Becoming an efficient online retailer

I've been taking a small amount of orders over the phone or via email and inputting my customers' billing, shipping, and PO info along with each item ordered into an invoice, then sending the invoice to the customer. This is way too much hassle for me. I work full time at my day job and simply don't have enough time or energy to moonlight this retail business unless I figure out how to streamline the process of taking orders.

I met some kind of website/marketing guy at my local small business development center today and tried to explain to him what I need to have done: I need my customers to be able to enter all of their info into my website to create an account, then after logging in to their account, click on each item they want to order. Then the invoice will be automatically generated and I can just print it out and mail to the customer and wait for them to send a check. I don't want them using a credit card. (McMaster Carr is a good example) Well, by his reaction you would have thought I'd just murdered the pope. He had a hard time believing me when I told him the vast majority of my customers pay their bills and I don't want them to have to use a credit card. Anyway, he say's he doesn't know how to create a "checkout system" like I want unless a credit card is involved.

Good grief. Give me a damn break. I'm guessing if the battery died in his car key he wouldn't be able to figure out he can shove the shiny part of the key into the hole and open the freaking door.

Here's my squarespace website:
Roller TamerRoller Tamer
Someone else manufactures it for me. My only involvement currently is collecting royalties and trying to become an efficient online retailer for the product.

-Roland

Why are you trying to avoid the credit card?

Is it the fee, or other reasons? If the fee, you're going to have to accept that it's a cost of doing business efficiently, and realize that it'll save you more time value than it will cost in fee percentage.

He was shocked because he is used to a different customer. I bet your customer base is older, established men and women in a fairly small close knit (even if geographically dispersed) community. He is used to something akin to the average basement dwelling craigslister with the IQ of a milk carton with an ugly kid's picture on it.

I went on your website and have no idea what you even sell... or what you are doing. The funny thing is I spent 10 years as a mechanic for golf courses and know what you sell but man that site sucks.

You need a website developer that has experience (or maybe even specializes) in e-commerce. You should be able to allow several payment options and should even be able to automatically generate an invoice, or at least have it "pop up" so that you can review it and then hit "send". Even though you're "small", it helps at times to look "big", which you can do by automating the ordering process.

The Dude

Great product, but you really need to start accepting credit cards. A lot of people including me would never wait for an invoice to be mailed and a check mailed back before tool is shipped.
Your website needs some improvement too.

There is shopping cart software that has the option to use a credit card, or"print and mail." It's actually considered obsolete by Godaddy, but still works. I don't know if their new version will allow that. In the background control panel there is a place to enable it.
I paid a few "site professionals" in years past to do work, and they never got it done. They also didn't seem to have a clue. A good firend had godaddy's support people write a site, had beautiful pictures, but you couldn't tell what he was selling. As others have said, I like McMaster-Carr. To me, they are the gold standard.

OP, you should be able to set that sort of site up pretty easily using the GoDaddy shopping cart software. Difficulty depends on your product line. How many, variations, etc. Since you have some product descriptions and pictures, it should be done in a day or two easily. Setting up all the various background pages, like shipping rules, checkout rules, will take a little longer than the actual products - it looks like your line is fairly simple.

true temper said:

Great product, but you really need to start accepting credit cards. A lot of people including me would never wait for an invoice to be mailed and a check mailed back before tool is shipped.

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All That ^^^^ in a perfectly shaped nutshell!
And to add to the wait part, for some of us it's also a safe-accounting issue. If I bought it, then I've paid for it. If I've paid for it, then it shows up in my account balance.
If the account balance says I can't afford it, then I will either not buy it or figure out how can I pay for it.

There are plenty of rotten Easter Eggs thrown at us each and every month, I don't need to add any more.
You don't take credit cards = I don't buy from you even if you offer COD or Net30!
Period, The End!

On Edit: Just wanted to add that when I've said Credit Card, I actually meant Debit Card!
I have neither a company CC, nor a personal CC.

I wonder if there is a script or plug in that can be purchased and added to a simple website to acheave this McMaster style?

There should be something avalible. Late here but I may take some time and look tomorrow

I too could use something like this, and yes it would be to avoid credit card fees for larger clients. 2.9% on $20,000 sucks!
Small clients purchase with cc online but large clients is all email and phone. It costs time. If my large clients could simply click and send it would be great. Streamline the process.

Fish On said:

Why are you trying to avoid the credit card?

Is it the fee, or other reasons? If the fee, you're going to have to accept that it's a cost of doing business efficiently, and realize that it'll save you more time value than it will cost in fee percentage.

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Go fuck yourself.

Honestly the website needs a buy it now option in some form or another. Any time you deviate from the norm in, have itch, scratch itch, get relief, your the problem. You want people to buy it easily!

