While e-commerce has demonstrated rapid growth and innovation, many consumers are still either afraid to shop online or do so with great caution due to concerns about their safety.  Last week top ecommerce site Trade Me warned users to be vigilant as international cyber scammers target their site.

Criminals are emailing users requesting personal information posing as the online auction site. The hackers are sending “Phishing” emails using embedded links to retrieve information, allowing them to take control of a user’s account and with it private details such as banking data and addresses.

As is normal procedure on Trade Me, any buyer showing interest in a “sale” is requested to contact the seller by phone or email for further information, at which point the fraudsters strike.

While Trade Me says no New Zealander’s have yet to fall victim to scam. It is stories like these that further fuel consumer apprehension.

Countless studies reflect online shopper anxiety. Research shows that identity theft and site information security concerns are leading drivers of online shopping cart abandonment.

Trust is imperative to the success of any business and even more so for your online business. Trust is a very fragile asset; once broken you often have to begin rebuilding from the ground up. It can take time to nurture a relationship with your customers and prove that your business is trustworthy.

However, it is still possible to improve customer trust and drive increased conversions online despite challenging dynamics.

A safe and secure website is the most crucial element to building online trust. Using the latest encryption technology is common practice for a reputable online merchant - ensuring that customer data is secure is just good business sense. More importantly, what will set you apart from your competition is effectively communicating and reinforcing your commitment to the safety and security of all your customers.

To begin with you must publish a policy guaranteeing your customer’s privacy. If you want your customer to fill in their details you must reassure them what you are going to do with their personal information; who has access to that information, including product purchases and who owns the website. 

But you have to go beyond this. You must be proactive in order to gain trust. To create a “worry-free” shopping process you should include clear policies on shipping, returns and privacy as well as security and product guarantees. Don’t burry these on a customer service page; link to them throughout the checkout process to reassure your customers.

Product descriptions should be as accurate as possible, consider including detailed images as well as in-depth descriptions. Customer service contact information should be easily accessible during the entire shopping process – consider a live chat for instant answers.

You may even go as far as redesigning your shopping cart. It is best practice to only ask for the information you require. Nothing causes more concern about privacy than merchants attempting to collect seemingly irrelevant information; customers are likely to wonder whether you’re going to use it for purposes other than completing their order. If you do require any non-standard order information, explain why you need it; if you’re asking additional questions for demographic purposes without requiring customers to supply the information, clearly label them as optional, and include an explanation – as well a link to your privacy policy.

Your reputation is effected by those you associate with. Use trusted, reputable vendors and display security certification logos. These should feature throughout the checkout process and it can help if they are clearly visible on the page rather than hidden in the footer.

A professional website is more likely to give your visitors the confidence to purchase online. Design, load time, content, typos and broken links all impact your credibility.

For more information about how you can convert your visitors into customers why not attend a free educational Zeald seminar or webinar.

We are often asked, "What should my bounce rate be? what is a normal conversion rate? What should I be aiming for?
With this post we bring together stats and metrics from around the world to help us formulate the most accurate and up-to-date averages most relevant to small New Zealand business, to use as benchmarks. Please keep in mind, that these averages are just that and, these figures will vary wildly depending upon your industry, your target customer, your goal types etc.

Conversion rate

In a report from Google based on website metric data from hundreds of thousands of anonymous Google analyics  accounts. From November 1, 2010 - February 1, 2011.

New Zealand 1.8% - Is rather high in comparison to the rest of the world.

Bounce rate

In a report from Google based on website metric data from hundreds of thousands of anonymous Google analyics  accounts. From November 1, 2010 - February 1, 2011.
New Zealand 0.42 - is somewhat lower than most other countries around the world

European B2C e-commerce is growing in waves.

JULY 30, 2007 - With an annual growth rate of 25% over the next four years, the market will triple in size by 2011, reaching $407 billion.

