4 posts from July 2007

OnlineChart

Simple Things Sell Better

An article in “Practical Web Design” magazine from December of 2006 talks about the “Appropriateness of the product to the medium”.

A graphic from that article has been recreated and placed here for reference.

In general, the higher the cost of the purchase relative to the complexity of the checkout process will make your product much more difficult to sell online. Higher priced products with a more complex purchase process will enjoy its best conversion rates through a face-to-face sell (Real Estate and Automobiles) while lower priced products with an easy purchase process are much more successful online (Books, Software and Music).

Remove Barriers to Purchase

Make it quick and easy for people to purchase your product. Don't make them fill out more information than is absolutely necessary to process the order. Don't force them to opt-in to your newsletter. Don't make them provide shipping details for software download. Most online credit card processing companies can determine the type of credit card (i.e. Visa, Mastercard) from the number. Don't force your customer to select a credit card type. It an unnecessary step. If you sell software online, take a tip from these guys.

Online Orders Only

Save yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and only accept online credit card orders. You may loose 10% in overall revenue (potential profit) from those who may purchase in another way, but you also loose 40% in customer service and time costs (expense) dealing with those who "don't get it". That's a 30% revenue increase.

Take a break from the normal and learn about the adventure of working on your own terms. Sound like a vacation you'd like to take? Then The 4-Hour Work Week, by Timothy Ferriss is for you.

Entrepreneur Timothy Ferriss rewrites the rules and upsets conventional wisdom about work and success in his self-help guide to the new, rich economy. It is not necessary to toil for 70 hours per week, according to Ferriss, who runs a company called BrainQuicken. Successful people, he says, have actually mastered a system of working less by outsourcing tasks, severely cutting back on timewasters such as meetings, and working offsite. Ferriss tells how the principles that made him rich are transferable to other companies.