Nexternal Solutions eCommerce Blog – eCommerce News Articles

If you have been selling online for quite some time, it might be time to take a closer look at your payment processing statement. If you can make sense of it, you are in the minority. Many processors issue complicated statements which can work to their advantage. After all, it’shard to argue with something that you don’t fully understand. The purpose of this article is to help you make sense of your statement. When armed with knowledge, you’ll be better prepared to get the best rates.

First take a close look at the Visa and MasterCard charges. You’ll likely notice that charges for the month are broken down into three categories; Qualified, Mid-qualified, and Non-qualified. If you crunch the numbers for each category, you’ll notice that the discount rate that you are paying is significantly different for each (be sure to crunch the numbers, many merchant account statements don’t display their mid and non-qualified rates). A non-qualified rate might be 2 percentage points higher than a qualified rate! Why are they different? The type of credit card a customer has will cost the merchant different amounts. Have you ever wondered how credit card companies can afford to give people airline miles, cash back, or other rewards? The answer may startle you, but you as the merchant are picking up much of those costs. For example, a credit card that allows customers to redeem rewards may fall into the mid-qualified category. Corporate or foreign credit cards will likely fall into the non-qualified grouping (the most expensive one).

So what can you do about this as an online merchant? Since you can’t control the type of cards your customers use, not much. To make things more frustrating, it’s also likely that you have no way of knowing which transactions fall into which category anyway. However, you can utilize this knowledge when shopping around for rates. Most merchant account companies are going to advertise their qualified rates (the lowest ones). A wise merchant will compare not only qualified rates, but mid-qualified and non-qualified rates as well. Rewards cards have gained in popularity for obvious reasons so your mid-qualified rate is likely more important than your qualified rate. If you are mostly conducting business to business ecommerce, it’s likely that most of your transactions will fall into the non-qualified grouping which means you really need to get the best non-qualified rate. Before shopping around rates take a look and see what percentage of your transactions fall into each rate type.

Now, take a look at your American Express statement (typically a completely separate statement). American Express is actually much simpler. You are likely paying one standard rate on all transactions. Merchants obtain an account directly from American Express so shopping around for a better rate is not going to provide much benefit. The only fee you may be able to negotiate is the per transaction fee which is determined by your gateway and online merchant account provider. If you are doing any kind of volume, this amount is probably less significant, but you should find out what the transaction fee is to fairly compare providers.

If you haven’t ever compared rates from different merchant account providers, now is a good time to do so. Getting a better plan in place before the holidays can really impact your bottom line for the year. One of Nexternal’s partners is currently offering a free cost analysis to those that are interested. Simply fill out this form
to see how you can save money.

BOULDER, Colo., Sep 24, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — ShipCompliant, the leading wine shipping compliance software company, announced today that it has extended its compliance software solution to the growing retailer-to-consumer sales channel. Read More

To learn more out about Nexternal’s integration with ShipCompliant Click Here

If you start now, there you’ve got 100 days before we’re in the thick of the holiday shopping season. It’s just the right amount of time to ramp up your e-mail marketing efforts to make sure there are plenty of customers visiting your site, writes Luc Vezina, head of marketing for Campaigner.

Despite the recent gloomy economic news and consumer credit crunch, consumers will still spend hundreds of billions of dollars this holiday season. For retailers, the countdown has…. Read More

By Michelle Megna

Let’s face it: Web analytics is complex. But if you’re new to site analysis, don’t fret, you can still jump in, and following our action plan, gain valuable insight on your e-store that you can use to boost sales in time for the holiday rush. Read More

To read about Nexternal’s integration with Google Analytics click here.

Website traffic is up. Your pay-per-click (PPC) ads are receiving traffic, and you’re reaching your monthly budget. Sounds like your paid search campaign is working well, right?

Well, not necessarily. If you’re like most Internet advertisers, you’re not investing in a paid search campaign simply to get hits to your website….READ MORE

eBay issued a trading advisory to users on Monday about the effects of Hurricane Ike READ MORE.

Google has done incredible things in the 10 years it has been in business, accomplishing feats that took other companies much longer to achieve. It’s important to understand how to do business in Google’s world, writes branding expert Naseem Javed.

