As businesses providing services and goods that can be purchased online, ask yourselves this question: am I doing everything I can to enable my visitors to buy my products?
Are you offering them a complete range of payment options? Or are you, like some many online businesses, making the mistake of assuming everyone has a valid credit or debit card? They don't.
In fact, over 11% of the population of the United States doesn't have a credit or debit card and, of course, millions more are maxed out at any one time. Do you really want to ignore 30 million plus potential customers? No? Didn't think so.
The solution is to offer check payments to customers. With the increased availability of online check solutions for all sizes of business, problems normally associated with accepting checks - such as delays in receiving payment, bad checks and the additional banking time - are largely a thing of the past.
ADVANTAGES OF ONLINE CHECK PROCESSING
A complete online check processing service will include check verification, so you can determine whether an account is overdrawn or closed before dispatching goods; the ability to accept checks by fax and phone as well as online; fast, automated transfer of funds from the customers account to yours and even electronic check recovery.
As well as increasing the number of potential customers, there are other advantages of such a solution for any online business. These include :
Eliminates "the check is in the mail" syndrome.
Allows faster access to funds than waiting for check payment by mail.
Reduces labor costs associated with physical check processing.
Cheaper than accepting credit cards and lower risk of credit card charge backs.
Saves on expensive invoicing and mailing costs.
CHOOSING AN ONLINE CHECK PROCESSOR
There are a number of companies offering third party online check processing services, many of whom also provide integration with your current shopping cart. The smaller online business would be well advised to choose a service that takes a small percentage of the value of each check with no monthly minimum number of transactions. On the other hand, companies dealing with larger check values may find that a transaction processor offering a flat fee per check is a better option.
Whichever option you choose, online check processing can both increase your customer base and streamline your current billing processes. It maybe time you asked your customers to get their checks out at checkout.
Jason Schwartz is CEO of Creative CashFlow solutions, a New York based company offering ACH payments and online check processing services. Learn more at http://www.ilovechecks.com/internet/
Is Yahoo Chat Doomed?
Since Yahoo shut down the user-created rooms Yahoo chat has been on a steady downward spiral. Some estimates place the amount of people still using Yahoo's chat service at half of what there was only one year ago.
July 24th, 2006 - Yahoo shut down it's user created rooms a little more than a year ago in June of 2005 due to a swirling contraversy from child predators using the chat rooms to lure children. The backlash against Yahoo resulted in major advertising firms such as PepsiCo Inc. and State Farm, the life blood of Yahoo's revenue, pulling ads off of the popular online community.
No one disagreed that Yahoo had to do something to stem the flood of online child predators, but according to many ex-yahoo chat users, pulling the ability to create rooms with user created themes all together was like squashing a fly with a sledge-hammer. One ex-Yahoo chat user asked "Why should everyone suffer for the activities of a small percentage of users?" going on to say "Surely with the resources Yahoo has they can find a way to keep the user-created rooms option while keeping the child molesters out".
For the first few month after Yahoo pulled the user-created rooms from it's chat format many had hope that Yahoo would bring the service back. After all, Yahoo's official statement regarding the matter is "We are working on improvements to the service to enhance users' experience and their compliance with our terms of service. Yahoo condemns the use of Internet tools for illegal activities." However, a full year later with no word of bringing the user-create rooms back many ex-Yahoo chatters have given up completely and state that they are simply not interested in using the new Yahoo chat format.
One petition that has been going around states "The currently open Yahoo! chat rooms are full of irate Yahoo! chatters, demanding to know what has happened to their rooms. Many groups maintained chat rooms within Yahoo, and with the closing of the user created chat rooms, users are migrating to the remaining Yahoo! operated chat rooms. Chat rooms quickly became filled with "ad bots" and users have complained about being constantly messaged with advertisements. Other complaints include the inability to find friends from the users regular chat rooms, and unwanted messages of a sexual nature."
While many chatters simply stopped using Yahoo chat all together, some decided to try and designate certain Yahoo created rooms as the new "user" rooms. You can find a list of these at http://www.yahlist.net/, a site designed to let people know what rooms are designated as what. This idea seemed to have promise, however it was only a temporary fix at best, and many people seem to be giving up on this idea as well.
It's unfortunate that the user-created rooms are no longer available given the rising tensions around the globe right now, without the option to create a room theme such as "People Still In Lebanon" or "Discuss The War Between Israel & Hezbollah" there is no place for people that would like to discuss the issue or talk first hand with those in the middle of the conflict. This is truly unfortunate since this is the very thing the internet held so much promise for, a way for people a world away to connect directly with each other and better understand each other's point of view. This is just simply something you can't do in Yahoo's generic room themes of "Romance" or "Computers".
With no glimpse of light on the horizon for Yahoo bringing this service back, it seems that Yahoo Chat will simply continue to whither away until there is no Yahoo Chat left. Given the rapidly decreasing amount of people still using Yahoo chat, it seems that without user-created chat rooms Yahoo chat will be irrelevant or offline in a matter of months.
- Written By Daniel Johnson
Editor of Poker
Tips From The Pros
Free eBook Marketing Explosion
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Using a free marketing eBook to promote your website or product is one of the best ways to generate free internet advertising. There are so many eBooks online that you can use to get free internet marketing. Most people don't understand the concept behind this method. There are even eBooks that you can purchase that will also help achieve the same results.
Let's talk about some of the benefits of using a free eBook to make money online:
1) Advertising something that is free and has value has a better retention rate then something that you're trying to sell. It's really quite simple yet most internet business owners haven't figured out that advertising there main products first is a huge mistake. People who are visiting your websites want good quality content. They want information and knowledge. Here is how to maximize on this.
Give away something that is free, get that viewers information, and then follow-up with them advertising your main products. The best way to do this is set up a form on your website where people have to enter there email address in order to receive your free eBook. Have the form set-up to an auto responder and there you go. Now you can follow-up with them and sell them whatever you want. I use this method to help my people make money as opposed to trying to make money myself first. The money always comes in as long as I help my subscribers earn first.
2) Giving away a free eBook to your website visitors will keep them coming back to your site looking for more. That is the goal here. You want people to return to your website. Those are the one's who are most likely to buy from you, and also refer some of there people to your sites as well.
Statistics have shown that consumers feel more secure purchasing products from people they have already done business with in the past. Retain your customers.
3) Link your free eBook site to other eBook sites and generate massive traffic. Many sites are looking for relevant links. This is important for search engine optimization. The more relevant links the better. So linking to other free eBook sites can prove to be very financially rewarding.
About the author: Joe Terceira is the creator of The Ultimate Affiliate Business eBook http://www.affiliate-free-ebook.com It is a free eBook download for eBook marketing. Use this free marketing eBook online and get free internet advertising. Inside this downloadable eBook is the top affiliate program which is also a free affiliate eBook.