Selling Products

If you're planning to sell products directly from your Web site, you almost certainly must have a secure ordering system.

You might start with a plain order form for customers to print and fax to you, but you won't get many sales that way. If you're serious about taking orders on-line, a secure ordering system is a must.

The trouble is, there are so many different secure ordering systems available, and it's not easy to figure out which is right for you. In this Boot Camp, I'll show you how to use the internationally-recognised PayPal system for taking credit card orders. This is nice and simple, but robust and powerful at the same time.

(Note: Many years ago, when PayPal was new, it was clumsy and cumbersome, and only used by amateurs. But now it's much more professional, and well-recognised by businesses and consumers alike).

Benefits

  • It is secure, so customers can be assured that their credit card details are protected as they are sent from their browser to your Web site.
  • In fact, you never see their credit card details at all, which reassures them further.
  • The ordering process is straightforward, without requiring customers to "log in" or "sign up"!
  • There's no limit to the number of products you can sell,so you can keep expanding your product range.
  • It uses PayPal's secure server, so you don't have the expense of getting your own secure server software or secure certificate.
  • It integrates smoothly into your Web site, without requiring any re-design or re-formatting of your Web pages. You simply insert some simple buttons at the point where you would like people to buy.
  • The payments happen immediately - there's no messy processing of credit card orders manually or waiting for cheques to clear. The money goes directly into your PayPal account, and from there you can transfer it to any Australian bank account.

If you don't have products to sell yet, this will be a feature you add in the future. However, I'll still show you how to set it up during the Boot Camp, so you'll be able to add it easily later.