topic headings and links to those pages. Visiting a site map can take the customer to the general area or the specific place that they want to go.

There is a rule that many website owners follow: Take fewer than three clicks to reach any destination. A customer who has to click more than that will find a site that does work with this rule. Poorly navigated sites lose plenty of business before their product is even seen.

From the homepage to the product page needs to be a short trip. Customizing your site with pull down menus, easy to read and click buttons and other design features will assist you in creating a visitor friendly website. When any cursor runs over a clickable link it will turn into a hand or even change color. Testing your links and pages before going live avoids any faulty links that lead to products.

Landing Pages

When you advertise on other sites, you include links to your site. If you are showcasing your products, you will want to link not to the homepage but to a landing page. The landing page can take the potential customer straight to where that product is located on your site. For a category of products, the landing page would take the customer to the location (aisle, if you will) in your virtual storefront where those products are viewed. The customer can click and read a description or click and buy.

Your landing page can be an informational page. It can contain content that talks about that particular type of product with a button at the bottom to click and view it in the virtual store. For eCommerce businesses that want to use customer interest to create email lists, the landing page can include a form for capturing that information before proceeding to the actual product.

Products that are easy to find have a better chance of generating sales. Create a design of your website pages to make it easier to link them together.

Payment Gateways: Will That Be Cash or Charge?

When customers see your virtual storefront, you want them to be inspired to buy. When they choose to buy, they need a way to make their payments. That is where payment gateways come into play.

A gateway represents a conduit to get from one place to another. With eCommerce, a gateway allows for the verification and transaction of business via credit cards. A payment gateway is needed if your online business plans to accept payments.

A merchant account is needed whenever you deal with credit cards. A merchant account can be opened at the bank of your choice. This is where money will be transferred once a credit transaction has been verified through the gateway.

There are companies online that operate as payment gateways for merchants to accept credit card payments. You can choose a payment gateway independently. Another option is companies that offer more than one service. Some shopping cart software packages include merchant account and gateway options.

First Things First

You need a merchant bank account and a payment gateway account to get you started. When choosing a bank for the merchant account it is helpful to make sure that they accept payments from the gateway account you will be using. The payment gateway account is a service account that allows you to set up these payments between your site and your merchant account.

Business owners selling online and accepting credit cards also have an Internet merchant account. The funds are transferred here from the payment gateway but they don’t stay here. The funds are transferred, sometimes on a daily basis to another bank account that you, the merchant, designate for business.

The Nuts and Bolts of how it Works

Here is a basic representation of how this process works. While the steps may seem lengthy, everything happens in the space of several seconds.

1. The customer will go to your website and choose a product(s) to buy. When they are ready to checkout, they are taken to the payment page to verify their order and the type of payment.

2. When payment is made, the transaction (according to your setup instructions) is sent to the payment gateway of your choice. Through the payment gateway, the transaction is forwarded to your bank’s processor.

3. The transaction then proceeds on to the credit card network. That network forwards the transaction to the bank issuing the customer the credit card being used.

4. If there is a sufficient amount of credit to make the purchase, the transaction is approved. Then, it moves back through the system, the same way it came.

5. Once the notification of approval reaches the payment gateway again, the information is sent to the customer on the site and also to you, the merchant.

Payment gateways take the work out of processing credit card payments. Now, you can focus on other aspects of your eCommerce business.

Buying Shopping Cart Software

If your eCommerce site will be used to run a virtual store, your customers will need to be able to select the items they want as they continue to shop. In other words, they need a shopping cart. Learn about buying shopping cart software to enhance your online business.

What is shopping cart software? It is represented by the icon of a basket or shopping cart at the top of your product pages. It lets customers know that they can select as many items as they want to buy and put them someplace until they are ready to checkout.

The shopping cart online is similar to your shopping cart in the grocery store. You can place whatever you want into it, remove items you decide you don’t want and keep a running tally on the untaxed cost of the items before hitting the checkout.

But, to incorporate a shopping cart into your store, you’ll need the software that enables you to do so. Until you look, you’ll never know how many shopping cart software packages there are out there.

Features of Shopping Cart Software

When it comes to buying software, you want to get what you pay for. There is more to setting up shop online than just displaying the icon. Many people are frightened by software especially when the instructions use long words.

- Choose a software package that is easy to install. The use of wizards guides you through each step with help menus available in case you get stuck or have a question. Shopping carts can be integrated into websites where no store existed before.

- Choose a package that is search-engine friendly. You want customers to be able to find your learn about your products. Use optimized keywords throughout product descriptions. Images that have the option of being viewed as thumbnails and as larger images are great for attracting customers.

- All shopping carts don’t have to look the same. Software that allows you to customize your shopping cart and your store let you field your own style. This includes types of buttons to navigate your way through the store and pull down menus.

There is a price to buy the software. Depending on your needs, this price can run from a little over $100 to over $1,000. For small businesses with few products, the most expensive shopping cart on the market is not feasible.

Shopping cart software programs are designed to meet the various needs to the merchant. In addition to what the features discussed above, it helps you to:

• Create and input coupon codes
• Manage inventory
• Track shipments
• Keep a customer address book
• Web hosting
• Set up a merchant account/gateway
• Create reports
• Establish secure payment network

There are many considerations for shopping cart software. Choose the one that works best for the lowest fee.

ePayments: Which to Choose

Online businesses use their sites as information destinations and also to sell their products. When it comes to making the sale, customers need to know which forms of payments you accept. In eCommerce, there are several choices for you.

When you walk into a store, you want to know if they will accept your currency. Most places in the United States accept credit cards, in particular, Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Local businesses accept checks, credit or the almighty dollar.

Answer this question: Where will your business be conducted? Anyone whose business is open to international buyers will want to consider their payments closely so that no customers are alienated. To that end, here are some popular forms of payment.

Credit Card Payments

As we said, many people accept plastic. If you want to, display it prominently on your checkout page. One thing to remember with credit cards is that fraud does occur. You could wind up with charge backs because of fraudulent or unsatisfied customer situations.

When accepting credit card payments, the business owner needs to create a merchant account with a bank. The bank processes payments between the merchant’s business and the customer’s bank for a fee. Compare bank policies on transaction fees and charge backs before choosing where to open your merchant account.

Using credit cards is considered a B2C transaction. This means that the transaction occurs between the business and the customer.

Third Party Payments

Payments that use a third party to complete the transaction are typically P2P, meaning person to person. This is how it works. When the transaction is made, a third party takes the money from the buyer’s account and deposits it into the merchant’s account. A popular example of this is PayPal.

Anyone can set up a PayPal account for free. All you need is an email address associated with the account and an actual bank account to link to it in case of low funds in the PayPal account. Most customers doing business in marketplace-type settings have this type of account.

Money is transferred without any personal financial information changing hands. The transaction takes place in real time so the business owner knows that the funds are there and the products sold are paid for. Merchants have options when using PayPal to set up their merchant account. Currency exchange is offered so international buyers or business owners receive payment into their account in their native currency.

Payment type is a consideration when doing business online. Accept payment forms that are widely used but provide you with the greatest confidence and least hassle. Everyone doesn’t believe that the check is in the mail.