We all know how effective using the chat software I have on my site is effective at following customer shopping habits. But did you know you can go keyword mining with it? Keyword mining on your site is like striking gold! Best of all it is free! Because you the owner are doing the work. :)  Learning a new word to associate with your products can and will help you sell more products effectively. I learn about 5-6 new words a day that need to be placed with my products.

Below is an example of what I am talking about. 

When a customer comes to my site and I see the word they used to get to my site I then quickly add that word to that specific product they were searching for.  Then all of the sudden that product appears right in front of them when they search for it on my site. That is really cool to see.

They way people use the English language is very fractured by region in the country. It is the best explained as the tomato vs tow-matoo argument or vase vs's Vahhhse. This is the problem we have as a website owner's. How do you learn these regional language differences? How do we effectively apply the various regional use of the English language to our sites? The first step is to install the chat software and watch, watch, watch and learn the new words and do more watching. I will go more in depth if you e-mail me at sales @ ShopBakersNook.com if I can confirm that you are a WF customer I will tell you the exact system we use. I know other people from the other side are watching me now. I don't need to be giving up all of my secrets to them. :) I also live in constant fear of black helicopters landing on my lawn too. LOL :)

As always thank you for taking the time to read this.

Brian

It is becoming increasingly important to provide documentation on your fraud prevention business practices while you are accepting credit cards on a website. WF has provided an area with each order that you can write notes about a order with out the customer seeing them. This area you should use to write notes about the steps you take to make sure a transaction is real and not a stolen credit card. By doing this you have in effect implemented a fraud prevention policy which is the key to fighting a charge back from a credit card company. We all know that the credit card company's could make things more secure but they worry about losing customers so we are left on the hook. It is left up to us merchants to police this mess. Your documentation and fraud policy practice can and will be your saving grace to  help you prevent a charge back. As seen below I have the steps I have taken on my site. I also have an example of the supporting documentation to back up my fraudulent prevention business practices.

(typed in the not seen by the customer field)

CCV Good

AVR Good

Ip trace Good

Phone call made to Bank and customer. Good. Ok to Ship BDS. Time is O700 date is July 11 2007.

(May Favorite) Customer was difficult rude and used threatening language do not ship any orders to this person.

Also you can use this area to make notes about difficult customers. This could protect you from denial of service claims later on.

How do I start a fraud protection policy?

My suggestion is this.

1. Implement a fraud protection policy for your business that is written down and all orders over a certain amount you should do a trace back and a reverse ip address look up to make sure it came from the area the order is coming from.

2. Get the telephone numbers of issuing banks and make a phone call to check to see if the card is stolen.

3. When in doubt about a order check it out. 

Jerry at partsguyusa.com is a very knowledgeable person about this stuff too. Perhaps he has some tips we all could learn from here too.

As always,

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Brian

Do you take real advantage of your m5 view page? Some of you are saying what is he talking about? Look at this link

http://www.shopbakersnook.com/m5_view_item.html?m5:item=3192

Now that we all know what I am talking about here this link is to a product on my site. Now look at the key information I put on this product. What I am telling them is that I ship a customers order 99% of the time the day they place it and also I have the new SSV. The reason I do this is many people find my site through the m-5 view of my products. This is mainly due to my faithful uploading of my products to Froogle. This is prime cyber real estate space that needs a quick message and to the point about your business. I chose the 99% same day shipping message and people love seeing that. This tells my customers that we are serious and on the ball about our customer service. I would encourage everybody to take a look at your M-5 product space and think about what you want to communicate to your customers in a fast and clean way. Always keep your message short and to the point in this area. I would not write to much in this area then you will lose your customers attention and your message your trying to communicate to them will be lost.

PS I know their is a real technical name for the M-5 thing maybe Shane can tell us what to call it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Brian

      Have any of you made a bone head mistake? We all have but are you willing to admit it? The truth will set you free if you just admit your mistake and just move on. Once you make a mistake it is your duty to help others learn from it. I feel this is the price you pay to make things better for the mistake you made. So with out any further fan fare please read my bone head mistake below. :) 

     When I built my site I weighed every product carefully and put in the weight exactly as it was. Then when a customer placed an order I could not figure out why I was losing money on that order. Well after a lot of finger pointing at many differnt people the problem was this. I did not take into account what the weight of the product was when it was packed up. Product+box=weight should be the simple formula when you set your site up. I wish I did not over look this simple but very important part of my web site. So please take a moment and think about your product weight after it is packed up.

     Please feel free to share your own bone head mistakes here so I can  feel better about myself.  No laughing and looking down your nose at me about this mistake is allowed until I leave the room. :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Brian

     The new Extended Validation Security Certificate (going green) that Websiteforge has acquired for us will give us a huge advantage over other web sites that do not have it. I really do believe that. Now it is up to us as web site owners to take advantage of it. As with any new security feature released to the public customer acceptance comes down to marketing and customer education. Customer education on this new and better security standard for us as web site owners is very important. I feel with proper customer education this will lead us all to more sales with our sites. So it is up to us to show them why we are special with our new Extended Validation Security Certificates on our web sites. With a little bit of marketing on our part we could have a great opportunity here to get even more business for our sites.

     On my site I have taken the step to create a link explaining what Extended Validation Security is and showing why that Extended Validation is special. I have it posted all through my check out process and product search pages and close up picture pages. We have a great advantage here over our competition now let all of us be wise enough to take advantage of it.

 Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Have a great day!

Brian

One of the shipping options I use on my Web site is First Class Mail. Many of you are saying why is he doing this! Well it is simple. Many people when they come to our site for the first time they poke around and only really want to order 1 thing and are not really sure if our site is safe. Try to think of a new customer like this. How many of you have seen a young child testing out the pool for the first time? They dip their feet into the water then run back to mommy or daddy. Then with a little reassurance they jump in. The same thing applies here. They can order 1 little thing and risk very little money and now I have a chance to get a customer for life. I break even or lose a little on this first class mail order but the return on this little loss could be great. A customer for life is worth me taking the chance on losing a few cents on that order to convert them into buying things on my site.

I have many small items on my site so I can do that. You may say, "I only send big things so how does this help me"? Well I am glad you asked. Practice random acts of Marketing Kindness. Pick a new customer every day and give them $5.00 in cash back as a thank you for ordering from you. Place the $5.00 in a nice envelope with the order and when they open the order up they will see it. The word will spread that you are a cool company and care about people. That $5.00 just became $100.00 in marketing good will.

 If you dont like the $5.00 concept then try this. Have the owner of your company or website send a personal thank you note written in the owners handwrittting to a new customer everyday. It all adds up in the end it is the personal touchs that set us all apart from the big guys.

As Always Have a Nice day!

Brian

     The  hardest decision to make for a person running a e-commerce business today is buying the right technology at the right time. 

     You and I are not e-commerce million dollar companies yet! In the mean time we must use innovation and pure business savvy to become 1 of those e-commerce million dollar companies. So what do you do when you want to become one of those e-commerce million dollar companies? You must study your competition. You need to know them better than you know your self. One of things you need to do is focus on the technology they deployed for their business online and figure out a way to be better at it or make a better informed decision what technology to buy.

     I have my competition now upgrading their websites to compete with the technology that Website Forge has offered my business. This is a great development due to the fact I forced them to spend even more money to keep up with me and my site. Website Forge has many more updates coming and this will force them to even spend more money to keep up with my website. Those other websites use an older technology and this forces them to divert any extra income they have to update their own websites. In the mean time I can use the extra income I earn from my website to expand my inventory and grow my website business. So buying the wrong technology (or not keeping the up with the current technology) at the wrong time can cause you headaches as a business owner. So please have the wisdom to buy the right technology and be sure to keep up with the current technology or you will be in my competitions situation.

So yes I did buy the right technology at the right time. You know you are making the right decision about something when you force your competition to spend thousands of dollars which they had not budgeted to keep up with you. I will go to bed tonight knowing that my people here at Website Forge are hard at work to give me thousands of dollars of free upgrades with out any further cost to me. I know my competition is hard at work trying to raise the additional money they need to keep up with me. I will be dreaming of how I can expand my inventory with all the extra money I have. They will be having nightmares of how are they going to keep up with me. 

Good night! :)

Hey its me again Shane may regret giving me a forum to were I can express my thoughts at any given moment. :)

Do you use your VCU's Gift lists and Wish lists to their full potential to make your customers feel like your site is a home on the web for them?

     I use every extra option WF has on my web site and you should too! I have VCU'S and gift lists enabled and wish lists too. The reason is this. You need to create a home for that customer to come to. You want your web site to be that home for that certain product you provide.

    Many consumers do not understand the VCU thing so a little marketing and explaining from you the owner of the web site will develop that home on the web for your customers. 

    On my site, I have for every $200.00 you spend you get $10.00 in VCU's. This can have a huge impact on peoples buying habits. You must set a goal for them to obtain and many will obtain it just for the sake of obtaining it.

Gift lists. You really need to enable those many people love to shop and save a product to a gift list. I see it all the time on my site. This is a no brain-er here just enabled it. This will help develop that home on the web for your customer.

Wish lists are the same as gift lists but again they are storing things on your site and it develops a connection to you and your site for that customer. I bet you know were certain things are stored in your garage or attic. The concept here is the same thing, make them store things on your site so they will come back to you to get it.

I hope terry is not overwhelmed in the morning with questions on how to do this. I will say I am sorry to Terry right now if that happens.

Thank you

Brian

This is a real subject that needs a lot of attention I feel these days. You may have seen people with seals on their web site that says they are hacker safe and verified by xyz company.

The question here do you need it? I feel this stuff is like the arms race during the cold war. This guy has 1000 tanks then his competitor finds out he has a 1000 tanks so he goes and makes 1001 tank killer's. This becomes a never ending cycle of one-upmanship.  

I would suggest this to try to put your mind to rest on this site seal stuff. Only use the site seal from you credit card processor that you have for your site and call it good. The customer only needs to see something that looks official and they will feel more comfortable with a pretty seal that says my site is safe to do transactions on. This is just eye candy for the public we serve but unfourtantly a very necessary type of eye candy.

I feel it is just a way for those other company's to make an extra buck by coming up with a seal you need to put on your site to do business. They now have created a need from the public to were you must have it. It is clever marketing by these other companies. I wish I would of thought of it! But I did not so I need to pay those guys like everybody else does.

Our sites on WF are very secure and we know it but the marketing giants have created a false need with this site seal stuff. So this is one of the necessary evils of doing business in today's environment.

Thank you for taking the time in reading this.

Brian