Retain Customers With Reward Points

desmond — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:28:26 +0000

Ecommerce statistcs and starting a new business gurus constantly state that customer retention is an important factor in the survival and growth of a company. It does not matter if you are a manufacturer specializing in the production of specialized instruments with two or three clients or an online web store with thousands of customers — every customer is important. Remember that one bad remark can go a long way towards destroying a company’s credibility and eliminating a customer base regardless of its size.

In this article we will explore the use of reward points (a feature available with InstanteStore’s shopping cart service) in retaining customers as well as improving sales conversions for new visitors.

The reward points feature is available with the InstanteStore shopping cart service. This is a wonderful income opportunity home based business feature which is easy to use and can potentially lead to better sales. As we explored in these two previous posts – Cross-sell Your Products To Better Sales and Selling Variations To Improve Sales – repeat customers are very important to a store. If customers come back to a store and make follow-up purchases, it means there are a few things about the store that are working right, either in general or for a particular customer niche. Happy customers tell friends and make recommendations. In short, they’ll do a lot of your advertising for you.

In this article we will look at Reward Points. Reward points work the same way as reward stickers or point coupons that conventional offline stores use to very good effect. Many marketing strategies that are often used by offline stores can be adapted for online stores as well. The reward sticker system has been used for years because, plain and simple, it works. The use of accumulative point systems by credit card companies, airlines and fuel kiosks are testament to their effectiveness in retaining customers.

Merchants usually reward customers for making purchases but they rarely reward visitors. You might wonder: What should a visitor be rewarded for? In earlier articles we talked about making pages sticky and getting visitors to carry out certain actions like taking surveys. Merchants should reward visitors who take part in quizzes and surveys with reward points which can then be redeemed for discounts at the store once these visitors have collected enough points.

Visitors are more likely to return if they have a good reason to. Make sure you convey how easy it is to gain reward points. Ensure that your surveys and quizzes are updated weekly to keep it interesting. This is the bait that will lead to a first purchase for many customers.

To summarize, maximize your shopping cart service features and use reward points to retain customers as well as to convert visitors. This may well result in a slower conversion rate for a period as it takes time to accumulate points but in the long run, this investment should have a positive effect on your sales.Recent Posts:

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Web Store Budgeting Tips For Newbies

desmond — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:55:42 +0000

Out of 10 people who dream of starting their own online store, only ONE actually makes that dream a reality. Many sign up for free trials but most lack the confidence to sign up for a paid shopping cart service. But those who do actually sign up surprisingly progress really quickly in terms of store set up and marketing.

It’s obvious that these folks did quite a bit of homework before signing up. This does work, and we encourage everyone with the intention of starting up a home business work at home setup to do the same.

To help you get started, we will be looking at budgets – a brief look at how much should be put aside to run a web store for a year. Just to digress a little, beware of sites promoting absolutely free home based business opportunities. Many of these claims are just bait for clever scams. As far as we know it takes a bit of effort and some money to get a home business work at home setup going. Money-wise, all you need is a small business start up financing plan to get a clearer picture of what you might be getting into.

A few basic factors need to be considered when budgeting for a web store:

Domain Name

Naturally, you’ll need a domain name for your a web store. You can register brand new names or get one that has expired. But before you do that, weigh the pros and cons first. A pre-used name could already have links to it but it could also come with some unwanted baggage like blacklistings. Domain names aren’t really costly so try to get one that’s new. The average cost of a new domain name is around $10 each per year.

Payment Gateway

Most merchants use the services of a payment gateways to handle payment transactions. Basically a payment gateway allows you to accept payments online. These gateways are reliable and offer a host of features like fraud prevention and recurring billing. Popular gateway 2Checkout (2CO) charges a 5.5% commission on each transaction, plus a $0.45 charge per transaction. They also charge $49 as a one-time set-up fee.

SSL Certificate

The SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol was created to ensure secure transactions between web servers and browsers. The SSL certificate is an electronic document which contains certain unique information such as e-mail address, owner’s name, certificate usage, duration of validity, Distinguished Name (DN) and certificate ID that ensures web site owners are who they claim to be. You can get a standard SSL certificate for as low as $30 per year.

Drop Shipping Services

Reliable drop shippers or drop shipping suppliers are great for new merchants who are short on manpower and storage space. The process is simple. A customer makes a purchase at a store, and the order and shipment details are then forwarded to the manufacturer or wholesaler who then ships the product(s) to the customer. This process actually reduces cost in the supply chain. Expect to pay around $60 monthly for drop shipper supplier services.

Shopping Cart Software

This is the software that makes everything happen for a webstore. Top shopping cart software solutions like InstanteStore are filled to the brim with features and are easy to use. InstanteStore provides a shopping cart software solution for as low as $49.97 a month without any set up fee and you can save even more if you opt for longer term subscription packages. On average though, be prepared to fork out $150 a month along with a $99 set up fee for most shopping carts.

Logo And Site Design

Ecommerce sites usually provide free templates if you sign up with them but most merchants prefer to customize their stores to make them stand out among the crowd. Design firms like Logo-Design-Studio provide customized web store designs from $397. On the average, you would need to put away about $500 to get your store a suitable custom-tailored website design.

In conclusion, you would need to set aside approximately $3200 for your web store for the first year. Of course, this is a very high estimate. You could save quite a bit by using the shopping cart solution from InstanteStore and save another $700 or so if you do not use the services of a drop shipping supplier. You can also save a few more dollars if you purchase your domain name together with an SSL certificate. With a careful eye to budget, you could potentially bring your actual cost of doing online business for a year to around $1200 or less.Recent Posts:

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Ecommerce Shopping Cart Blog by InstanteStore » shopping cart service

Retain Customers With Reward Points

Web Store Budgeting Tips For Newbies