While the online fraud rate has remained steady over the last few years, the amount of total dollars lost by online businesses to fraudulent scams has increased. According to recent data collected, online merchants lost about $4 billion to fraud in 2008. The biggest reason why online businesses lost more money to fraudulent scams in 2008 than previous years is simply that riskier transactions were processed. In 2007 on average 4.2% of online orders placed were rejected due to suspicion of fraud. However, in 2008 an average of only 2.9% of transactions were rejected. With the average fraud rate remaining constant this meant that many more fraudulent transactions than the years prior were processed. CyberSource explains “Merchants had to accept more charges lest they turn away sales in tough economic times.”

The dangers of processing fraudulent transactions online range from losing money on the transactions themselves to being fined to lawsuits and even getting your ability to process transactions online revoked. So, what can you do to insure that your ecommerce business is not at risk to lose money?

1. Make Sure Your Provider Is Compliant
   Your ecommerce provider should be PCI Compliant/CISP Certified. Do not just take your provider’s word that they are compliant. Check for yourself that they are on Visa’s independently maintained list.
2. Secure Your Site
   Most merchant account providers (the provider that processes your credit card transactions) will require that you have an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate, which encrypts all information that your customers enter on your site before sending it across the internet. If you do not have an SSL you can get one installed in just a few days. The two most common types of consumer SSLs are 64 bit and 128 bit encrypted. The 64 bit SSL will secure your customers’ data, but not nearly as well as the 128 bit variety. The 256 bit SSL is not a good value for the extra money because it is much more than a traditional ecommerce site would need- those are meant primarily for the government. We strongly recommend the 128 bit SSL for all online stores.
3. Be Cautious When Processing Orders
   Before you charge a customer or ship a product you should make sure that the order looks legitimate. If you have any concerns you can try to contact the customer before you process the order or reject it altogether. Some things to look for that may signal that an order is fraudulent are the following:

• Billing and shipping addresses that don’t match (especially if they are in different countries)
• An IP address from an area different than the billing or shipping address
• A different name on the credit card from the contact information provided
• Multiple orders by the same individual (especially in a short period of time)
• Previous declined orders by that individual
• Large quantities of the same product included in the order (ex. 10 cellphones of the same model)
• High order total compared to your average order size (if it seems too good to be true it probably is)

If you have any questions you can always contact your provider, or ask your peers.

-Kate Pierce eCommerce Specialist

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According to eMarketer the current state of the economy is causing many Americans to stay home and cook, rather than going out for meals. Recipe websites have seen a 10% increase in traffic as consumers hit the Internet looking for ideas for dinner. What makes this increase even more surprising is what users are doing while they are on the recipe sites. Allrecipes.com reported an increase in users searching for lower priced ingredients, as well as searching by ingredient rather than by recipe. This shows that consumers are looking to stay in rather than go out for meals, as well as reduce their weekly grocery bill. The rise in popularity of these recipe websites has created a number of opportunities for online businesses in the food and beverage industry. Whether you are using the popularity of recipe websites to market your online store, or you are looking to make changes in line with this new trend, your business can benefit!

I. Using the Popularity of Recipe Websites

1. Customize your PPC Campaign
   With content network advertising for your Pay Per Click campaigns you can choose to have the ads you are already running appear on recipe/cooking websites (where available). This is a good way to use the popularity of recipe websites to your advantage. Google AdWords even gives you the option of putting placement targeted ads either on all sites in a given category or by individual site.
2. Advertise Directly
   Some websites are not set up to accept ads from third party ad placement companies (like Google, MSN, etc.) but you can advertise with them directly. The popular Allrecipes.com, for instance, sells their own ad space.
3. Link Building/Link Swapping
   Some recipe websites will let you pay to have a link to your online store on their site. Depending on the cost this can be a good idea because it is fairly targeted- you are getting exposure to consumers as they are looking for recipes and learning how to use different ingredients. Other sites (such as recipeland.com) will let you post a link to your online store for free as long as you link back to them.
4. Recipe Submission
   One great way to promote your product is to let other cooks know how it is best used. Some websites (like cooks.com) will let you submit your recipes for viewers to search and download. What better way to sell products like BBQ sauces or spices, than to showcase your signature recipe that uses them?

