Escrow payment service ensures that seller gets paid for shipment and buyer receives what has been ordered for. Thus, it reduces potential risk of fraud by acting as a trusted third party that collects, holds and disburses funds according to buyer and seller instructions. Escrow services are provided by licensed and regulated escrow agents.
Escrow is well suited for small to medium value merchandise or intellectual property where conventional payment system (e.g. letter of credit) is either unsuitable or un-economic. It is typically used for items purchased on auction sites, small value shipments, domain names, source code etc.
Tell me one good application of Escrow for Exporters
Exporters can use escrow for collecting payment of small export shipment where buyer is unwilling to pay in advance and Letter of Credit is an expensive option.
It is frequently used for first-time transaction where buyer and seller are conducting business for the first time (consequently mutual trust level low) and the value of shipment is small.
Another area is collection of payment for samples that exporters send for approval. Still, a third area could be payment for domain name or source code for service exporters, specially in software export.
For exporter, escrow is safer than receiving payment through credit card, as there is no scope for 'chargeback'. For importer, paying by credit card to an unknown party always entails some risk. A credible intermediary can help buyer and seller to start business and build trust in each other.
How Seller is Protected
The financial risk of seller in an international transaction is greatly reduced in escrow payment as buyer has to deposit the agreed value of shipment with escrow before seller ships the ordered product. So, seller knows buyer has capacity to pay and has already paid for the shipment.
How Buyer is Protected
Escrow service tracks the shipped merchandise and verifies that it has been delivered to buyer. Buyer then has an inspection period to check the merchandise and decide its acceptability. The seller isn't paid until the buyer accepts the merchandise, or the inspection period expires.
What Happens If Buyer Refuses to Accept the Merchandise ?
Different escrow services may follow slightly different procedure in this respect - I am describing below a typical one:
If the buyer is not satisfied with the merchandise, he/she can inform escrow service that the goods will be returned to the seller. It is now the responsibility of buyer to ship the merchandise back to seller in good condition and pay seller his/her cost of shipment.
The seller has an inspection period to verify that the returned goods are in original condition. After the seller has confirmed the receipt and that the condition of the goods are to his/her satisfaction, escrow will return buyer's funds after deducting seller's shipping costs and the escrow fees. The seller will then be reimbursed for his/her shipping costs.
So, in the instance of buyer refusing to accept merchandise, he/she will have to bear the cost of shipping back the merchandise to seller, reimburse seller his/her shipping cost and pay escrow fee.
If the buyer fails to inform escrow of his/her decision within the inspection period - escrow service will make the payment to the seller.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
How to Accept Online Payments - the Easy Way
The hard way requires you set up a merchant bank account and then sign up, at quite some considerable expense, to accept online payments on your account. Not only will you have to pay a percentage of each payment you receive, but there is often a monthly charge for running the account too. If you start getting into big figures, you may even find that the bank holds back a sum of money due to you for chargebacks.
A chargeback is where a buyer asks for their money back – either due to fraud or because they are unhappy with the product you have supplied. There are stories of some companies holding back large sums of money to cover the cost of chargebacks.
That’s the hard way!
Now for the easy way.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past five years, you'll have heard of Paypal. It's easy to set up and account to take payment for goods, downloadable Ebooks and subscriptions without the need to set up a merchant account.
This online payment system is the quickest and easiest way to accept payment online with cards such as Visa, Mastercard and Maestro on your site. It's easy to open a Paypal account and start accepting payment online immediately.
A chargeback is where a buyer asks for their money back – either due to fraud or because they are unhappy with the product you have supplied. There are stories of some companies holding back large sums of money to cover the cost of chargebacks.
That’s the hard way!
Now for the easy way.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past five years, you'll have heard of Paypal. It's easy to set up and account to take payment for goods, downloadable Ebooks and subscriptions without the need to set up a merchant account.
This online payment system is the quickest and easiest way to accept payment online with cards such as Visa, Mastercard and Maestro on your site. It's easy to open a Paypal account and start accepting payment online immediately.
