We've all heard how great Internet Shopping can be. You can buy things far cheaper, you can shop when you want to and there are no queues when you want to pay. With just a click of the mouse, shoppers can buy nearly any product online, from clothes to cars, from insurance policies to home loans. The world of electronic commerce, also known as e-commerce, enables consumers to shop at thousands of online stores and pay for their purchases without leaving the comfort of their own home. For many, the Internet has taken the place of Saturday afternoon window shopping.
With the growth of Internet shopping, concerns are often voiced about the safety of online shopping. Below are some helpful tips in making sure you stay safe online and get the most of internet shopping.
1. Shop at secure websites. You can tell if a website is secure by the following.
First, if you look at the top of your screen where the web site address is displayed, you should see https://. The "s" that is displayed after "http" indicates that web site is secure. Often, you do not see the "s" until you actually move to the order page on the web site.
Another way to determine if a web site is secure is to look for a closed padlock displayed at the bottom of your screen. If that lock is open, you should assume it is not a secure site.
The third symbol that indicates you are on a secure site is an unbroken key.
2. Use sites that you can trust, either sites that you already know or ones that have been recommended to you.
3. Always print out your order confirmation, this will include your order number, product details, delivery details including delivery times. Keep this until you are satisfied that the goods you ordered are correct and undamaged.
4. Check your bank or credit card statements as soon as you receive them. Raise any discrepancies with the relevant retailer first. If you see an unknown transaction on your statement contact your bank or credit card supplier straight away.
5. Never disclose your pin number to anyone and certainly don't provide your pin number over the internet. Your pin number is never required when internet shopping, so don't proceed if you are asked to provide it.
6. Internet shopping is ideal for purchasing those items, such as adult sex toys, that you would be too embarrassed to go into a shop and buy.
7. If you can, try and order more than one item at a time, this will help save on the delivery costs.
8. Try and pay by credit card, this can give you extra protection.
9. Sign up to become a member of a website, this can lead to a discount on all future orders and being notified of any special offers they may be running.
10. Don't get carried away and spend more than you can afford.
So why did you go into an online business? Was it to earn a second income, make some ?extra cash?, to make a full-time income so you can leave your current job (which stands for Just On Broke by the way), or to become wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. Whatever your goal is, you need to maximize or optimize the systems in your business to bring about the desired outcome (more profits).
For most people, they would believe that you have to focus on getting more customers and increasing profits. But this is too general, too ?big picture?. You have to zoom out from the big picture and zoom into some specifics or details. You can't get ?more customers?, you can only get ?more leads? and increase the ?conversion rate? of those leads. You can't get ?more profit?, you can only increase the ?transactions? of your current customers, boost the ?average $ sale? and increase your ?margin? (reduce your costs).
Can you see where we are going with this? This is a very POWERFUL way to look at it and changes the way that you focus and run your business. So this 5 step formula is LEADS x CONVERSION = customers x TRANSACTIONS x AV. $ SALE = turnover x MARGIN = profit.
Eg. 1000 Leads x 1% Conversion = 10 customers x 5 Transactions x $30 Av. $ Sale = $1500 turnover x 80% Margin = $1200 profit.
The only way to determine the above figures for your business is to TEST and MEASURE. You're probably thinking what a pain in the arse, but I can assure you, once you start doing this you will NEVER go back. So, work out how many unique visitors go to your site, how many buy from you, how many times does the average customer make a purchase from you (over the course of their time as your customer), what's the average $ sale, and what's your overall margin.
So, in the example above, you can determine that for every 1000 visitors to your site you will make $1200 over the ?lifetime? of those customers and each customer is worth $120 to you. What if you were able to increase the conversion to 2%... all of a sudden you have $2400 cash in your pocket. What if you also increased the number of transactions to 7? Now you have $3360. What if you were able to make small improvements in all 5 areas? Can you see how exciting this is? You can make a HUGE difference to your bottom line just by making a few small incremental changes in those five areas.
You can't control how many customers you get or how much profit you make. But you can be absolutely laser-focussed on the 5 parts of your business that will give you consistent, predictable results.
Both Karen Jack & Andrew Jones are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Karen Jack has sinced written about articles on various topics from Shopping, Attracting Mate and Self Esteem. To find more comments and links relating to this very popular topic please go to . Karen Jack's top article generates over 9900 views. to your Favourites.
Andrew Jones has sinced written about articles on various topics from Internet Marketing, Home Businesses and The Internet. Andrew Jones is the author. To find the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home, visit:. Andrew Jones's top article generates over 18100 views. to your Favourites.