II. Ideas for Mimicking Recipe Website Success

1. Include Recipes
   This sounds pretty obvious, but it is important even if what you sell is not necessarily an “ingredient-type” product. It is easy for a spice company to post recipes on how best to use their spices to season popular dishes, but other companies can do this as well. Companies selling desserts, coffees or wines, for example, can include recipes for items that compliment their products. Chances are, if your consumer enjoys fine food they also enjoy cooking.
2. Include Photos
   Do not just include photos of the products themselves (ex. the BBQ sauce); include photos of people cooking with or enjoying your products. Using the BBQ sauce example, show ribs basted with your BBQ sauce, people barbecuing in their backyard or at a game day tailgate, etc. Sell the experience, not just the product.
3. Blog
   If you can afford to devote the time to it, a blog is great for showing your customers that you are a serious business. A blog lets you spread information that is relevant and interesting to potential customers. It can gain you a loyal fan base, and it is a way to advertise your products without being too obvious. (Think about how much friendlier and less sales-y it sounds to say “You should check out our blog sometime” versus “Visit our store.”) People tend to be more likely to stop by a blog to check it out if they hear about it, rather than just going directly to the store.

Recipe websites are hot right now, and they are only getting hotter! Let the popularity of recipe websites springboard your food or beverage website to success, or modify your existing site to mimic the appeal of a recipe website.

Ready to partner your food/beverage ecommerce store with Volusion? Try it free today!

-Kate Pierce eCommerce Specialist

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20 Years ago Margie Greenberg got her start in the party planning industry. In her spare time she took cake decorating classes, learning how to make cakes and cookies for her family and friends that looked as good as they tasted. When Abbey graduated from college her older brother told her “You better sell Mom’s cookies!” and five years ago she started doing just that. Margie and Abbey opened www.flourpotcookies.com to sell decorative cookies and accessories. About two and a half years ago they moved their site to Volusion because of the greater flexibility they had when it came to making changes to their website and the 24/7 technical support they could get when they needed assistance. As Abbey explains, “Prior to using Volusion, we would have to pay someone to change a picture or add a product.  It just wasn’t cost effective. I like that I can update anything anytime and if I can’t figure something out, the tech support is very helpful.” Their customers benefit most from this freedom to make changes quickly and easily because they are always getting access to new products.

Less than a year ago they launched a whole line of new products- their corporate logo cookies. Margie and Abbey’s cookies have been featured on The Food Network, and Entertainment Tonight. They have garnered the praise of celebrities like Al Roker and have been featured at company events for FOX, Kenneth Cole, Jimmy Choo, Saks Fifth Avenue, Marriott, Federal Express and many more. They supplied specialty cookies for Madonna’s “Sweet and Sticky” national tour. The credentials go on and on! The Mother-Daughter duo has also written a popular cook book and always has a full schedule for their cookie making classes on weekends. Abbey comments, “We’ve had people come from Massachusetts to Texas for the workshops.  We have a cookie decorating book published- so the workshop is really a chance to take what you may have seen in the book one step further.” They even sell the same cookie cutters and accessories that they use to make their famous cookies so that you can bake like a Greenberg in your own home.

When asked what their customers liked best about their site Abbey states it is the ease of navigation and picture heavy content that keeps them coming back. (Although, it probably also has something to do with the mouth watering cookies.) Abbey’s comments bring to light an important Volusion feature- cost effective bandwidth. The Volusion platform is a great choice for sites with rich picture content because the more pictures your site has, the more bandwidth you can use up each month. Unlike hosting companies that cap you at a certain amount of bandwidth per month Volusion allows you to use as much bandwidth as your site needs and only charges you a minimal fee per gigabyte (GB) of bandwidth you go over your plan during the month. Oppositely, there are hosting companies that fall at the other extreme- offering your hundreds of GBs of bandwidth with poor reliability in their hosting services. Volusion provides only premium managed hosting as part of their monthly plans while allowing you to use the bandwidth your business needs to run. Margie and Abbey have certainly benefited from this freedom and reliability, with almost 900 product photos on their site for customers to browse.