B2C E-Commerce Sales* in Europe**, 2006-2011 (billions and % increase vs. prior year***)

The UK, Germany and France currently dominate European e-commerce, accounting for 72% of total online sales

What Works, and What Doesn't, in Online Marketing

In an end-of-the-year survey, online marketers were asked to look back at what worked for them in 2006 and also peek ahead at their spending plans for 2007.

Search Engine Facts

The power of search engines - facts:

46% of all websites are found through search engines
55% of all online purchases result from websites found through search engines
95% of people do not look beyond the top 20 search engine positions

How websites are found:

46% by search engines
20% random surfing
20% word of mouth
4.4% magazine ads
1.4% television

sources: Neilson/Net Ratings, IMS strategies, Harris Interactive and NPD Group

Annoying Website Characteristics

Website Characteristics that US adult internet users find extremely to somewhat annoying when they visit websites to obtain information about products or services that they are interested in purchasing - July 2005

Source - Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) commissioned by Hostway, July 2005

Products purchased online by US Users

Computer Activities of US Adults by Gender - 2006

US Email Marketing Campaign metrics

US Retail Ecommerce Sales

Statistics from www.emarketer.com

Studies show that nearly 75% of all online shopping carts are abandoned. In order to understand the reasons why, a Customer Experience Management firm conducted a study - have a read of the results.

How can you stop this from happening? A few tips from us:

1. High shipping prices

Shipping is a tricky area - free shipping is obviously a great incentive for the shopper to buy from you. But if you do that, you might have to absorb the costs, which can become expensive depending on the size of the product and how far you have to deliver the product.

There a number of strategies to stop this from happening:

• Offer free shipping for orders over a certain amount. This is a 'win-win' for both you and your visitor.
• If you have a physical retail store, offer the option of picking up from store to avoid the extra cost.
• Offer a slower shipping option (which is hopefully free or at the very least cheaper) and also a faster shipping option.

2. Comparative shopping

This is where a visitor is considering a few websites that sell the exact same product. Even though you might be selling the same product or service as another website, there are things you can do to stand out:

• Loyalty programs can also be very successful - you can use email marketing and social media to promote your programs and establish loyalty.

3. Changed mind

To persuade your website visitors to go through the sale before and stop them from changing their minds, you can use a few techniques:

• Use detailed testimonials from customers that are happy with your products and services - include all their details and even a picture if possible so your website visitor is persuaded of the benefits of your products.
• Create urgency by offering specials for a limited time. You could include free shipping for a limited period or you could offer discount on products - whatever works with for you at the time.
• Indicate how much stock you have left of the item - especially for ones that are low. Kiwi t-shirt company icon, Mr. Vintage customise their site with a scale to indicate stock amount, which almost always creates urgency.

4. Total cost of items is too high

There are things you can do to help your visitors if the cost of items is too high:

• Offer discounts on multiple product purchases.
• If you sell bigger price items like furniture offer loan options if possible or monthly payments if they are on-account customers.

5. Checkout process is too long

Optimising your checkout process is a very important part of making sure that you convert visitors into customers. A few tips from us:

• Make it easy for your visitor to access the shopping cart at all times. They should be able to stop browsing on any page and click through to the cart to complete purchase.
• Once they have started the checkout process make sure that you minimum number of steps to finish the purchase.
• Don't make it compulsory to create an account, offer the option of buying the products without signing up. Chances are that if they are happy with the products they will come back and sign up if you offer benefits like remembering details so shopping process is shortened.

6. Checkout process requires too much personal information

This is an easy mistake to make - many websites use the sale process to get as much information as possible where as it should be the opposite.

Make it as easy as possible for the visitor to purchase from you - only ask the absolutely vital information. You can always get the rest after the purchase or you can email them.

7. Site requires registration before purchase

We touched on this point above - don't make it compulsory to create an account. This can often deter - instead split the page into two and offer both options. Sign in/register and go through checkout without signing in.

8. Site is unstable or unreliable

It's extremely important to regularly check your site and all the pages to make sure that everything is functioning as expected. You don't want your visitor to feel like they are dealing with an unstable site. Part of having a reliable site is also going with a reliable web developer who makes sure that the site doesn't go down frequently, making your visitors nervous about placing orders with your site.