A-Z Of An Online Business - Professional Methods That Worked For Professionals
Ever wondered why some sites make it without using the caveman techniques that are taught so widely on the internet. Its because they know the tried and tested methods of advertising and marketing that can create a hype about your site in its own world -- offline and online. I started using the internet before Google was even a recognized search engine. eBay was just a little site not much different then one I can put together in a couple of days, and I watched the internet go from what it was then to what it is today. There have been ups, and there have been downs, but there have been general trends and key things to remember that made the whole experience more profitable and enjoyable, and without further rambling, I’m going to get started.
PERCEPTION
When trying to do business on the internet, the ways people perceive your site and you as a business are key. It can mean the difference between a customer that thinks twice before ordering from you and a customer who impulsively buys, without thinking. Go ask any sales team in the world, and they’ll tell you that a sale today is better then the promise of 10 tomorrow.
Building an online business that people look at in a favorable way is infinitely easier than opening up say a store, or franchise. All you need to do is have a nice looking website, and one person can run the entire operation, as opposed to having to put a huge amount of money into the looks and employment before even making a single sale. The customers don’t need to know that, and if you do what you promise, they won’t care. So because of this you have to understand that if you put an amount of work into your website, which will be your main salesfield, expect that amount of work to be directly reflected in your sales. What I mean is if you put together a website in 2 hours and when its all together you go around telling people to visit yoursite.freesites.biz.com then not many people are going to take you seriously. But if you take some time, maybe map out your website first using the old pen and paper method, and take time in setting up your graphics and content, people will actually come to your website and be impressed, both consciously and non-consciously.
So how much of that didn’t you know already? You probably knew most of it, and if not, this is the first eBook you’ve read! But the fact still remains that even though you’ve heard it over and over, most websites out there are shabbily put together because people are looking to make money quickly, and that doesn’t work.
SET ASIDE TIME, AND DO YOUR WORK SET ASIDE 30 MINUTE BLOCKS OF WORK THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY
Don’t stop during the 30 minutes, I mean, come on, 30 minutes isn’t a long time. But at the same time, even if you feel like you are up to it, don’t spend MORE than 30 minutes at a time on your site.
YOUR WEBSITE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR ONLINE PRESENSE. IF YOU DON’T HAVE A WEBSITE (www.yourdomain.com) THAT YOU HAVE PUT AT LEAST 6 HOURS OF WORK INTO THEN YOU NEED TO DO THAT ASAP.
Go to godaddy.com and register a domain. Use the coupon code ‘saveten’ to get a 10% discount on your order. Now go to dreamhost.com and use the coupon code ‘moesdeals’ to get up to 65$ off your order. Order hosting and get your domain setup, if you don’t have the money to do this, then MAKE THE MONEY. Without your own domain you will have a definite disadvantage in making money.
SEARCH ENGINES After you have your domain and your hosting, you can start thinking about content, and search engine optimization. Now, a lot of people rush into this stage of things thinking they’ll just fill up their site with so much stuff that people coming to the site won’t be able to leave because they’ll never be able to finish reading everything. This is the WRONG way to look at things, at least in 2006. In earlier years, this kind of info stuffing would have got you a high ranking on search engines, and you wouldn’t have had any problems with getting people to your site. But now with all the annoyances of pop-ups and banners and flashing ads, people like to go to a site and see what they want to see – the site. Your logo should stand out and be done in a light soft shade. Except for some exceptions, use soft colors like a dull yellow, a light grey and dull orange. Colors like these will make people associate your website with feelings of happiness, success and bliss in their head and they will find it easier on their eyes to spend more time browsing your site. Notice the popularity of Google as a search engine came just as all the search engines on the internet started filling their pages up with advertising? Google came out with a site that was and still is as simple as ever. A logo at the top with the search bar in the middle, and although it wasn’t a very pretty site, it gave people the most functionality from the site because they came to search and it was easy to do so. So they came back. If Google started off their site as a small search bar among a sea of ads like the other search engines were doing, then it would be in no better of a position then HotBot.com, askjeeves.com and Altavista.com are. Sure these are good websites, but they aren’t the ones who had a stock quadruple in its first year. So the point here is that use colors that do not jump from the page, and make sure that the intent of your site is clear and centered. Use pictures as much as you can, and use small slogans and small sentences more on your homepage then long paragraphs and the like. There are other pages on your site for that kind of mumbo jumbo, this isn’t it.
