EnTrends

After 3 years online I found a mistake
that instantly increased my orders by
20%...

Last month I learned a few more
valuable lessons about doing
business online. I didn't know it, but
I was committing a mistake that was
costing me thousands of dollars each
year.

I really should have know better
actually. I've been marketing online
since 1996. And I've been told by
many folks that I have a good grip on
how to do business online.

What's that old line, "physician heal
thyself?" Well it applies here. Three
years is a long time to be making the
same mistake at my website. But
that's how long this had been going
on.

So what are these horrible mistakes
I had been making for so long?...

I thought you'd never ask.

I've been pushing away potential
customers by dragging them through
more trouble than necessary at the
most crucial time during their visit to
my site -- right when they were ready
to place an order!

Actually, I refused to truly
acknowledge the problems until I
was forced to reckon with them. I had
received a fair amount of complaints
from potential customers who had
trouble ordering at my site, but the
complaints were well spaced out so I
figured it was just part of doing
business online. Then again, most
problems you tend to ignore until
something brings them to a head.
That's what happened at my site just
before the holidays...

It all started when the third party
website that processed all secure
orders from my site essentially went
dead. Along with it, my orders all but
stopped. When the company (which
shall remain nameless for their own
protection) could not get the ship
righted in a few days, then a week,

then two weeks, I finally smartened
up and took action.

And what started as a real pain in
the you know what, ended up as a
blessing in disguise.

After investing lots of time and a
little money, I have increased the
orders being placed at my site by a
full 20%. Without generating extra
traffic. That's a lot of money,
especially over the course of a year.
Scratch that, especially over the
course of THREE years!

As any webmaster knows, the
lifeblood of your business online can
be the secure ordering process you
offer to your customers. So when my
secure ordering system shut down,
the last thing I thought it would be
was a blessing in disguise. But that's
just what developed. The lessons I
learned were invaluable. I only wish
someone else had suffered them and
wrote about it in their ezine first! :-)

Anyway, here they are. Don't take
them lightly...

Lesson #1 and 2: You absolutely
MUST keep the secure ordering
process at your website simple,
streamlined and fast. If at all
possible, offer a one-page, secure
checkout for your customers. And
you may not really need that
shopping cart!

My own example elaborates on this
perfectly...

First, here is the "Old Way" I
accepted secure orders at my site:
(Bear with me, this is a bit tedious...)

My old secure shopping cart system
took customers through no less than
four separate web pages before they
were done ordering. At each page
they would enter some information.

Page one was off my site altogether,
was not secure, and resulted in
scaring away about more people than
I realized. From there shoppers who

were bold enough to continue had to
click the "checkout" button to go to
the secure area. (If they accidentally
clicked "continue shopping" they
were brought back to my site instead
of to the checkout page.) If they DID
click the correct SSL checkout button
they moved to the secure area. That
is, IF their ISP kept them on the same
server. If not, and many ISP's do not,
their cart was reported as empty. Bye
bye customer. The surfers who made
it to step three usually continued
through and placed their order.

Sounds sloppy right? Well believe it
or not, many shopping cart providers
have inherent problems similar to
these that you do not learn about
until you've invested too much time
or money.

For this reason, I strongly suggest
you take a look at your site. Do you
really need a full blown cart? Maybe
not. If you are selling a small number
of items, the answer may very well be
no. You could actually do much
better with simple stand-alone order
forms. I certainly do! Just take a look
at my...

"New Way" to accept secure orders
at my site:

The surfer clicks "Secure Order" and
is immediately brought to a secure
order form in the SSL area of my
server. The form is a single page
which lets the buyer complete their
transaction in one step. Done. Order
placed.

To see this simple setup in action,
click to any "Secure Order Form" at
my software catalog.

The nearly instant 20% increase in
orders has taught me (the hard way
as usual) that web surfers want a
simple way to place their secure
order. They cannot be bothered with
learning how to use your cart or
clicking through too many pages.
The quicker you get them in and out
of your checkout process, the more
likely they are to complete the
transaction.