The other aspect is building trust in your site - if you want someone to put in their payment details on your site, they need to be sure that you can be trusted with their credit card details. We highly recommend using a payment gateway such as DPS or PayPal. These days most e-commerce sites display some form of secure payment gateway which put the visitor at ease especially when ordering from a new site.

9. Checkout process is confusing

If you're unsure whether your checkout process is smooth and easy to navigate through, try out some usability testing:

• Approach a few people - family or friends and ask them to participate in a quick test.
• Get them to go through the process of ordering something from a few of the most successful online stores like Amazon (they don't have to completely finish the process - just get as far as payment).
• Then get them to try doing the same on your site. Watch them work through it and get them to give you objective feedback.

This can be very valuable in seeing if your user finds it easy to navigate through or if they are feeling a bit stuck in certain areas.

The ecommerce website designers you select and the technology you choose to build your site with will be a major influence on the success of your new website. But how do you make a good decision? This article talks through some of the key factors that you need to understand.

 

More Than Pretty Pictures

People often consider websites to simply be a more modern version of a printed brochure or business card, in practice so much more can be achieved. Websites need to be useful to the end user. On the internet the competitive environment is different - people have much more choice, and the competition is two clicks away rather than 20 minutes drive! If your website doesn’t give the user what they want quickly and easily they will go elsewhere. In particular a website needs to be fluid; it must be constantly evolving, up-to-date, and usable. Ecommerce website designers are beginning to realise that the old methods of building a website and providing an ongoing 'update service' is not good enough.

Static versus Dynamic

A static site is a collection of website documents that require website design skills to update. Users of the site can navigate and view these pages, but because they are “static” nothing will change until the original ecommerce website designers change it.
A dynamic ecommerce website is an application. The website is able to respond to the user inputs, allowing more advanced features like forms, shopping carts, forums, searches and database access. A good dynamic website will also provide tools that enable the website owner to create and update website content without any assistance from the original ecommerce website designers.
These dynamic features are very important to a serious website owner. An ecommerce website should not be thought of as a static brochure. For an ecommerce website to be effective it should be constantly evolving. It should be going through a continual process of measurement and improvement. A good dynamic website system should continually measure your ecommerce website performance and feed-back to you any problem areas that are occurring.

Why Not Flash?

Flash is a technology often used to create animation on the web. While it can create visually impressive movies and presentations, and is definitely useful for specialist purposes, it has some fundamental flaws that make it unsuitable for general purpose ecommerce websites. Below are some basic reasons for steering clear of flash unless it is used very carefully in a very specific setting.

• Flash websites tend to be created once and then left alone.
• Flash content is typically superficial, and seldom provides useful information to the customer.
• Flash typically requires an external specialist designer to create and update the content. This content can quickly become stale.

 

Ecommerce Websites

Ecommerce is defined as the process of selling and buying goods and services via the internet. When selling your goods and services online, it is important to display your products and services in a simple and logical way so that they are easy to find. It must be very simple and intuitive to navigate the website and use the buying functions. Placement of the products, sales copy, product photography, general page design and so on will all make significant differences as to whether your products sell well or poorly.
Security is a vital factor when collecting sensitive information over the internet. Your ecommerce website should use a technology called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to protect all sensitive information. Customers want to know that all key information is safe from theft when they shop online.
After an online payment is received, an order confirmation needs to be sent immediately to the customer letting them know that their payment was received and their shipment will be sent out as soon as possible. Remember, many customers will be a little nervous when they purchase off you for the first time. It is important that you reassure them as soon as possible.
The final part of the process the business will be alerted that an order has been placed and needs to be shipped as soon as possible.