Despite the size and fame of their business Margie and Abbey run www.flourpotcookies.com like a small personal family business. They match wedding invitations to create custom favors for no additional design charge. Any cookie coloring can be substituted for a different shade at no cost. Each cookie is individually wrapped with stylish packaging. Everything about their cookies makes the customer feel like they were designed specifically for them, because well… they were!

-Kate Pierce eCommerce Specialist

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Harvard Business Review journalists Carroll and Mui conducted a comprehensive study looking at all the major US companies that failed in 2008. They published their findings in the September 2008 Issue in a powerful article entitled “7 Ways to Fail Big.” It outlined seven basic categories of mistakes: the synergy mirage, faulty financial engineering, stubbornly staying the course, pseudo-adjacencies, bets on wrong technology, rushing to consolidate, and roll-ups of almost any kind. What they did not discuss was that these seven mistakes can be fatal to ecommerce stores as well. As 2009 continues to fly by make sure your ecommerce business is not falling victim to these common mistakes!

1. “The Synergy Mirage”
   Do not assume that trying to integrate different applications, plug-ins, and services will yield the best results just because each is great on its own. Customer experience can suffer and in the long-run it can be very costly to your business if anything breaks and changes. Find one or two great companies with numerous offerings to do everything you need.
2. “Faulty Financial Engineering”
   Whether free or paid, find reporting tools that will help you to keep a good handle on where your money is going. Tools like ROI trackers can help manage which of your efforts are generating sales, and inventory controls can help you keep track of how quickly you are moving merchandise. Planning and tracking go hand in hand- the more data you can track, the more information you will have when making decisions.
   Volusion’s reporting tools
3. “Stubbornly Staying the Course”
   The world of ecommerce is changing so rapidly that if your original idea or strategy is not working you have to be ready to abandon that concept and develop a new one to succeed. Fortunately, the fast pace of ecommerce also enables you to put a new plan into effect very quickly. In this way, running an online store makes it easy to try new things as frequently as you would like and pause, modify, or end them just as easily.
4. “Psuedo-Adjacencies”
   Many times businesses will try to grow by merely selling more products or expanding their target market. Often this is a bad idea because it is not well planned or reasoned from a customer’s point of view. Say, for instance, you are selling GPS systems. While GPS systems and home DVD players are both electronics few people are going to be in the market to buy them both at the same time. Consumers who already have a home DVD player are not going to see any value in being presented with that same DVD player while they are looking to buy a GPS system. And in a year or so when they are looking to get the newest home DVD player they are probably not going to remember that your store offers them because there is no reason for the DVD player to be associated in their mind with the GPS purchase made earlier in the year. In this scenario, it would be better to have two websites- one dedicated solely to GPS systems and one dedicated to DVD players (unless of course you plan on carrying a full line of today’s most popular consumer electronics).
5. “Bets on Wrong Technology”
   Unlike a retail store, where there is a significant amount of capital investment, it is actually okay to start a website selling a specific new piece of technology- say Blu-Ray Players. But what you have to keep in mind as you do so is that the resources that you put into the site should reflect the transient nature of the site. In other words, do not put all of your money into that one venture if it looks like it is only going to be profitable for a short time (until the next big tech invention is rolled out). Get in, get some return on your investment, and move onto the next venture. Trying to sustain these types of sites can be a big mistake unless you have deep pockets to keep charting the course from fad to fad.
6. “Rushing to Consolidate”
   This point was originally outlined to mean that it can sometimes be the best strategy to let companies around you struggle through mergers and acquisitions instead of being the one struggling. The message here is that it can be a sound decision (both financially and in terms of efficiency) to not always lead the charge into something new. If you cannot really afford to be the first one in your industry doing something new let someone else try first. You will learn from their successes and failures- helping you formulate a game plan all the while.
7. “Roll Ups of Almost Any Kind”
   Generally roll ups refer to unifying many existing groups, teams, divisions, or companies under one unifier. In ecommerce sometimes online business owners try to join together pre-existing “bits” of things to help them operate their store. Say you or your business partner have had a store previously. Why not recycle resources, right? Wrong. More often than not pre-existing Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, domain names, hosting plans, coding, and many more resources are just reopened or given a make-over when a new venture is started to save time. Piecing together old resources can cause a lot of trouble down the road with lost logins, incorrect account information, old contact information, ownership disputes, etc. When you start an online store always start completely from scratch so that there is no confusion as the store grows and expands.

