Here I go to the car showroom. Oh, boy, do I want that car. Slick, sporty, and it looks like it’s doing 100 mph sitting still. The salesman takes me into the finance officer’s office. Finance officer looks at me sheepishly, slides a piece of paper across the desk.
He says,
“The only payment option we have for you in order to buy this car is to use your credit card.”
My jaw drops.
“You’re kidding, right?” I say.
“No, that’s the only way you’re going to drive this car home today.”
Seems like a silly story, doesn’t it? It’s happening every single second on the Internet. I’m getting ready to tell you a secret that you’re not going to believe you missed. I promise you – this is going to be such a simple change to your website, you’re going to be shocked.
I hear stories every single day from webmasters and business owners who say they can’t make a sale from their websites. I step through the obvious with them. Does your site focus on what it is you are trying to sell? Do you give your visitors distractions on the way to the shopping cart? Do you take care of all the credibility stuff like testimonials and guarantees?
They usually always say yes, but there’s one question I ask they almost never say yes to. Why do they miss this one? I think it’s because it is something that is being used in other places on the Internet, but even the big Internet marketers have missed it themselves.
It’s very common. Ebay sellers and buyers love it. It was a billion dollar idea when its founders created it. I stumbled upon it by accident myself.
My store, Route 66 Cyber Caf, has been using this one for over a year now, and it’s a proven deal-closer every single day.
What is it? I’m not going to tell you just yet. Let’s go back to the car dealer and change the scenario. This time, the finance officer says,
“You can pay cash, pay out over 6 years, pay out over 5 years, pay out over 2 years, or you can lease this car. Which would you prefer?”
“I’ll take it!” I say.
What’s the difference? He gave me choices. Everyone likes those. You want to buy something very bad. If something like financing gets in the way, the sale is dead already.
Enter the best friend my websites ever had. Paypal, of course! You’re probably very familiar with Paypal, but maybe not as much as you could be. I became very familiar with it while trading Route 66 memorabilia and other old things I like to buy and sell on Ebay.
One day, I got the idea to offer Paypal as a payment option. I had seen a tab called “Sell” in my Paypal account and thought it looked interesting. There, much to my surprise, were all kinds of great tools to use on my website. It’s gotten even better in the last six months, too. Now they offer targeted buttons that let visitors just click, and it adds shipping and everything to the order. They even offer a subscriptions option so you can take recurring payments.
Why are more of the sales of my two books paid by Paypal now? (almost 70%) I’m not sure, but I’ll make a few educated guesses, based on what my customers tell me:
- 1. They like the privacy. They don’t know people on the Internet, and they don’t trust just anyone with their credit card. Paypal is something they trust. Paypal doesn’t email you your password if you lose it. They make sure they give it to the right person. They have been entrusted with some of the most sensitive information on the Internet. That’s a huge responsibility. We’re talking about millions of credit card numbers and bank accounts.
2. It’s a recession (or at least it feels like one). People are maxed on their credit cards or tired of charging things. They really wanted my books, but they wanted to pay cash for it
without having to mail a check or money order. Paypal goes and gets the money from their checking account and sends it to me immediately.
3. Many of my buyers are from other countries. International buyers don’t much like using credit cards because of scams. I know this one for a fact. They trust Paypal.
Why do I like Paypal better than my own merchant account or even Clickbank? The money’s instant. You don’t wait two days for your merchant account to drop the money in your checking account. You don’t wait the one month you do for Clickbank to send you a check. Paypal will not send you money if the person doesn’t have any. You can check to make sure the user is a verified user. Your customers can check on you. They can see how long you’ve been a member, and they can see if you’re a Premiere account.
How can you get started making more sales this way? If you’ve not signed up, you can sign up here.
If you already have a Paypal account, click on the Sell tab once you log in, and you will see all kinds of great tools to put near your products.
Now you’ve made a new friend who will bring you a lot of new sales.
See you around the Net!
Lynne Schlumpf is the author of “The Little Website That Could” (http://www.littlewebsitethatcould.net/) and has just completed her 2nd book “Afternoons Off! 75 Surprising and Secret Ways To Make Money On Your Kitchen Table, Volume 1”. You can find her books and articles here.(http://www.littlewebsitethatcould.net/)