PERCEPTION
When trying to do business on the internet, the ways people perceive your site and you as a business are key. It can mean the difference between a customer that thinks twice before ordering from you and a customer who impulsively buys, without thinking. Go ask any sales team in the world, and they’ll tell you that a sale today is better then the promise of 10 tomorrow.
Building an online business that people look at in a favorable way is infinitely easier than opening up say a store, or franchise. All you need to do is have a nice looking website, and one person can run the entire operation, as opposed to having to put a huge amount of money into the looks and employment before even making a single sale. The customers don’t need to know that, and if you do what you promise, they won’t care. So because of this you have to understand that if you put an amount of work into your website, which will be your main salesfield, expect that amount of work to be directly reflected in your sales. What I mean is if you put together a website in 2 hours and when its all together you go around telling people to visit yoursite.freesites.biz.com then not many people are going to take you seriously. But if you take some time, maybe map out your website first using the old pen and paper method, and take time in setting up your graphics and content, people will actually come to your website and be impressed, both consciously and non-consciously.
So how much of that didn’t you know already? You probably knew most of it, and if not, this is the first eBook you’ve read! But the fact still remains that even though you’ve heard it over and over, most websites out there are shabbily put together because people are looking to make money quickly, and that doesn’t work.
SET ASIDE TIME, AND DO YOUR WORK SET ASIDE 30 MINUTE BLOCKS OF WORK THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY
Don’t stop during the 30 minutes, I mean, come on, 30 minutes isn’t a long time. But at the same time, even if you feel like you are up to it, don’t spend MORE than 30 minutes at a time on your site.
YOUR WEBSITE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR ONLINE PRESENSE. IF YOU DON’T HAVE A WEBSITE (www.yourdomain.com) THAT YOU HAVE PUT AT LEAST 6 HOURS OF WORK INTO THEN YOU NEED TO DO THAT ASAP.
Go to godaddy.com and register a domain. Use the coupon code ‘saveten’ to get a 10% discount on your order. Now go to dreamhost.com and use the coupon code ‘moesdeals’ to get up to 65$ off your order. Order hosting and get your domain setup, if you don’t have the money to do this, then MAKE THE MONEY. Without your own domain you will have a definite disadvantage in making money.
SEARCH ENGINES After you have your domain and your hosting, you can start thinking about content, and search engine optimization. Now, a lot of people rush into this stage of things thinking they’ll just fill up their site with so much stuff that people coming to the site won’t be able to leave because they’ll never be able to finish reading everything. This is the WRONG way to look at things, at least in 2006. In earlier years, this kind of info stuffing would have got you a high ranking on search engines, and you wouldn’t have had any problems with getting people to your site. But now with all the annoyances of pop-ups and banners and flashing ads, people like to go to a site and see what they want to see – the site. Your logo should stand out and be done in a light soft shade. Except for some exceptions, use soft colors like a dull yellow, a light grey and dull orange. Colors like these will make people associate your website with feelings of happiness, success and bliss in their head and they will find it easier on their eyes to spend more time browsing your site. Notice the popularity of Google as a search engine came just as all the search engines on the internet started filling their pages up with advertising? Google came out with a site that was and still is as simple as ever. A logo at the top with the search bar in the middle, and although it wasn’t a very pretty site, it gave people the most functionality from the site because they came to search and it was easy to do so. So they came back. If Google started off their site as a small search bar among a sea of ads like the other search engines were doing, then it would be in no better of a position then HotBot.com, askjeeves.com and Altavista.com are. Sure these are good websites, but they aren’t the ones who had a stock quadruple in its first year. So the point here is that use colors that do not jump from the page, and make sure that the intent of your site is clear and centered. Use pictures as much as you can, and use small slogans and small sentences more on your homepage then long paragraphs and the like. There are other pages on your site for that kind of mumbo jumbo, this isn’t it.
