22
Mar
How to Protect Your Business from Fraud and Identity Theft
Below is a guest blog post by Jodi Florence, VP Marketing at IDology, Inc.
While the Internet has made it easier to grow a business, it has also introduced new security challenges for small and big businesses alike. As the techniques of fraudsters grow more sophisticated so must the solutions businesses use to detect and prevent fraud from occurring.
The heart of successfully stopping fraud in a consumer-not-present channel is having assurance you are interacting with customers, not thieves. Verifying a customer’s identity is important for anyone doing business online.
With identity theft continuing to be one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States, using identity verification helps reduce the risks for both your business and your customers from becoming a victim of fraud. The key is to automate your identity verification process so that you are able to verify consumers in a way that will keep business moving and without sacrificing customer satisfaction.
So what exactly is identity verification? Simply put, identity verification solutions help uncover if you are dealing with legitimate, real people. And depending on the level of verification your business requires, you can also find out if someone is who they say they are even though you can’t see or check their ID in person.
At its lowest level an automated identity and age verification solution allows you to verify information provided by someone, such as name, address, and date of birth, with information that can be found on that person while searching thousands of trusted data sources. If there is something suspicious associated with the identity, like the address doesn’t match or the person is actually deceased, you will know instantly. And depending on the level of assurance needed, you can incorporate a set of multiple-choice questions that are dynamically generated based off of the personal history information found on each individual consumer. These questions are sophisticated and designed specifically so that the true identity owner will know the answer but not someone attempting to be that person. The end result provides an automated process that helps businesses make more informed decisions about how interactions with consumers are handled while also preventing fraud.
If you are still on the fence about using an identity verification solution, here are some of the benefits our customers see:
- Increased Revenue- Using technology to identify your consumers-not-present keeps business moving forward in a timely manner. As a result, orders are approved and processed faster thus increasing the opportunity to capture more revenue.
- Decreased Cost of Business- Electronic identity verification decreases the amount of manual review needed to evaluate and legitimize questionable activity freeing up your employees time to focus on other areas of the business
- Improved Fraud Protection- Identity verification gives better insight into potentially fraudulent activity so that businesses can deal with suspicious activity accordingly. Being able to validate someone’s identity quickly reduces the amount of fraud loss. And by decreasing the amount of data that is shared within a company, it protects sensitive consumer information from being overexposed and limits the potential of an employee misusing a consumer’s information.
- Fulfilled Compliance Regulations – some businesses, such as financial companies and age restricted products and services, have compliance regulations they must follow. Incorporating an automated identity and age verification solution gives you the resources to quickly comply with legal obligations while providing an audit trail to prove you performed your due diligence on your customers.
About the Author:Jodi Florence is the VP of Marketing at IDology, an identity and age verification solution provider helping businesses of all sizes in multiple industries drive revenue, lower costs, prevent fraud and meet compliance regulations. For more information about IDology and its identity verification solutions visit www.idology.com
15
Mar
Introducing: The 3dcart Template Store
Creating design templates for 3dcart stores can help supplement a designer’s resume and bring in extra income (30 percent of every template sold).
The 3dcart team is so excited to launch the 3dcart Template Store today which will grow the template store, help graphic designers reach out to new clients and bring more design options to 3dcart merchant! The new Template Store allows designers to submit their creations for 3dcart store themes and generate a steady stream of revenue.
Designers can register for 3dcart Partner Program, upload their online store template designs and earn 30 percent on every store template sold. We’re excited to offer designers an opportunity to connect with the more 15,000+ online stores across 12 countries currently on the 3dcart platform.
“The 3dcart platform offers merchants the best marketing features to attract visitors to their website – at the same time, the design aspect is vital for an online store to engage and convert these visitors into customers,” said Jimmy Rodriguez, CTO of 3dcart. “The new template store allows 3dcart merchants to launch their website in no time, with an affordable and high-end design created by professional designers.”
3dcart’s unique approach allows graphic designers with limited HTML skills to participate in the program because 3dcart handles the HTML/CSS implementation, as well as support issues. Assuming the template is accepted, designers earn their payout based on how many templates they sell—the better the template, the larger the payday.
“The new template program from 3dcart gives designers like us the opportunity to showcase our talent to the 3dcart user base,” said Danielle Stein of Boutique Design Studio. “The designer template program is so simple that we don’t even have to code the website. We just submit a photoshop file with our design. It’s an exciting opportunity to grow our design business.”