 

Selecting an Ecommerce Website Designer

 

DIY Ecommerce Website Designers

This option involves purchase a piece of the software that will assist in the authoring of a website and taking the DIY approach. You will need to select a software package, learn the software package and create the website.
This method is used as an initial attempt by many small businesses. It is often a cheap alternative to commissioning a professional ecommerce website designer. Unfortunately the time required to learn not only the technology but also the techniques and the methods required to build a successful ecommerce website is enormous. Skilled ecommerce website designers and developers generally require a tertiary qualification and years of experience. A successful ecommerce website requires a rare combination of artistic, technical and online sales and marketing skills
Most ‘Do It Yourselvers’ end up spending a lot of time producing a ecommerce website that is a complete failure. How do we know? We are talking to people who have taken this path every day! The time and energy that you will spend learning a software package and how to design and build an ecommerce website is far better spent concentrated on the important aspects of the ecommerce website that relate directly to your business – sales copy, photography, marketing and promotional strategy, customer service policies etc.

 

Cowboy Ecommerce Website Designers

Your uncle's aunt's nephew's cousin can NOT cheaply build you a successful ecommerce website, any more than they can build you a house or fix your car. The website development industry is still a very young one - most website development companies only started to appear in the mid-nineties. So, it is perhaps not surprising that the WWW sometimes resembles the Wild Wild West.

 

Graphic Designers -> Ecommerce Website Designers

Since you already have an existing relationship with someone who designed your business cards for you; you might wonder whether they can build you an ecommerce website. Graphic designers generally have just *one* of the skills needed to produce a good ecommerce website: they have the ability to produce something that looks good.
Unfortunately graphic designers tend to focus on this to the exclusion of many other important aspects such as usability and functionality
In many cases to deal with the technology, design agencies will have a relationship with a website development company who will implement the website designs that the design agency produce. This can prove expensive and cause issues with support and communication.
For websites with limited functionality, a website design agency will produce a static site. The real problem with this method does not become apparent until you have to pay for the time and expertise of a professional ecommerce website designer to make any small changes to your ecommerce website.

 

Website Development Companies

Website development companies specialise in the construction of websites and have the required technical skills to produce an ecommerce website with all the bells and whistles. This is sometimes the downfall of such an approach, because this functionality is often at the expense of the design. If a design is not professional looking, you run the risk of not only losing customers, but more importantly degrading your company image and brand.
Most website development companies can setup a dynamic system for your ecommerce website, but it will come at a price. Because they are constantly rebuilding the wheel, designing and building websites from the ground up each time, the cost of building a dynamic ecommerce website can be very expensive. These completely custom dynamic ecommerce systems are unable to leverage off the testing and constant improvement process that occurs when many websites are built on a single ecommerce website engine (or ecommerce product). Once the initial website development is over and your ecommerce website has been launched, you are “on your own”. Further enhancements to the ecommerce website and the system come at a cost. Support is often limited as the website and the associated system becomes completely out-dated.

 

Ecommerce Website Products

Whenever a new technology is introduced everyone builds their own customised solution using the new technology. Eventually products are developed that utilise the technology. These products become the standard – or the common way to utilise the new technology. And once these standard products are developed, prices drop and the technology becomes cheaper to obtain. By reinventing the wheel each time, there is little standardisation, commonality and consistency and the cost is high. Custom-building a dynamic ecommerce system for your business will either result in a very high cost or a poor solution. Many ecommerce website products now exist that provide a high quality solution for a very reasonable cost

 

The Cookie Cutter Ecommerce Website Product

A cookie cutter ecommerce website product allows the customer to design their own website very quickly by completing a quick ‘wizard’. The ‘wizard’ will take the owner through a quick set of questions such as; website layout, colours, logo etc. Cookie cutter ecommerce websites are low-cost because the remove the consultative part of building a website. The website owner is given no assistance from a website expert and the key areas of design and planning are removed from the website development process. The result: a poorly planned website that looks highly unprofessional. (These comments may sound extreme – but if you are considering an ‘cookie cutter’ type solution try checking out the portfolio of websites that have been produced. For example – take a look at the Yellow Pages Site Builder websites (www.yellowpages.co.nz)).

