Many seasoned professional speakers agree that you can make more
money selling your knowledge in the form of products than you
can speaking.
You can use traditional methods to sell products
such as direct mail, catalogs and advertising. However, if you
have a great online presence, the entire world is your
marketplace at a fraction of the cost of most traditional
methods. To easily sell to this worldwide marketplace, you need
a great shopping cart system.
Choosing a shopping cart system is perhaps the most important
single decision you'll make in your online marketing career.
This is because:
You're stuck with the decision for a long time.
If you buy into a system that isn't adequate, it can cost you
money--big money- because it won't maximize the amount of money
spent by each visitor.
There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of off-the-shelf, free
and alternative products out there vying for your money, time or
both. And most of them are junk.
Don't suffer like I did I learned the hard way. When I
started on the Internet I couldn't find a decent shopping cart
program, so I took one that was highly recommended by my ISP (I
now know the only reason they suggested it was because it made
them the most money. They didn't care if it was the best one for
me or not). What a headache! The system wouldn't do anything but
take the order, but you had to have a PhD in computer science to
work on it.
Here are 21 questions you absolutely, unfailingly must ask
anyone trying to sell you a shopping cart. If you don't hear
positive answers to the majority of these questions, put your
wallet back into your pocket and evaluate the next option. Don't
get stuck with a crappy shopping cart, even if they give it to
you free.
If you have a poor shopping cart, get rid of it. I know that
hurts, because you may have spent lots of time and money getting
it going, but a bad one will cost you many thousands of dollars
by waiting to replace it later rather than sooner.
Oh, and one more thing: if you hear the shopping cart
programmer answer one of the questions below by saying, "Well,
we could make it do that," run away even faster, because you're
going to get stuck with a big custom programming bill with no
guarantees that the cart is going to work the way you expected.
Every question below is very important when it comes to
having a quality shopping cart system that gets more money out
of the same number of visitors.
1. Will it calculate shipping and tax?
2. Does it handle specialized shipping like FedEx and UPS?
3. Will it automatically deliver hard goods and soft goods
(e- books and other digital products) in the same transaction?
4. Does it offer customizable "Return to Shopping" pages
without needing custom programming? This is important so you can
send your customers to the most likely product they will buy
next. Standard carts just send customers back to the main
catalog, which forces them to search for related products. This
is both irritating and time-consuming. Any delays in finding
what they want could mean a lost sale, when they finally throw
their hands up in disgust and move on to your competitor's site.
5. Does it offer customizable "Thank You" pages based on what
the customer just bought? These are pages where savvy marketers
put affiliate links and other offers specifically related to the
customer's interests. When a customer clicks on one of these
links and buys something from someone else, you get a
commission.
6. Does it deliver receipt and confirmation e-mails
automatically? The customer wants to know immediately that the
order went through. If he or she is unsure, you are going to
have to field many wasted e-mails and phone calls letting the
customer know everything is OK.
7. Does it allow multiple order and dropship e-mails? In many
cases, several different people in your organization and/or
outside your organization need notice of an order. Again, you
don't want to have to do this manually.
8. Does it have a Web-based administration page so you can
work on your cart from any computer that has Internet access?
9. Does it include encryption technology and a secure server?
Many companies make a fortune by sucking you in with a cheap or
free cart and then make money on selling you an overpriced
secure server.
10. Does it deliver easy output to your accounting software?
You want to be able to import and export data easily between the
cart and whatever programs you have that need to share the
customer and sales information.
11. Does it have its own associate/affiliate program or is it
easily compatible with other major brands of associate software?
An affiliate program lets other people promote and sell your
products on their Web sites. You don't pay them unless they sell
something. When I tried to get an associate/affiliate program to
work with my old cart, it cost me six months of down time and
untold amounts of money lost because it wouldn't work. The
associate program people blamed the shopping cart people and
vice versa. But ultimately I was left holding the bag.
12. Does it have integrated up-sell modules? The ability to
offer more related products to customers making a purchase makes
me a small fortune each month. We call it, "Do you want fries
with that?" If you don't have this ability, you are leaving many
thousands of dollars on the table from people who would have
spent more if your cart just gave them the chance.
13. Does it have an integrated sales and prospect database?
In the old days I would have to print out orders and then retype
them into ACT or some other database program. A good shopping
cart system eliminates all this hassle and potential for error
and gives you instant access to your sales reports and clients.
14. Does it have broadcast e-mail capability? Good shopping
cart systems are able to manipulate your customer database
instantly and send e-mails to any segment or sub-segment of your
clients and handle unlimited e-mail magazines. Again, in the old
days I would have to be genius enough to pick out segments of
the database, export them to a file, import them into a mail
program and then an hour later send the darn e-mail. Now this is
all done in a few seconds.
15. Does it have mail merge capability? The e-mails sent are
personalized to the recipients in any number of ways. Their
names can be popped in to the subject line and in various
portions of the body of the e-mail. You can merge "what they
bought," "when they bought," "where they live" or just about
anything that will make them feel the e-mail was just for them.
Virtually all studies show that mail merge gets a much higher
response than plain broadcast e-mail.
16. Can it handle coupons and other discounts? You can make a
deal with Joe Blow that everyone coming from his Web site gets
an automatic discount -- either a percentage or dollar amount.
This makes Joe look great to his visitors and makes more sales
for you. Here's a secret: Joe is your affiliate and makes money
on the sale too, so he's got a great incentive to keep your
discounts and coupons in front of his visitors. Good shopping
cart systems can automate all of this and also handle any
quantity discounts you offer.
17. Can it work for multiple Web sites with no extra fees?
When I first started I had to get a separate (and expensive)
license for each site and a separate merchant account too. Not
only was this a great deal of expense, the hassle with
installation every time you wanted a new site to go up was
enormous. Modern carts can sell bras on one site and bibles on
another, and no one knows the difference. The carts run on their
own servers so there is no expensive installation and set-up is
immediate.
18. Does it have unlimited and fully integrated "sequential"
autoresponders? This is one of the most powerful features when
it comes to Internet marketing. This feature follows up
automatically over and over again to your clients and prospects
to provide them customer care and to sell them more products and
services. You can even provide free or paid e-mail courses, and
each part of the course is delivered automatically.
19. Does it have ad tracking tied into actual sales? Simple
ad tracking can be had all over the 'Net, but it is pretty much
worthless unless it is tied to actual sales. This is called the
"conversion ratio." Your cart system should be able to tell you
how many people clicked on a particular promotion and how many
people bought. This is the only way you can determine if an ad
paid off. Good carts will also automatically split test one of
your sales pages against another and tell you which page sells
more. You keep the page that sells more and get rid of the page
that sells less.
20. Does it have a pop-up box builder? Even though many
people hate popup boxes, they work. I use them judiciously to
make all kinds of offers, and I have the sales figures to prove
they get more money out of the same number of people. If you
know how to use them properly, no one gets upset.
21. Does it have a printable off-line order form? Believe it
or not, many people are still afraid to put their credit card
numbers into a Web site. I still get lots of fax orders and
phone orders. If you want to maximize your sales, your cart must
take these kinds of orders easily.
22. Does it provide free training? You'll need training in
both the basic set up of using your shopping cart and
determining your online sales strategy, so that you maximize the
amount of money spent by each customer.
You may not understand what all the above questions mean
right now, but I can assure you they are important in putting
more money into your bank account. If you want to know even more
about this subject, you can download a free e-book, How to Pick
a Shopping Cart System That Makes You Money at www.public-
speaking.org/ebook.htm.
What shopping cart system do I use? I have my own private
label called www.KickStartCart.com.
www.netaim.info
