I got a call the other day from one of my clients, and before they had even said a word I could tell something wasn’t right. My suspicions were confirmed when the first words out of their mouth were “We have a problem!”

And when this is one of your highest paying clients you listen. Here was the situation.

This client has downloadable products and A LOT OF THEM. Someone had ordered almost every single one of their products and the total came to nearly $846.

The customer paid via PayPal and used an E-check. Guess what my client had setup inside his shopping cart? They had the “Instantly Accept PayPal E-Check Orders” checked which means the customer immediately receives all the product downloads, before the transaction has processed.

3 days later a friendly email from PayPal arrives saying the E-Check was declined and now the client is out $846.  At least until they can track this person down and try and recoup their money, which may or may not be successful…

So how do you avoid being in this same situation? The answer is simple, set up your shopping cart to avoid this situation in the first place. (No more than 5 minutes after getting the email from PayPal my client had taken these same steps)

Here’s how you do that:

1. Login to your shopping cart account
2. Scroll over “Setup” and click “Gateway Setup”
3. Make sure “Instantly Accept PayPal E-Check Orders:” is UNCHECKED
4. Click “Save Changes”

The good news is that 1ShoppingCart handles using PayPal E-Checks for an order seamlessly, and will automatically change the order status from “pending” to “accepted” once the E-Check clears.

E-Checks can take up to 7 days to clear, so it’s important to let the customer know this after they order. This will cut down on customer service requests asking where their order is. I accomplish this by adding the following to my Thank-You page and email confirmation:

“**If your order was paid via PayPal and you used E-Check as your payment method you order will NOT be completed until the E-Check has cleared. E-Check transactions can take up to 7 days depending on your bank.”

Hope this helps!

P.S. If you don’t have Paypal enabled as a payment option I highly recommend testing it. For one of my clients it increased overall sales by 18%. Some people consider Paypal “Play Money” and spend it more easily.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Some companies don’t make it easy for you to update your credit card information.

As a customer, if I have to purchase a product, make a phone call, or click through multiple Web page links to enter my new credit info, I say, forget it, it’s not worth the hassle.

And I’m certainly not sending my sensitive information in an e-mail!

On the flip side, as a business owner, while I may lose sales because of outdated credit info, I lose money paying customer support specialists to take down credit card numbers. And if my method of updating credit info is not secure, I lose the most precious thing of all:

Credibility with my customers.

Is there a solution?

I’m happy to report that there is. If you need a customer to update his or her credit card information, all you need to do is set up a FREE product in your shopping cart and redirect them to that shopping cart address.

That’s right, it’s a win-win situation: You update your customers’ credit card information, while they receive a newsletter, e-mail seminar, or other product absolutely free!

Your customers now have an incentive to update their information–with the added comfort of knowing their input is secure–while you maintain up-to-date records without the hassles of hiring extra customer service reps.

It’s that easy.

Popularity: 27% [?]