journik’s posterous - a grade A shouldery. (social media marketing wise) - This is where I get to tell everyone else what they SHOULD do. And you get to obey.
Tags


Filed under

ecommerce

 
September 22, 2009

Is Paypal Making You Bleed Sales and New Customer Conversion?

I track everything. I track every single tweet, Google click through, blog view, blog click through, hour of day, everything.

Trouble is, you can't track what's NOT happening. You can only track what IS happening. So, I asked myself, what's invisible? What's NOT happening?

Sure enough, a friend of mine called me and said, "Does your client, JBNI (maker of 100% Natural Herbal Naturaceuticals) only accept Paypal?"

I was shocked.

I was shocked partially because the ramifications were huge. JBNI markets internationally to countries in Europe, South America, and Asia. If an American who spends all day on a computer couldn't figure out how to pay with a credit card, I wondered how many people in Portugal had the same problem. And I was partially shocked because I'd heard this same complaint before but never thought to measure the loss impact until now.

So I did some heuristics research. First step in this process was to look up the definition of "heuristics." (ok. all kidding aside)

Here's what I found.

A. People don't buy if they have to register and trust Paypal with their financial and personal information.

B. People don't buy if they can't use their favorite credit card, possibly with airline miles.

C. People don't buy if they feel like they are walking down a gang plank. (No seller contact info. Only the cash register faces them)

D. People don't buy if they don't know when to expect delivery.

E. People don't buy if they have ANY QUESTIONS AT ALL.

E. People don't buy if they have ANY QUESTIONS AT ALL.

Sure, the http://jbni.us website clearly states shipping policy and refund policy and contact numbers and even offers 24/7 live meebo chat BUT let's be honest here, by the time a NEW, FIRST TIME visitor walks down to the end of the golden brick road, there's a ton of trepidation about taking that last step, down the rabbit hole (I tried to weave in an Oompah Lumpah metaphore but it's way too early in the morning).

So, THIS is what was done to correct A-E. I recommend you do the same. I'll give you a status update on sales in a following blog post. If you want to follow my "Health Myths You Still Believe" tweets... you're welcome to http://twitter.com/herbholist

JBNI can be reached at http://jbni.us

1. Clear shipping expectations REiterated

2. Customer feels like JBNI is right there with them during first purchase experience

3. Blurred graphic clearly explains how to pay with credit card because...

4. ... Paypal's "continue" link looks like a dull legal "Terms and Conditions" link! And...

5. ... it looks like you MUST have a paypal account to order. And...

6. ... the "Why Use Paypal" starts off as a paypal solicitation. Nobody will read this!

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   conversion   ctr   ecommerce   heuristics   marketing   measurement   paypal   social media marketing  
Posted by Bob Wan-Qi Kim 

Comments [6]

July 24, 2009

How to move to Jamaica (or Costa Rica or Fiji...) and make BANK (I'm serious.)

@WOnet wants to return to Jamaica but this time, with his family. Where do you want to live? Costa Rica? Fiji? Argentina? Prague?

There are many places on earth where you could live like a duke, maybe not a king, but atleast like a duke if you just had a non local income. Local incomes require you to be in a location. Hence, it's called "local."

I can live well in any of these countries because I have already built my non-local value delivery mechanism aka ecommerce website. I sell mp3s and videos.

You may think at this point that you have nothing to sell. This is where you are dead wrong. You'll realize how much precious knowledge you've acquired along the way if you try to teach an apprentice what you do. You'll realize all the subtle nuances that you've absorbed through observation and osmosis. You'll realize that you have a wealth of value in your head. This is why you get paid. It's for that wealth.

You may think at this point that you have nothing to sell. This is where you are dead wrong. You'll realize how much precious knowledge you've acquired along the way if you try to teach an apprentice what you do

The master mechanic who fixed that major steamship with one bang of his monkey wrench didn't get paid for his work. He got paid because he knew WHERE to bang.

You have this knowledge. I know this because my secret superhero identity is a meditation teacher. The value of meditation is that you can objectively observe your own mind. If you did so, you'd see a sea of opportunity.

The mechanics of how is simple as well.

All you have to do is start a warm oceanfront bonfire on a cool lonely evening and people will sit around it. Get sponsors to pay for the wood and the blankets embroidered with their logos. Take the money and move to Ghent, Belgium. That's where I'm going. It's older than Budapest, and brighter than Prague.

Oh, wait, I'm still in meditation teacher mode talking in metaphor, lemme take off my cape. Download and install the latest PHPBB forum. Add the SEO plugin. Every single time you have a realization, a dillema, a conflict, an issue, a solution... create a forum post about it. People in your line of work will google and find your entry in this cold dark world wide waterfront.

To make it easier, start a tumblr.com to just call in your realizations. But remember to write them down so google can find them. To make it even easier, start a posterous so you can just txt message them into a blog post.

To make yourself more visible in google, swap links with other bloggers and forums that you ALREADY find in google. Google trusts it's own. Pretty soon, some marketing director in some florescent cubicle will find you and ask you to take their money. How you speed up this process is another discussion. Ask me about it Twitter: @journik. But I recommend you buy "33," You'll see how I live the way I do and how simple it really is to break your florescent shackles.

 

 

 

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   blogger   bloggers   blogging   business   ecommerce   florescent   gent   ghent   jamaica   nonlocal   prague   startups  
Posted by Bob Wan-Qi Kim 

Comments [0]

June 20, 2009

How to make any media file like a .MOV .AVI .MP3 save to desktop instead of play in the browser

1. Put the following code in a new .php file.... it's just a txt file but replace the txt with "php"

2. Put name the file "save.php," and put it in the same directory your movie or music is sitting

3. Then, in the actual html file <a href=""> tag, change <a href="sample.MOV"> to <a href="save.php?file=sample.MOV">

and you get this: http://koreanovernight.com/order.html !!! notice that a click does NOT immediately start playing =)

<?php
$filename = $_GET['file'];
if (isset($filename))
{
// Prevents someone from trying to access something that is not in the same directory as this script
if(substr_count($filename,"/") > 0)
{
die('Haxor');
}; 
$len = filesize($filename);
header('Pragma: public');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Cache-Control: public');
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/force-download');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.$filename);
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary');
header('Content-Length: '.$len);
readfile($filename);
}
else
{
die('No file specified.');
};
?>

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //   ecommerce   programming  
Posted by Bob Wan-Qi Kim 

Comments [0]