 

The Zeald Ecommerce Website Product

The Zeald ecommerce website product provides the benefits of outside expertise (experienced internet consultants, website designers and developers) combined with a powerful and flexible website product. It contains a suite of tools that provide you with everything you need in order to be amazingly successful online (Find Out More About The Zeald Product >>)
Summary
There are so many different options and methods for producing an ecommerce website. Take your time, inform yourself, become aware of the pitfalls and you will be secure in the knowledge that you have made an educated choice.

 

Good Luck!

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“Is Your Website Producing Amazing RESULTS?”

Find out how Zeald can help you with your ecommerce website design

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Online merchants convert an average of 2%-3% of their site visitors into buyers, according to the e-tailing group's "Sixth Annual Merchant Survey."

That's about the same as last year. And the year before that.



Shop.org conducts a similar annual survey with Forrester Research called "The State of Retailing Online." Conversion rates in that study also average about 2%-3%.

If your customers can’t book your products with instant confirmation, you may lose out to your competitors who can. Response times to booking requests within 24 hours are now just not good enough.

We believe that a tourism operator needs a simple tool to manage their reservations. Tourism Operators today also need to ensure that their inventory of rooms, tours or cars are exposed in as many appropriate online channels as possible to maximise bookings opportunities. You need an easy to use system so the technology helps instead of stresses!

One of New Zealand's leading Reservation Management and Online Booking Distribution systems is called ResBook, a system which is all about maximising bookings and managing reservations.

As the oldest and largest provider of online real time reservation management systems in New Zealand and the South Pacific ResBook have developed a simple system that manages your reservations and connects you with direct travellers, booking agents and online distribution channels. 

Availability’s system; ResBook enables you to;

• Display your Availability throughout your website with customisable booking forms
• Instant confirmation or On Request bookings
• Secure online payment processing
• Dynamic pricing calendar
• Free access to hundreds of agents
• Integrate your inventory with Wotif, Expedia, Air New Zealand and hundreds of channels – at no additional cost for the integration.

For more information see www.availability.co.nz or call 09 5 222 333

There are a number of alternative systems in the New Zealand marketplace, one of which is Seekom.  Seekom allows accommodation, rental car and tour/activity suppliers to easily setup and maintain rates and inventory allocation, from one easy point to your sales network. The one centralised booking solution allows you to maintain just one central booking schedule allowing you and your sales network to sell your product or service with instant confirmation.

Link to your booking page from your own website and from your profile pages featured on accommodation portal sites such as www.kiwiaccommodation.com

The Seekom booking solution allows you to setup and your users to specify
> Date of arrival
> Date of Checkout
> Number of nights
> Number of adults
> Number of children
> Number of rooms
> Deposit amount
among other options

Users can then pay their deposit by credit card to confirm the booking.

More information

The average sale is the amount of money a visitor spends each time they come to your website. Average sale is a metric that will only be applicable if you are running an ecommerce website.

If you are running an Profile or Catalogue website then your average sale will be affected by what you or your sales people do once they receive an enquiry from your website.

To increase your average sale you need to encourage your customers to spend more money each time they visit. This is called merchandising. There are a huge number of merchandising techniques. Let’s look at some of the more common online ones:

• Cross-sells
  Cross-selling is a powerful technique for increasing the size of your customer’s order. Cross-selling involves “suggesting” related products or services to a visitor when they are viewing or buying a product or service from your website.
  
  For example, if your visitor is buying a hammer then you might want to display a number of different types of nails.
  
  The most common way of doing this on a website is by displaying cross-sell items in the right column or below the item when a visitor is viewing an item, their shopping cart or checking out.

• Up-sells
  Up-selling is when you “suggest” a more ‘advanced’ or ‘expensive product’ to the one that is currently being viewed or considered. For example, if your visitor is buying a chrome tap then you might try and up-sell your visitor by displaying a gold-plated version of the tap as another option.
  
  This is usually done in a similar way to the cross-sell– you display the up-sell item in the right column or below the current item as the visitor views it, or at their shopping cart or check-out screens.

• Specials
  Placing a number of items on ‘special’ and featuring them on your home page, or on a separate ‘specials’ page can be an extremely effective way of increasing your average sale. A ‘sharp’ special can be just what is needed to get your visitor to hit that add to cart button. Remember, The first item in the shopping cart is always the hardest.

