Transact: Monetizing and Growing your Business Online

by Eric Swoyer

In this series, we’ve shown how 1&1 MyWebsite can help you quickly build a website to tell your story, by being present through an optimized online presence with high quality content, and interacting through feedback and communication channels for your customers to contact you. But now it’s time to think about the bottom line: revenue. Bringing your business online is great for brand building and gaining exposure. But the underlying goal of your website is to drive more business and complete more sales.  What’s the point of a website if it doesn’t work for you?

Today, we’ll explore some simple but powerful tools to increase conversions and drive more sales through your 1&1 MyWebsite. Specific details will vary from industry to industry, and business to business, but the underlying tenets are the same. And once again, we’ll be highlighting how free tools from POWr Plugins can get you up and running in no time.

Price Table

Of all the challenges facing businesses online, the undisputed leader across industries is cart abandonment. Although exact numbers vary, it is believed that between 50% and 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes the transaction. This should be an eye-opener for any sized business. The natural question is, why? What is causing so many people to abandon their purchases at the last minute?

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According to Shopify’s Blog, more often than not, the culprit is an unexpected charge at the end of a transaction. Whether it be add-on processing fees, taxes, shipping and handling, or any other surcharges, these unexpected additions catch shoppers by surprise, and force them to reevaluate their purchase at the last second.

One of the easiest ways to combat this is to display pricing clearly and completely at the beginning of the transaction.  POWr Price Table is a simple but surprisingly versatile tool for doing just that. Display pricing of all your products or services side by side, with built-in feature lists, space for images, and the option to redirect shoppers or accept a payment directly. You can even create automatically recurring charges if you’re selling memberships or subscriptions. When pricing your products, remember, transparency is your friend.

See Demo of a Price Table
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Countdown Timer

Timing is everything, and selling online is no exception. Numerous studies have shown the value of creating a sense of urgency around your products or services, to help get potential buyers over the hump. And with the POWr Countdown Timer, setting up an attractive flashsale is a breeze. Just add the widget to a product or checkout page, choose a date and time to count down to, and adjust the counter design to match your site. You can even tweak the exact details of your sale to match your target buyer, for example, by offering a two-for-one deal, free shipping, or a surprise bonus gift. Best of all, you can reset and re-use your POWr Countdown Timer as many times as you’d like. Just reset the target date and you’re on to the next sale!

See Demo of Countdown Timer
Add to your site

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PayPal Button

In an earlier section of this blog series, we touched on building a sense of trust with your customers. Trust is always important when doing business online, but it’s even more significant when it comes to the final point of sale. According to a study by BizRate, almost two-thirds of American shoppers do not trust retailers to take sufficient care of their payment information. These fears are especially prevalent when shoppers must enter credit card information to make an online purchase.

So who do shoppers trust? When BizRate asked shoppers to name their most trusted retailers, the second most popular response was PayPal, despite the fact that PayPal is not actually a retailer! The message is clear. If you don’t allow customers to checkout using PayPal, it’s time to start. And with POWr’s fully customizable PayPal Button, you can add a one-click payment portal to your pages and products in minutes. POWr PayPal Button can be set up to match the standard PayPal ‘Buy Now’ button. Or you can customize the text, size, and colors to match the rest of your store. Just add pricing details, and your shoppers will be re-directed to a secure PayPal checkout page where they can complete their transaction using their PayPal account or credit cards. With almost a third of US shoppers worrying about security, it’s well worth providing a reputable, secure solution at your point of sale.

See Demo of a PayPal Button
Add to your site

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Digital Download

We’ve spent a lot of time today thinking about how to increase your online sales. But what if all of your sales are online? The rise of online retail and the computer revolution has lead to an entirely new type of product: the digital product. For instance, you might be selling digital images, music files, software, or video content. Pioneered by sellers like Amazon and the iTunes Store, the marketplace for digital goods has exploded in the last decade. So how can you start selling digital products on your own site?

One of the newest releases from POWr aims to help you do just that. Enter POWr Digital Download, a plugin explicitly designed to help you sell digital files from a custom storefront. The process is remarkably simple. Just upload the file you would like to sell into your POWr Digitial Download plugin, set pricing options and details, and design the plugin to match the rest of your 1&1 MyWebsite. When someone buys your digital file, they’ll receive an email with a downloadable link. Payment then will automatically arrive in your connected PayPal account. You can even create and sell subscriptions through POWr Digitial Download, allowing you to build a recurring revenue stream.

See Demo of Digital Download
Add to your site

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A successful website works to generate new visitors, leads, and eventually sales for your business. But as we’ve seen, the final steps before a sale are often the hardest. That’s why it’s so important to be clear and transparent with your pricing, and to create a sense of urgency with your visitors to help them complete a purchase now, not later. Just like doing business face to face, trust matters, and there is real value in allowing customers to pay with whichever method they trust most. Integrating POWr Plugins into your 1&1 MyWebsite is a fast, reliable, and affordable way to improve your customer’s experience and increase sales.

We’d love to hear how you’ve grown sales through your website, and learn more about the tools that help you get there. Post a comment below to share your lessons and experiences.

Images: POWr