Frankly speaking, it’s time to stop the second-guessing and open-heartedly accept that it’s Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG)  turn now. The next decade clearly belongs to Google, so it’s best not to resist and go with the flow. Read More

When Facebook launched it was only available to college students. In the last year things have changed dramatically. People of all ages are finding Facebook and quickly realizing that it is a great way to connect with friends, both old and new. Facebook makes it easy to keep friends abreast of what is going on in your life. Facebook users love to specify information about themselves such as interests, employment, where they went to school, and even their current relationship status. This amounts to a marketers dream!

Other online marketing channels offer some level of demographic targeting preference, but not nearly to the degree of Facebook. Let’s say that I am an online wine retailer. I can specify that I want my ad to show only to people that specify that they have an interest in “wine tasting” or “drinking wine”. Better yet, let’s say that you find most of your customers are over the age of 30. No problem! You can also have your ads show up just to people over the age of 30. Demographic preferences can also be set based on location. If you are selling sun protective products, you might not want to display your ad in the state of Washington during the winter months. If you sell purses, no problem! You can have your ad display only to women. Never before has a marketer had so much control over who sees their ads.

Facebook also gives advertisers the option of paying per click or paying per view. Unless your sole purpose is branding, pay per click probably makes more sense. You only pay when someone clicks your ad and is directed to your landing page (similar to Google Adwords). As with all online marketing channels, it’s important that you have tracking code in place so that you can measure your return on investment from each ad campaign.

Setting up an advertisement in Facebook is easy. Advertisers can specify quite a few lines of copy in their ad (135 Characters) and even include a 110 x 80 pixel image. These ads give you more real estate than your typical Google Adword. Another nice feature is that as you change your audience preferences during the ad creation process, Facebook will show you how many people fit into that particular demographic.

The only frustration you might come across when creating an ad is that not all interests are available and there doesn’t seem to be a suggestion tool. For example, if you tried to create an ad for people interested in “ecommerce” but not enough people have specified “ecommerce” as an interest, you are out of luck. Consequently, it can take some time and brainstorming to come up with interests that are available.

Most online retailers are not yet advertising on social networks. However, that is likely to change soon as people realize the potential opportunity. When you put a compelling ad in front of the right targeted audience, good things are going to happen.

Fuel prices are slowly inching downward, but consumers are still watching spending carefully and using coupons often, according to a recent survey by lead generation services provider Prospectiv. Read More

Nexternal Solutions’ eCoupons tool can be a great way to retain existing customers. Merchants can setup percentage off coupons, flat rate coupons, and free shipping coupons. Coupons can be set for a specific number of uses or can expire after a certain date. Merchants can get fancy with coupons and run such promotions as “buy product x, get product y at 50% off.”

When used well, e-coupons can be a very powerful tool in driving online sales.

Here are 7 tips for using E-Coupons:-

1. Consider encouraging your customers to activate coupons with a hyperlink. This may not be possible with all e-commerce solutions, but can be especially effective when sending out e-coupons via email. Your customers should be able to simply click on a hyperlink from the email, go to your online store and see that the coupon has indeed been activated.

2. Experiment with different types of coupons to see what yields the best results among your customers. For example, some merchants find that free shipping coupons work best while others find that percentage off coupons yield a better result. A popular variation is free shipping or a percentage off when your customer spends more than a certain dollar amount.

3. Set up your online store so that you can show the coupon discount right in the shopping cart. It’s important to let the customer know as soon as possible that she is saving money. It keeps the customer interested and entices her to buy more. This works well for percentage off coupons because the customer can see their discount growing in the cart with every item added.

4. Allow customers to enter the coupon code at any point in the ordering process.

5. Use an expiration date for your coupons. You’ll want to keep track of them and don’t want them floating around indefinitely.

6. Do not make any reference to coupons or promotional codes in your online store if you do not have an active promotion running. Some customers may not like paying full price knowing that a special deal is available.

7. Lastly, if you set an expiration date for your coupon, send out a reminder a day or two before the coupon expires. You’ll be surprised at how quickly people order when they are reminded of a deadline for a great deal!

By Jeff Muendel
Practical eCommerce

While website architecture, link building, and template coding all affect search engine optimization, keyword research and placement is perhaps the easiest SEO attribute to implement. It is often the low hanging fruit of an SEO campaign. Read More