Organize Your Payment And Delivery System

You are running an online business and delivering your product electronically over the 'Net. Therefore, you simply MUST be in a position to accept credit card payments online.

Think about it. You are selling a product for which the entire push is to receive an impulse buy. The next factor to consider is that your new customer will undoubtedly want the convenience of paying and receiving your goods straightaway. Credit card clearing is therefore not an optional extra, but a must-have for your new website.

THREE GOOD METHODS FOR ACCEPTING CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS ONLINE

Setting Up A Merchant Credit Card Account

Conventionally, it proved to be difficult to set up what’s known as an online merchant account. The barriers to entry were set quite high and would include require for you to undergo some or all of the following before being allowed to accept payments:

• Personal and/or business credit checks

• Filling out lengthy application forms

• Paying a sum of money simply for the privilege of establishing a merchant account -- sometimes around $500

• Negotiating with a credit card company about rates,  because the company that controls the online clearing is not normally the credit card company themselves

Fortunately, competition in the marketplace has simplified the process and there are now more cost-effective merchant solutions out there. Here’s an example of one such facility, which is run by CardService International. If you apply for an account via their website they’ll waive the application fee entirely -- and you can expect to pay just 2.5% or less for online credit card clearances.

ClickBank Credit Card Clearing Gives You Affiliate Benefits

A very popular option for selling eProducts online is ClickBank. In fact, ClickBank specializes in precisely the type of online business that you are setting up. Here’s what they say about their own service: But the ClickBank solution has a built-in benefit that is hard to beat. Once you have your product up and running and you’ve tested the visitor- to- purchase rate, one of the ways you are going to increase your sales figures is to set up an affiliate program. See Chapter 27 entitled "How to choose an affiliate program" from my Create and Sell Products Online Toolkit.

If you choose ClickBank as your credit card merchant, they will also become your affiliate program partner and run the program for you.

This all sounds great, but there are three considerations that you need to take into account:

• ClickBank charges 7.5% + $1 for every sale you make

• A ClickBank affiliate program has some drawbacks, which are explained in Chapter 27

• The sale- to- payment period is long compared to that of a merchant credit card account

You can investigate the ClickBank service here.

If you do decide to go with ClickBank, I strongly advise taking steps to protect your affiliates from commission theft.

While we're on this subject, if you are a member of any affiliate program whatsoever (run by ClickBank or anyone else), then it's more than likely you are having some of your commissions stolen. Check out this tool to Protect your Affiliate links.

PayPal is Popular and Straightforward.

Another very popular approach for taking payments online is PayPal. It’s extremely straightforward and there are no setup costs.

The key to PayPal is its simplicity. The great advantage over, say, ClickBank, is that you don’t have to wait weeks to actually get the money you just earned deposited into your bank account.

The only possible disadvantage is that it can be viewed as being a little Mickey-Mouse.

Personally, I don't think you should allow that perceived problem to stop you. Although I haven’t gone down the PayPal route for my toolkits, I’m never put off by paying via a PayPal link on somebody else’s site.

I also receive a reasonably constant stream of requests from new customers to pay for my toolkits via PayPal. This is because many people keep a balance on their PayPal account and feel that these funds are their money to spend on Internet purchases.

So to recap, there are two key advantages in the PayPal approach:

• The fee is much lower than ClickBank's, though not as low as a regular credit card merchant account

• You can get your hands on your cash much more quickly than you can with ClickBank

But as with ClickBank, I would *never* use PayPal without taking some steps to prevent people from gaining access to your download area. The ideal (though more involved) solution is to integrate your PayPal account using their "Instant Payment" tool. I discuss this more sophisticated programming approach in Chapter 16 – "How to Deliver Your Product". See my full toolkit.

...but if you want to take a very straightforward approach and initially process your orders manually (once someone has sent you their PayPal payment), you must use a piece of software called PayPal LinkLock without question.

Related links:
Signup for a PayPal Account

Best of all...use the solution I personally created and protect all my products with. It's called Easy-Download Protector and it quite literally makes it impossible for someone to walk away with your product, without paying you first.

It's designed for both ClickBank and PayPal and you can check it out for yourself here Easy Download Protector.

Seriously, I wouldn't sell an online product without using this theft protection software, which I built to protect my own online business.

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