Landscape Management, June 2010

INFOTECH TYLER WHITAKER The author is a freelance technologist Contact him at 801 592 2810 or via e mail at twhitaker@ questex com Embracing the online sale W hen youre a small business owner nothing is more important than sales It goes without saying that revenue is the lifeblood of business So why do most business websites focus only on marketing products and services and not taking the next step of closing the sale Maybe its time to start collecting payments online instead of just generating leads With a few simple changes your website could be paying for itself The typical lifecycle of a company website begins as an online brochure directing potential customers to contact the company for more information Adding the ability to capture sales leads through the use of html forms is the next step in website evolution For companies selling products adding a shopping cart can turn prospective customers into paying customers But when it comes to companies that sell services where the price is not known ahead of time lead capture is LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET JUNE 2010 44 often the stalling point in their website progression What most companies dont consider is the ability to use online payment systems to allow customers the ability to pay their invoices online Adding payment options to your website can range from simple modifi cations to in depth software development In the past fi guring it out was a lesson in patience and persistence Today adding simple payment options to your website has never been easier PayPal com Gaining a start as a way to pay for eBay purchases PayPal has become the most widely used payment system on the Internet today Because PayPal allows a business to take credit cards without setting up a merchant account it is a service many businesses use when fi rst implementing online payments A good starting point with PayPal is the Website Payments Standard service With no set up charges or monthly fees and no programming skills required its an easy way to start accepting credit cards All you need to do is set up a business PayPal account then link it to one of your bank accounts as a funding source My suggestion is to set up a separate bank account just for your PayPal transactions That way reconciling your transactions will be simple and straightforward Once your account is set up you can use Buy Now and Add to Cart buttons Just use the easy button wizard to generate the HTML code then cut and paste the HTML onto your web pages next to the services youre selling With PayPal you can even create and email invoices to your customers for your goods and services or create a specialized version of a Donate button to have your customers send you payments along with their account number To receive payments online all it takes is a little bit of planning If you can integrate web orders into your back offi ce fulfi llment process additional revenue could be right around the corner And who couldnt use a little more revenue these days With a few simple changes your website could be paying for itself ILLUSTRATION BY ISTOCK INTERNATIONAL INC