Finding Drop Shippers is no Secret
Some people who sell items online use drop shippers. Drop shippers are people who have a product to sell and allow you to sell it for them. They often offer the product to you at a lower price so that you can make some profit off of the sale as well. They will ask you to either email, fax, phone in or order the product from their site. Then they will ship the product to your customer for you. Most of the time the drop shipper will send the package with your information instead of their own as a courtesy to you so that their customers don’t know that the product was drop shipped and also so that the customer has your information for returns and other customer service issues.
Finding drop shippers is really no secret. There’s no need to purchase an e-book or other “list” just to find a drop shipper. Here’s how I found products to sell…
1. I “Googled” for the product that I was looking for and added “wholesale” to the search. For example, you would search for “widgets wholesale”.
2. When I found the widgets that I thought would sell really well I looked for drop shipping policies on the website. They can usually be found under “wholesale” if they don’t have a link of their own. If they were listed, great! If not, a quick simple email to the site owner was all that was necessary.It’s REALLY that easy! There are some things that you need to be aware of when using drop shippers. They more often than not, charge you a fee. This could be higher shipping or just an extra amount added to each order. Check to make sure you can still profit with this fee included. Ask for references! Just because they say they are a drop shipper doesn’t mean that they will actually ship the product and offer you the customer service that you and YOUR customer deserve. Be sure to find out everything you can about the drop shipper that you would like to use and read any fine print.
Finding drop shippers is really no secret. There’s no need to purchase an e-book or other “list” just to find a drop shipper. Here’s how I found products to sell…
1. I “Googled” for the product that I was looking for and added “wholesale” to the search. For example, you would search for “widgets wholesale”.
2. When I found the widgets that I thought would sell really well I looked for drop shipping policies on the website. They can usually be found under “wholesale” if they don’t have a link of their own. If they were listed, great! If not, a quick simple email to the site owner was all that was necessary.It’s REALLY that easy! There are some things that you need to be aware of when using drop shippers. They more often than not, charge you a fee. This could be higher shipping or just an extra amount added to each order. Check to make sure you can still profit with this fee included. Ask for references! Just because they say they are a drop shipper doesn’t mean that they will actually ship the product and offer you the customer service that you and YOUR customer deserve. Be sure to find out everything you can about the drop shipper that you would like to use and read any fine print.
Ok, I Have a Product-Now What?
You believed that the whispering dude from the movie Field of Dreams was speaking directly to you. “If you build it, they will come”. You wrote, coded, or designed your own product. You created a killer web site and your “Buy Here” button is just ready to take a beating.
So, now here you are staring at your stats, checking on your PayPal account once every 5 minutes. Nothing. “Just give it a few minutes”, you think to yourself…after all, the whispering dude was speaking to me.
Ok, perhaps I am exaggerating a smidge here…but have you felt something like this before? Have you been in a position where you had a product you thought was going to crush the market and you opened your “doors” to an avalanche of nothing?
No sweat kid. You won’t have been the first. And even if you haven’t been in this position before, if you have a product you want to take to market there are some things you need to do to get traffic and sales. We’re going to discuss a few here.
The first thing you should have done is prepared your opt-in list for the upcoming release weeks in advance. These are already folks that you have a relationship with and by communicating with them over the course of several weeks you will build a “buzz” around your product.
Now don’t go emailing them every time you fix a typo but keep them in the loop on major milestones and points of interest.
When it comes time to flip the switch these good customers will come calling. Even if your list is relatively small by most standards, you can leverage the folks that have already said, “Hey, I trust you and look forward to what you have to say”.
Another critical component is to let other people carry you on their backs a little. Doesn’t sound all that enjoyable for them but when you throw a little money their way it makes a difference. You NEED your own affiliate program. By offering folks a percentage of your profits for selling your product you will increase your chances of success dramatically.