IMHO just set up a std store front end, take all the usual forms of credit and allow 30 day terms if you wish to. Just realize, thoes 30 day terms make more effort and paper work for you! Sure you can automate a lot of it, its not hard to get a system that spits out both shipping labels and invoices etc, but realize you are then into chasing payments and that's time.

Finding the right IT people is everything, some are little more that resellers of std sites. Equally you must realize that custom can have a fair bit of cost too it too!

I'm with Seymour on this one. I use my debit card for practically everything. Remember before debit cards? Sometimes a check would clear in 2 days, sometimes in 10. Made it hard to know exactly how much you had in the bank without a lot of figuring. Debit card is instant, you know exactly how much you have(or don't have).

Giving terms to a customer that you know and have spoken to is totally different that giving terms to just some guy on the internet that creates an account. Once a spammer finds your site they will take advantage of it. Accept credit card and paypal.

We accept cc and paypal. We also have a custom shopping cart where we can flag certain accounts and they are allowed to shop and just get billed ( NET30). Those customers need to have at least a 6 month relationship with us and fill out a creidt application. While they are on terms if they get past 45 days more than twice the are put back on creidt card and no longer have terms.

To the OP, whichever route you decide to take, be wary of who you have developing your website. At the company I work for, we are two years, three web developers, and MANY thousands of dollars into the process of building a site. The owner here is at his wits end and ready to scrap the entire thing.

Point is, be careful with custom if that is what your desired outcome requires. Of everything suggested in this thread, the "obsolete" GoDaddy cart option put forth by eaglemike seems to be most in line with what you're looking for.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

Fish On said:

Why are you trying to avoid the credit card?

Is it the fee, or other reasons? If the fee, you're going to have to accept that it's a cost of doing business efficiently, and realize that it'll save you more time value than it will cost in fee percentage.

Click to expand...

Go fuck yourself.

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Exactly where did this response come from?

I'm not seeing that you even had a cock in this fight up to now?


I'm not even seeing that the OP would have any cause to have such a response?


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Fish On said:

Why are you trying to avoid the credit card?

Is it the fee, or other reasons? If the fee, you're going to have to accept that it's a cost of doing business efficiently, and realize that it'll save you more time value than it will cost in fee percentage.

Click to expand...

EmanuelGoldstein said:

Go fuck yourself.

Click to expand...

You make some strange off the wall comments, but this one takes the cake.

true temper said:

Great product, but you really need to start accepting credit cards. A lot of people including me would never wait for an invoice to be mailed and a check mailed back before tool is shipped.
Your website needs some improvement too.

Click to expand...

Yes, he needs to consider credit cards. The instant payment means that the customer gets his item quicker, and there is no delay.

While it's true that there is something like a 3% discount for credit card, there are sometimes bad or overdrawn checks, too.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

Go fuck yourself.

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Your post says that you are in the UK, but your language tells me that maybe you are really in Chicago.

I've been on here some 13 years now and this is the strangest response yet.

Carry on .

rmcphearson said:

Anyway, he say's he doesn't know how to create a "checkout system" like I want unless a credit card is involved.

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The reason he freaked out is because you just took away all the off-the-shelf solutions from him, and he doesn't have the ability to custom make a brand new system to handle your requests. It'd be like asking the local car dealer to stick a small block Chevy into a KIA. It's not something that can just happen, it takes a lot of figuring out. Its also not what they do on a regular basis. Your project just went from a day or two of cleaning up to a serious project needing ongoing maintenance.

I will also say that your alienating a large audience by not accepting credit cards. Joe Millionaire may want this as an impulse buy for his mowmaster 5000 to show off to the neighbors. He isn't going to want the hassle of doing invoicing and that. I'd wager your existing customers may transition as well, just because of the ease. There are also a lot of buyer protections on credit cards and some people wont want to give them up.

I looked at your website and you have a glaring issue: it doesn't say what the product is/what its used for. I see who designed it, how its made, some users, but nothing deliberately saying what task it performs. This should be the first thing I see upon visiting the website. Nobody wants to dig for that info.

My suggestion is that you get a WooCommerce store setup. You can set them up to allow non-credit card payments but it requires some customization. That said, I strongly suggest you at least maintain the option for credit cards (I, on the other hand, only take credit cards and PayPal).

If you want some help with this, I'm in NJ and can meet up in person to give pointers. I've done it several times.

I also think your website could use some work, an SEO/marketing/design person could be of use there but I'm not one. That said, an SEO person might just discover that you're really reaching all the customers you were going to anyway...but you won't know unless you go looking. Lots of good SEO and statistics on visitors is built right into Wordpress/WooCommerce.