• Wish-lists
  A “wish-list” feature allows your visitor to build up a list of items that they would ‘like’ to purchase at a later date. When your visitor returns to your site they are able to look back over their wish list and make a decision to purchase. If a customer has decided to make an order, many times they will add some extra items from their wish list in addition to the items that they are ordering.
  
  For even better results you could provide a feature where your visitors can email their wish list to a friend or family member (as a gift-guide), which has the added bonus of bringing a new visitor to your website.

• Quantity pricing
  ‘Quantity’ or ‘volume pricing’ is where you offer a cheaper price or a bigger discount as an incentive for a bigger order. For example, if you buy one pack of nails it will cost $12.45, but if you buy five packs of nails then they’ll only cost $8.50 per pack. You are actively providing an incentive for your visitors to buy in bulk and thus spend more money ‘up front’.

• Gift vouchers
  Gift vouchers can be a great way to attract extra visitors to your site and encourage your visitors to purchase more. Offer your visitors the opportunity to purchase gift certificates and have them emailed to a friend.

• Buy one, get one free
  Run a special ‘buy one, get one free’ promotion or a ‘buy two, get one free’ - use whatever will convince your visitors to buy.
  
  This strategy works especially well with ‘end-of-season’ or ‘clearance items’ that you need to shift.

• Free shipping on orders over $xyz
  We have seen this strategy work very well with a number of our customers. Free shipping on all orders over $50! This encourages your visitors to top up their orders to ensure that they get the ‘free shipping’.

• Free gift
  Buy X and receive a free gift. This can be a great technique if you have a product that fulfills a customer need, but is just not converting. Ideally, you want to use a gift that has a high-perceived value but costs you very little. A small ‘free gift’ can sometimes be just enough to overcome the last little bit of buyer reluctance.

• Best sellers
  If something is a ‘hot seller’ or ‘popular item’ and you are barely promoting it, then chances are, a little bit more promotion could mean a large increase in results. Great merchandisers will often focus on their best selling items, not their worst.

• New items
  Consider having a section that introduces new items that have ‘just arrived’. This can be great for those early adopters who love to try out anything that’s new and always be on the leading edge.

• Package deals
  Try combining a number of items into a package deal. Offer a special discount if the customer buys certain items as a ‘package’. Think of fast food meal deals where they package up a burger, fries and a coke. Do you have a number of your products or services that you could package up? What will be attractive to your customers?

Delivery is an important part of any web site plan. How will the goods or services be delivered to the customer? Internet shoppers are becoming very savvy. They are aware that the shipping and handling can add a substantial amount to the total cost of their purchase. Therefore, this process needs to be handled with care. There are a number of different ways that delivery costs can be charged:

1. Free Delivery!
   
   We recommend this method for an e-commerce web site wherever possible - with a prominent highlight on the homepage that says FREE DELIVERY! Online customers do not appreciate having to go through almost the entire shopping process (product selection, order submission etc.) before finding out what their delivery charges will be. They are often wary of, and discouraged from purchasing on the Internet, for fear of incurring costly shipping charges, as well as being confused by additional charges for rural, Saturday or special deliveries.
    
2. Delivery rate based on delivery address
   
   This delivery method works well. It rewards bulk orders and covers the cost of small orders via your web site. You don’t need to do complex calculations based on the weights or volumes of each product and you do not need to store the weight or volume of every product.
   
   Example:

   Delivery Area	Cost
   Auckland	$5
   North Island	$10
   South Island	$20

   
    
3. Delivery rate based on product price or number of products
   
   This delivery method works well for shops that sell a range of products of similar size, shape and price - where the delivery cost is similar. It can reward bulk orders and covers the cost of small orders. You don’t need to store and manage the weight or volume of every product and it is simple for customers to understand.
   