If you’re cringing about parting with a piece of the action think about it like this…”What’s better”? 50% of 100 sales or 100% of zero sales? I think you get the gist. And setting up an affiliate program is so easy these days…not like it used to be. There are scripts and software for those die hard do it yourselfers or you can go the subscription route and pay monthly for a provider to host your program for you.
So we agree that having affiliates is a great way to boost traffic and sales. Now let’s take this affiliate concept up about ten notches. Add Super Affiliates and or JV Partners into your arsenal. Supers/JV’s are going to be folks with decent to gargantuan sized lists. To make this palatable to these folks you’re going to have to dig a little deeper into your pocket by offering a larger percentage of the gate.
If you’re short sighted that may sound unappealing, but if your Super/JV partners have massive lists they can make you more money in days (even after their take) then you could have made alone in months. If you don’t have the confidence to approach the Big Boys for this kind of thing then go after many folks with lists of 10-20 thousand opt-ins. Get 10 of those and you have 100-200 thousand targeted prospects getting an eyeful of your product.
Just an FYI on the Big Boys though. If you have a product that is worthwhile don’t be afraid to contact them and make a proposal. These folks are real people just like anyone else and many of them are extremely open to opportunities. It is amazing what you can accomplish in this arena if you actually ask.
There are certainly more ways to ensure you aren’t experiencing zero salesitis after you released your latest and greatest, but these simple strategies will get you a terrific jumpstart.
So, now here you are staring at your stats, checking on your PayPal account once every 5 minutes. Nothing. “Just give it a few minutes”, you think to yourself…after all, the whispering dude was speaking to me.
Ok, perhaps I am exaggerating a smidge here…but have you felt something like this before? Have you been in a position where you had a product you thought was going to crush the market and you opened your “doors” to an avalanche of nothing?
No sweat kid. You won’t have been the first. And even if you haven’t been in this position before, if you have a product you want to take to market there are some things you need to do to get traffic and sales. We’re going to discuss a few here.
The first thing you should have done is prepared your opt-in list for the upcoming release weeks in advance. These are already folks that you have a relationship with and by communicating with them over the course of several weeks you will build a “buzz” around your product.
Now don’t go emailing them every time you fix a typo but keep them in the loop on major milestones and points of interest.
When it comes time to flip the switch these good customers will come calling. Even if your list is relatively small by most standards, you can leverage the folks that have already said, “Hey, I trust you and look forward to what you have to say”.
Another critical component is to let other people carry you on their backs a little. Doesn’t sound all that enjoyable for them but when you throw a little money their way it makes a difference. You NEED your own affiliate program. By offering folks a percentage of your profits for selling your product you will increase your chances of success dramatically.
If you’re cringing about parting with a piece of the action think about it like this…”What’s better”? 50% of 100 sales or 100% of zero sales? I think you get the gist. And setting up an affiliate program is so easy these days…not like it used to be. There are scripts and software for those die hard do it yourselfers or you can go the subscription route and pay monthly for a provider to host your program for you.
So we agree that having affiliates is a great way to boost traffic and sales. Now let’s take this affiliate concept up about ten notches. Add Super Affiliates and or JV Partners into your arsenal. Supers/JV’s are going to be folks with decent to gargantuan sized lists. To make this palatable to these folks you’re going to have to dig a little deeper into your pocket by offering a larger percentage of the gate.
If you’re short sighted that may sound unappealing, but if your Super/JV partners have massive lists they can make you more money in days (even after their take) then you could have made alone in months. If you don’t have the confidence to approach the Big Boys for this kind of thing then go after many folks with lists of 10-20 thousand opt-ins. Get 10 of those and you have 100-200 thousand targeted prospects getting an eyeful of your product.
Just an FYI on the Big Boys though. If you have a product that is worthwhile don’t be afraid to contact them and make a proposal. These folks are real people just like anyone else and many of them are extremely open to opportunities. It is amazing what you can accomplish in this arena if you actually ask.
There are certainly more ways to ensure you aren’t experiencing zero salesitis after you released your latest and greatest, but these simple strategies will get you a terrific jumpstart.
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