Avoid these seven fatal mistakes and you will enjoy success throughout 2009 and beyond!

Need some help? Partner with Volusion to achieve success!

-Kate Pierce eCommerce Specialist

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Once you have decided you want to start an online business the question still remains “What will you sell?” This is a question that needs to be carefully thought out and planned before moving forward with any entrepreneurial endeavors. Here are six questions to ask yourself before you decide what you will be selling on your online store:

1.    Is it Legal?
Obviously the first question you will want to answer is whether or not the products you are looking to sell are actually legal to sell online. There is no point in doing any further research if what you want to sell illegal to sell online, so hit the books and do your research before giving yourself the green light.

2.    Can You Make Money?
The first thing you will want to do in your business plan is set profit goals for your business- are you looking to run an online store as your primary means of income or is it a supplemental income business? Once you have some firm numbers about what you will expect from your online store in the first six months, one year, and so on, research products to sell as they relate to your numbers. Find out what the profit margin is on the products. Figure out how many you will need to sell to break-even and then to hit your profit goals. You can make money selling almost anything online but what you will need to figure out is how much money you will be investing and how long it will take to recoup that investment and move upward from there.

3.    How Will the Products Sell Online?
Nothing is impossible to sell online but you will need to do appropriate research to understand what will be involved in selling the products you are considering. Look at both the buying and the shipping aspects of selling online. In terms of the buying aspect, some products lend themselves better to being sold online than others (ex. office supplies versus bicycles) but that does not mean that you cannot sell either type of product. Just collect information on what consumers will want to know before they buy and focus on those elements when making your sales pitch. Make sure you structure the buying process so that it mirrors the buying process in a retail store as much as possible. In terms of the shipping aspects, just know that you are probably not the first person looking to sell a particular product online. There are resources to help business owners manage operations like shipping. Go online and do your research to see what other companies are doing.

4.    Do You Know Much about the Products?
Obviously it is better to sell something that you are very knowledgeable about, but with enough research you can sell something that you may not have had much experience with in the past- you will learn as you go. Just be willing to put in the time and effort to learn. Use all of the resources around you as much as you can- friends and family, colleagues, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, etc. With all of this free information at your fingertips you can get all of the product information you would need to sell almost any product online like a pro!

5.    How Will You Set Yourself Apart?
By not being the first to sell a certain product online you gain the advantages of having information and resources available to you to help you succeed in your endeavors, but it also means that you have competition. Before deciding on what to sell get a sense of how you will set yourself apart from the existing competitors out there. Study your soon-to-be competition and find out what they are doing well and what gaps in their offerings you can fill to provide a better customer experience. Be it unique packaging, faster/cheaper shipping, innovative promotions, lower prices, etc. you will need to have an idea of how you will sell your products to be successful.

6.    Are you Passionate about the Products?
Only you can tell if the products you are thinking of selling are ones that will really interest and excite you but the best advice in online selling is pick something you love and let the rest follow from there!

Ready to start your online store now? Try Volusion free.

-Kate Pierce eCommerce Specialist

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