   Example:

   Product price or number of products	Cost
   $0 - $20	$5
   $20 - $30	$10
   $30 - $40	$15
   $40 - $50	$20
   $50 +	Free

   
    
4. Custom shipping (Delivery rate based on the product weight / volume / price / number of products and the shipping address and express options)
   
   This delivery method is technically difficult to set up on a web site and requires a large amount of extra information to be loaded about every single product or service (as often you will need to store the weight or volume for every single product). It can also be very confusing for a customer. Make sure you approach it with care and use it only when there is no other possible option.
   
   Example:

   Service	Area	Weight / volume / price / number of products	Cost
   Standard delivery	Auckland	0 - 2 kgs	$5
   		2 - 3 kgs	$10
   		3 - 4 kgs	$15
   	North Island	0 - 2 kgs	$7
   		2 - 3 kgs	$12
   		3 - 4 kgs	$17
   	South Island	0 - 2 kgs	$10
   		2 - 3 kgs	$15
   		3 - 4 kgs	$20
   Express delivery	Auckland	0 - 2 kgs	$10
   		2 - 3 kgs	$15
   		3 - 4 kgs	$20
   	North Island	0 - 2 kgs	$12
   		2 - 3 kgs	$17
   		3 - 4 kgs	$22
   	South Island	0 - 2 kgs	$15
   		2 - 3 kgs	$20
   		3 - 4 kgs	$25

When selling internationally you do not charge GST (tax). This does not change when you are selling online via your web site. 

In order to facilitate this effectively it is recommended that international merchants separate the GST portion of product prices. The Zeald E-business Suite (ZES) will then automatically remove the GST amount if the billing address is outside of New Zealand. 

Real-time Automatic credit card transaction processing by a website is achieved through a Payment Gateway

When a credit card order is placed through a website using a payment gateway, the credit card details are sent securely by the website directly to the payment gateway. The credit card details are then verified by the payment gateway through a direct connection with the users bank to validate and check for available funds. Once these details have been checked and OK’d the transaction is processed and completed, the funds are automatically transferred to the merchants account.

“Direct Payment Solutions” are the only certified gateway to have seamless connectivity for settlement into every New Zealand Bank.

Who are Direct Payment Solutions DPS?

DPS are a Payment and Billing Service Provider and the only certified gateway to have seamless connectivity for settlement into every bank in NZ, the 4 majors in Australia and Citibank in Singapore. DPS develops software which processes credit card transactions, in real time.

DPS evolved from CSD; the software development company which produced and certified several leading processing solutions, including the OCV Server, which was subsequently, licensed to Ingenico, ANZ and St George banks in Australia and PC Eftpos – the first integrated Windows POS / EFT-POS solution. In 2000 the PC EFTPOS technology was spun off in a multimillion-dollar deal to the ANZ bank and DPS replaced the legacy OCV Server with a next generation, zero hardware solution - Payment Express™.

STEP 1. Business Merchant Account

Before setting up a Payment Gateway a Business Merchant account must first of all be established with the bank that you wish to have all web transactions processed into. This will allow you to process Credit cards directly into your Bank account
You will need to approach your bank directly and ask them to arrange a “Business Merchant Account”

If you are a retailer or already process credit cards you will likely already have a Merchant account setup with your bank.

If you do not already have a Merchant account, you should talk to your bank and complete both Step1 and Step 2 at the same time.

STEP 2. Merchant Facility

With the Merchant account in place, the next requirement is a “Merchant Facility” This function will allow the DPS Payment Gateway to connect directly to your bank account and deposit the funds of any orders processed through your website

You will need to approach your bank directly and ask them to arrange a “Merchant facility”

Depending upon the different “Card types” that you would like to offer your clients to pay with, you will need to arrange a “merchant facility” with one, or a combination of the following “acquirers”

If you want to accept Visa and MasterCard, you will need to contact either: ANZ (NZ), ASB, BNZ, NBNZ or Westpac (NZ).

For American Express and JCB cards, you will need to apply for a merchant facility with American Express in their local country. To accept Bankcard, please contact either ANZ or Westpac. To be able to process Diners, please contact Diners directly.

