The Cybersource 8th Annual Online Fraud Report estimates that over $3 billion in online revenues was lost due to online fraud. The Internet Crime Complaint Center or IC3, which is a partnership of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, stated in its annual report that there was $198.44 million lost by consumers in the fraud cases that they referred to law enforcement agencies in 2006. The average loss per complaint was just over $2500.00. Both buyers and sellers lose when online businesses are vulnerable to ill intentioned web users.
There are generally 2 types of fraudulent orders that are placed online. First there is an order that is being placed merely to check the validity of the stolen credit card information. A criminal will go to a website where he knows that the credit card is going to be billed immediately for products and services. They will place an order for something that is usually about $100.00 or less. Once the order goes through and the credit card is successfully billed, they know the stolen information is valid. Then they are free to place the second kind of order where they are actually looking to receive the products that they purchase with the stolen credit card information.
Currently, some of the most popular online fraud protection solutions include address verification, card verification number (CVC2, CVV2, CID depending on the card issuer), and IP geolocation. The downside to these solutions is that the address and card verification number can both be stolen along with the credit card number and IP addresses can be masked. 81% of online merchants also use manual order verification. Besides the increased costs associated with the extra time and staff that it takes to manually review the orders, it also slows down the order process and extends delivery times.
Traditional solutions allow the fraudulent order to be placed and then attempt to weed them out afterwards. The next generation of automated online fraud protection solutions deter the perpetrator from placing the fraudulent order in the first place. Taking the crook completely out of the equation allows online merchants to focus resources on fulfilling genuine orders and servicing current customers.
One of these next generation fraud protection solutions that is gaining popularity among online merchants is televerification. Televerification works like this: When the customer goes to place an order, they are asked for their telephone number. An automated telephone call is then placed to the customer and they are given a unique security code, either through automated message or SMS. They then enter that unique code into the appropriate place on the web site in order to proceed with their business. The process is quick and easy, yet the protection it affords businesses and their customers is extremely effective.
Requiring the confirmation of a workable, traceable telephone number lessens the attractiveness of that particular online business to ill intentioned users. Criminals are leery about providing a legitimate phone number that can be traced back to them. The benefits that are inherent to implementing any automated fraud protection solution for online merchants still apply: reduced chargeback costs, reduced manual verification costs and increased user confidence. The difference with televerification is that instead of catching the fraudulent order after it has come in, it stops them at the door.
An additional benefit of televerification is the ease of which it can be integrated into an online merchant's existing website. All it takes is adding a few lines of code to an existing site that will allow it to interact with a televerification provider's server. Most applications can be up and running within hours, not days or weeks like some solutions.
With eCommerce growing 20% or more each year, fraud protection for merchants and customers becomes an ever increasingly vital issue for the entire online community. Billions of dollars are lost every year due to criminals taking advantage of the anonymity that the Internet offers. Previously, online merchants could only try to weed the fraudulent orders out from the good ones as they came in. The next generation of fraud protection allows online merchants the opportunity to stop the fraudulent orders from ever being placed.
How do you get more sales leads in your business? I would recommend using a highly effective website to generate your own leads. This is the most cost effective method to drive traffic and then convert these leads to sales. I nthis article I will outline the keypoints you need to ensure you get the best quailty sales leads for your business.
Generating a sales lead is a fundamental part of lead generation. A sales lead is not yet a sale. It is purely an indication that a potential customer has expressed an interest in your product. You now need to set about convincing them that you are the right business for them to buy from and that you will solve their problems.
Most companies that buy in sales leads typically tend to approach a potential customer by selling to them. This is will not work in 99.9% of the time. The golden rule is to ensure you give value first then offer the lead an opportunity to think things over, then re approach them and offer them something of value to buy from you.
Remember that price is not everything. If you offer services, reviews, help and advice that your competitor doesn't then you need to make this clear to your customer. A great way to do this is to offer your sales lead a special report. This report will contain all the vital information about buying from you and also give them plenty of practical and helpful advice about what to look for, what to choose, and how to get the best out of the product.
The simple way to write a special report is to write down five things that are unique about your product or service. You can then expand on this by adding some general observations about what your competitors are not doing and you are. Once you have this complete you will need to decide on a title. I would recommend naming the report "Five Secrets To...." This type of title gets the interest of the visitor and is likely that they will take action and sign up for your report. Simple. You now just have developed your own sales lead!
This method warms the sales lead up from just a lead to a probable sale. With technology today it is simple to put this entire process on autopilot using an auto responder. The auto responder will send out messages or reports in the order you select without you lifting a finger 24/7 365 days a year.
An auto repsonder will cost you from around $19.99 a month for upto 5,000 names. Now there are cheaper or even free versions on the internet, although I wouldn't suggest using one as they typically contain advertising message to support the running costs of their free service.
You want to look proffesional in the eyes of your potential sales lead so need should invest in one of the many auto responder services there are on the market. Two that I suggest are emailaces and aweber. Both are cheap and delvier messages promtly and proffesionally. They also allow you to add custom fields to collect more data about you sales lead on the name capture page that you need to create for your website.
How does your website currently generate sales leads? Chances are you have a simple contact us or request for more information form that you get visitors to use. If you are using this you need to change the way you capture data to ensure your website generates the right type of sales leads you need.
It is vital that you place your lead generation form on the main page of entry; this is usually your index or home page. By doing this you are filtering the visitors to see their level of interest. We want to find the visitors who are interested in learning more about us, our product and how we can help them. If we do not capture their attention then we know that they will visit another site, as we have not satisfied their needs.
Sale lead generation is a cost effective way to improve your website and turn your business into a 24 hour marketing machine for your business. Use auto responders to capture full sets of visitor data to ensure your online lead generation is high profitable and successful.
The best thing about this method is that whilst it might take some time to set up the auto responder, write the report and convert it to a pdf, it will work for you forever developing sales leads into sales using this simple yet powerful tactic.
Both Brandi Cummings & Mark Vurnum 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.