At $99 for regular and $199 for premium, smaller online retailers looking for a lower upfront investment often purchase store design templates rather than shelling out for custom design work.
The complete details about the guidelines for submission and registration process are available a thttp://www.3dcart.com/template-guidelines.html. Submitters should pay careful attention to guidelines around header features, side widgets, main navigation elements, homepage, featured products, footer navigation and file formatting.
26
Jan
5 Mistakes Online Credit Card Users Make
Below is a guest post from Instabill, an online payment processor specializing in high risk merchant accounts.
The e-commerce industry has grown exponentially throughout the years. Statistics show that total e-commerce sales in the United States alone were $165.4 billion. In 2011, the United Kingdom spent a record-breaking £68 billion — a 16% increase from 2010. Consumers feel confident in their online purchases, but they often make incredibly stupid mistakes.
Here’s a glimpse of the top five mistakes consumers often make when using credit cards online.
- Clicking the “Pay Now” button multiple times.
Consumers often click on the “Pay Now” button multiple times when trying to check out. When a new page doesn’t load right away, they assume their request to process the transaction hasn’t, well, processed. Instead of waiting for a timeout or “404″ error page to load, they continue to click on the “Pay Now” button until the new page appears, resulting in multiple unintentional purchases. - Ignoring the fine print.
Many consumers don’t bother reading the fine print, especially on websites that offer free trials. Think about it: If a website advertises a product or service as a “free trial,” why would they have to provide payment information? The fine-print details explain that they will be charged for continued services once the trial ends, and to cancel their services if they do not wish to be charged. - Lack of communication among consumers who share credit cards.
When a consumer shares their credit card with another person, it’s vital to communicate new purchases to all who see the billing statement. We receive phone calls from cardholders who forget they’ve let their children use their cards, or employees who forget a co-worker has access to their credit card as well. - Ignoring the billing descriptor.
A lot of merchants include their customer service telephone number right in their billing descriptor. However, many consumers overlook this and call their credit card issuing bank. While issuing banks are able to help resolve discrepancies, it’s always best for unsatisfied customers to contact the merchant first. When a cardholder contacts their issuing bank first, they initiate a chargeback, which costs both merchant and payment processor more money in the end. - Not reviewing billing statements as they arrive.
When consumers receive their monthly credit card billing statement, they need to review it. This will allow the cardholder to catch any discrepancies. They also won’t wonder why they were charged $600 three months ago.
23
Jan
3 Must-Know Shopping Cart Abandonment Facts
There’s is much to be said about cart abandonment .. and we have! We recently wrote about some interesting facts and figures here, and also in our 3dcart university, as well as posted an interesting infographic here . While there is much to be said, there are 3 facts that every merchant must know to understand cart abandonment.
FACT: Price is crucial.
09
Jan
90% Of People Believe Brand Recommendations From Friends
Inbound marketing focuses on getting found by customers and not forcing them to look at you through advertisements (outbound marketing). Inbound marketing is permission marketing centered on relationships and natural SEO.
As an inbound marketing software, Hubspot is obviously all about ‘inbound-marketing’ but they have good reason to be. The impact word-of-mouth and customer reviews on online sales is immense! Just check out some of these facts:
PPC: Only 41% of people believe that ads ( Google Ads etc) are a good source of product information & 75% don’t accept ads as ‘truth’.
SEO: 61% of consumers use search engines to research products before a purchase
SOCIAL MEDIA: 90% of people believe brand recommendations from friends. Thats 20% more than those who believe general consumer opinion
CUSTOMER REVIEWS : Products with over 50 reviews create greater return, 65% more than products with fewer than 5.
09
Jan
Adding The 3dcart Shopping Widget To Your Blog
SEMSEOWizard.com is one of our favorite bloggers for ecommerce SEO and social optimization tips. The Wizard is a big fan of 3dcart and has some awesome tutorials worth checking out.
One of which is this awesome tutorial on how to add the 3dcart shopping widget to your blog like this:
20
Dec
Choosing Buyer Keywords
Customers search for products in different phases of the purchasing process. They be browsing, considering a purchase, comparison shopping or they could be ready to buy NOW!
Conversion Funnel
Unfortunately PPC doesn’t allow the “only show to purchase-ready searchers” option, so if you aren’t careful and strategic you can end up paying a lot for users without any purchase intent.
While you can’t know for certain a user’s position in the purchase process, you can choose keywords that are indicative of their placement. Consumers’ searches follow a pretty standard pattern as they move down the conversion funnel.
