How to Protect Your Online Store from the Internet Burglars, Part 1

Written by Lynne Schlumpf


The theft of credit card numbers is enormous. It is estimated that as many as 40% of all online transactions are bogus.

This article is normally an electronic booklet sold on my site, but I decided its content was too important to not share with you.

How To Protect Your Online Store fromrepparttar Internet Burgulars by Lynne Schlumpf, CEO Copyright 2000 Route 66 Cyber Cafe, Inc.

One ofrepparttar 109065 worst things that can ever happen to an online store onrepparttar 109066 Internet is lurking at every storefront out there. The Internet burgulars, as I like to call them, are waiting for you to let your guard down just for one second while you're processing their credit card number. It is at that point that you may as well just walk out inrepparttar 109067 middle ofrepparttar 109068 street and throw every bit of money in your wallet and pockets atrepparttar 109069 next car that goes speeding by. Or better yet, whatever merchandise it is that you are selling online, just go throw about 40% of your inventory intorepparttar 109070 streets to let others come and pick it up. This sounds like a ridiculous analogy, I know, but it illustrates how much they can hurt you. That estimate is not overstated.It is estimated that this could berepparttar 109071 percentage of lost sales to fraud onrepparttar 109072 Net.

They think they're crafty, and they're costing people their hard-earned savings,repparttar 109073 business they worked so hard to create, and they don't care. All they care about is fast merchandise ofrepparttar 109074 right kind to offload and sell onrepparttar 109075 streets, or whatever it is that these crooks do with it.

You will find some ofrepparttar 109076 stories I am going to tell you not only funny but ridiculous. I am not making light of a serious subject, believe me! This subject has obviously become a sort of a quest for me. I want to stop them, and I want you to help me. I don't want to see you give away even one cent to these people. Your business does not deserverepparttar 109077 thievery that abounds.

I am not saying that this type of practice did not exist beforerepparttar 109078 Internet became a household word. It was happening EVERYWHERE! I used to have a friend who was a manager for a COMPUSA store. This was a very large store with thousands of orders a day, but this guy knew what he was doing. He did not lose anything to these people. He taught me many ofrepparttar 109079 things I am going to pass on to you. I remember being in his office one day, andrepparttar 109080 phone rang. Some women was screaming so loud at him, I could hear her acrossrepparttar 109081 room. She was yelling that she was supposed to have her laptop delivered by next day mail, and it had not arrived yet. I thought, boy, they must've really messed up her order or something.

Developing a Winning Ecommerce Strategy

Written by Lee Traupel


One bright spot onrepparttar economic horizons aroundrepparttar 109064 world seems to be continued consumer spending and ecommerce is clearly a part of this, with sales estimated to be in excess of $9.9 Billion inrepparttar 109065 next three months according to ACNielsen. But, there is a dark cloud hovering over this sunny ecommerce landscape called poor web site design. Let's explore some ofrepparttar 109066 reasons why consumers are not reaching for their credit cards after perusing an ecommerce web site.

There is a huge knowledge gap about howrepparttar 109067 web is really driving online and offline commerce. A recent eCommercePulse survey of more than 33,000 surfers conducted by Nielsen/Net ratings and Harris Interactive indicates ecommerce sites are driving more purchases offline (phone, catalogue, retail store sales) than online. Many consumers are usingrepparttar 109068 web to effortlessly compare features and pricing – then, callingrepparttar 109069 company or visiting their local retail store to make a purchase. Clearly many companies need to factor this information in when analyzing their online and offline marketing expenditures and related ROI.

According to a recent Zona Research and Keynote Systems Report released earlier this summer over $25 Billion (USD) was lost in ecommerce due to users abandoningrepparttar 109070 web site prior to a purchase being made or duringrepparttar 109071 process. The users just gave up becauserepparttar 109072 load times (the amount of time it takes a page to be displayed in a browser) were painfully slow. Today's online shoppers aren't a real patient group, they want information presented in 12-18 seconds, or they are off to another site that works

Unfortunately many firms have allocated a disproportionate amount of resources for advertising and not enough on good web site design and back end infrastructure. It's critical to makerepparttar 109073 market aware of a site, but ifrepparttar 109074 potential customers are not presented withrepparttar 109075 right navigation and menus (read information architecture) they will not buy. Case in point, according to recent Dataquest surveys (and others) between 20-40% of most users don't purchase because they can't figure out how to easily move aroundrepparttar 109076 web site.

Many firms fail to properly integrate their ecommerce components with repparttar 109077 overall site design. The in-house developers or outside design firm concentrate onrepparttar 109078 sexy parts ofrepparttar 109079 web site design process (the graphics, branding, look and feel) and only focus onrepparttar 109080 ecommerce process afterrepparttar 109081 primary web site design is completed – making ecommerce an afterthought.

A large number of ecommerce web sites don't even list a phone number, arbitrarily forcing people to contactrepparttar 109082 company electronically – this is a real problem, as many people don't want to use e-mail or forms as their primary means of communicating, they wantrepparttar 109083 immediacy ofrepparttar 109084 telephone.

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