......the transaction stops RIGHT THERE. Go no further. (this is not a totally untrue story...happened to us in a similar situation)

John Smith gets statement from his Merchant Account provider about a month later. He has sold about 1,000 books this month. His books are a real hot item! Two days later, John Smith gets another letter from his merchant provider. John's merchant provider, like many, automatically deposits or deducts credit card transactions from his checking account. After John got first statement, he gave most of profits to his wife so that she could go down to A&P superstore and buy some food. She also decides they need a new living room couch. The money's spent. The 300 books that someone ordered, well - they were ordered on a stolen credit card number. Did John or his automated online store merchant know this? How could they? The owner of credit card did not know their number and expiration date had been lifted from a store somewhere on Net. John is out 300 books and $4,485.00 in revenue. He also receives a threatening notice that if this happens again, he'll lose his merchant account.

------------------------------------------ Did you notice anything strange about merchant account provider taking money away from John? Mastercard did not eat any of loss, and neither did John's merchant account provider..notice that? The merchant eats ALL OF IT. John is now in debt to merchant account provider, and some nimrod is off selling his books in some far away corner of Internet.

Look for sites that have Verisign, Icop, Etrust or Paypal on secure server pages when you decide it's time to purchase something online.

If you think that I am just blowing off steam your right, but I do believe there are a lot of people who agree with me. Check out Smart Business Mags article comparing and testing 20 of major sites from eToys to Amazon with testers in Dec 2000 issue http://www.zdnet.com/smartbusinessmag/stories/all/0,6605,2646457,00.html

Side Note- Last I heard eToys stock price was $.28 a share from a high of $86 early in 2000, and they are looking for a buyer.

The 2 percent Conversion Rate really needs work before magnificent projected numbers that Juniper, Forrester and other Advertising watchers are predicting by 2003 or 2004. Of course with more user-friendly sites, things could change and 2 percent could easily double or more if larger sites take a lesson from some smaller ones.

One of reasons that some of smaller sites don't convert customers is trust, they are unknown to average consumer. This can be overcome by getting customer back to your site, by offering something that will bring them back and stay or stick to your site. One of best ways to overcome this is to get their email address when they hit your site, and give them a reason to come back.

I do have to say that a lot of smaller or unknown sites really do make it easy to buy from them when you decide it is time to purchase their product. The smaller Internet Marketers are blowing socks off some of Big Boys when it comes to Conversion Rates. Their guarantees and customer service really does stand up to scrutiny when you call them on it. How else would they survive if they didn't?

Click==> SOLD

http://www.planetfeedback.com/ http://www.epinions.com/ http://www.bizrate.com/ http://www.ecomplaints.com/