You have to find the keywords that accompany the purchase-ready stage or the buyer keywords.
For example:
- Betty’s looking for a laptop. She searches:” best laptops” or “laptop reviews”
Those keywords can be good, but for the most part users are just beginning their purchase journey. Lets say Betty went to those review sites and realized she she was probably more interested in a Macbook.
- Armed with more specific inquiries, Betty has further moved down the conversion funnel – she knows exactly what she wants and shes ready to buy. She searches: “Buy Macbooks” “Buy Macbooks Cheap” ”Macbooks under $100″ ”Budget Macbooks”
Without knowing Betty’s journey, you These keywords are indict
Matt Carter lists some great examples of buyer keywords on his blog.
- buy
- purchase
- review
- best
- cheap
- new
- bargain
- budget
- economical
- inexpensive
- low cost
- low priced
- reduced
- compare
- model numbers
- brand names
19
Dec
Where Are Your Customers Looking For Information?
According to M Booth and Beyond, consumers consult different information sources for different types of purchasing decisions. Their infographic shows what source of information consumers turn to for each product category. While obviously not comprehensive enough to be conclusive, their findings can definitely help you focus your marketing efforts on the platforms that matter most to your business.
12
Dec
How Does Loading Time Affect Your Online Store? #Infographic
Loading time is an important part of any website’s user experience, but it is vital in eCommerce. Sometimes we can get caught in the aesthetics of a site and end up sacrificing speed. Unfortunately slow loading time, not bad design, is a leading cause of site abandonment. Check out KissMetric’s infographic below to learn more about the affects of a slow site. Then use our 3 tips to help better your load time and your conversion!
Check your Speed: The first thing you want to do is check your current speed. Luckily there are some great free tools that let you do this:
Rearrange your HTML Document: It’s important to place the Stylesheet References at the top of your HTML document and the script references at the Bottom.
Only two components per hostname are downloaded by browsers at a time. By placing the <head> of your HTML document st the top of your page, your site will load faster because it allows your pages to render the styles progressively. Thus by choosing to place the script references at the top, you block other mor essential elements from loading of the page.To quicken your load time, place script references before the closing <body>.
Optimize Your Images
File format can greatly affect your page load so it’s important to know when to use each file format:
- PNG: Use for high quality transparent image.
- GIF: Use for images with few colors like logos
- JPEG: Use for images with lots of color and detail like photos.
Use free services to help you optimize and shrink your images:
Tip: Avoid changing an images size using the width and height attributes of <img> elements in HTML. Use an image editor like PickNic to decrease load time.
infographic by KissMetrics
29
Nov
How To Deck Your Online Store With Bells and Holly
All right Scrooge, it’s time to get in the spirit. While you can’t keep the bells jingling and the eggnog flowing year round, a little festive cheer is a great way to make an emotional appeal to your shoppers because let’s face it: candy canes and reindeer evoke happy memories for most Americans.
Brick and mortar retailers have turned holiday marketing into a work of art – literally! Macy’s attracts thousands of customers to their stores just by making their shopping experience a whimsical holiday journey. Big retailers know that when their customers are ‘in the holiday spirit’ they’re also in the ‘spending spirit.’
Luckily, online merchants don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on window displays and Christmas trees to spread the holiday cheer. Putting your shoppers in the holiday spirit is as simple as incorporating some holiday-themed content and imagery into your storefront. If you need a little holiday inspiration, here are 10 ways you can spruce up your site.
- Create holiday landing pages for promotions, gift sets and major brands you represent.
- Post a “holiday countdown” application on all of your pages to encourage people to buy sooner.
- Offer a free or inexpensive gift-wrapping service.
- Feature special categories for holiday shopping like “stocking stuffers”, “gifts for mom” and “great Hanukkah ideas” to direct relevant traffic.
- Make sure your phone number is displayed prominently so shoppers know you take the holiday rush seriously.
- Add little holiday design cues throughout the site (like Santa caps and candy canes) to make your store more festive.
- Upload pictures of products under the Christmas tree to product pages to help shoppers visualize their gifts.
- Stock holiday greeting cards and give shoppers the option to include them with their orders.
- Develop a “Holiday Gift Guide” to include on your homepage with plenty of content on the season’s hottest gifts, ideas for friends and family and more.
- Give back. Add a quick link to a charity of your choice on your homepage and encourage shoppers to give or give a portion of each sale to a charity.