DPS can also authorize Farmers card in NZ; please speak to Farmers Merchant services about this process for more information.

Please make sure to advice your banking representative that you are using Payment Express and that you need an ‘electronic merchant number’ (sometimes called: ETSL number, Eftpos number or Terminal ID) for DPS to process transactions.

Step 3. Confirm your DPS Price Plan

Please contact the Zeald support team to discuss your specific requirements

STEP 4. Payment Gateway Setup

• Once an application has been received by DPS from Zeald, a user account will be setup to provide access to the DPS Payment Manager and relevant software.
• Customer’s can evaluate the software free of charge for 30 days (test transactions only), after which an invoice will be sent out (for the set up fee only). Monthly fees are not charged until you are set up for processing ‘live’ transactions.
• Activation - Live DPS account details are issued: new user name / password for the live merchant account. Merchants can then access reports and process manual transactions via our Payment Manager interface.

Support

Please contact Zeald via email sales@zeald.com or by phone +64 9 309 4693 if you have any questions.
We are here to help and look forward to working with you.

Acquirer Contacts

ANZ - 0800 338 767
American Express - 0800 800 855
ASB - 0800 272 555
BankCard - Please contact either ANZ or Westpac
BNZ - 0800 737 774
Diners - 0800 346 377
Farmers Card - 0800 101 170
JCB - 0800 800 855
National Bank - 0800 473 453
Westpac - 0800 888 066

In order for your business to process credit card transactions online automatically, via a payment gateway, you must set up a ‘merchant account for the processing of Internet based transactions’ (this is different to a standard business merchant account).

To do this, you should approach your bank and request that they send you the forms for setting up a ‘merchant account for the processing of internet based transactions’.

Credit card payment processing on a Zeald ecommerce web site is done automatically by a facility called a ‘payment gateway’.

With automatic credit card transaction processing, the details are sent securely by the system to a ‘payment gateway’. The details are then verified by the ‘payment gateway’ for validity and available funds. Once these details have been checked, the transaction is processed and completed.

Using one of our recommended payment gateways ensures your credit card processing is both secure and compliant with the highest and most exacting of industry standards and requirements for payment processing online ("PCI Compliant").
 

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Display Symbols of Accepted Credit Cards

 

 

Consider displaying symbols of credit cards on your web site home page. This communicates instantly that the web site has e-commerce capabilities. It is not necessary to show every accepted credit card on the home page, but it is a good idea to provide a link to a list of accepted cards. This is especially useful for customers with obscure credit cards; they want to know in advance whether your web site accepts theirs.

When setting up an e-commerce web page design you need to decide exactly what methods of payment you are going to provide your customers with. The most common form of payment on a web site is a credit card, but there are a number of other options. A summary of these options follows:

 

• Direct Credit
  
  The customer places their order through the web page design, then transfers the money directly into your bank account. You ship the goods once the payment has been received and verified.

 

• Cheque
  
  The customer places their order through the web page design, then sends you a cheque. You ship the goods once the cheque has been received and processed.

 

• Purchase Orders
  
  Purchase orders are useful for web sites that specialise in business-to-business transactions or transactions with account customers. The customer enters a purchase order number and the goods are shipped to the customer. The customer is billed at the end of the month for their purchases.

 

• Cash on Delivery
  
  The customer places their order through the web page design. Goods are shipped to the customer and the customer pays via cheque or cash on delivery.

 

Remember – always make it as easy as possible for your customers to purchase from you. Credit cards are the best and most common form of payment – but always look to provide alternative methods of payment. Many people are wary when first purchasing from a web site, especially if it is unknown. They may feel more comfortable with a more traditional method of payment. Allow people to fax or phone-in their payment details with a 0800 number.

The enquiry page allows your user to lodge an enquiry with your company. The purpose of this web page is to collect all the necessary information from the user in order to successfully respond to their enquiry.

It is important that you consider very carefully what information needs to be collected from the customer in order to successfully process their enquiry, as this will make the process as quick and easy as possible. One of the most important pieces of information you can collect is the customer's email address. This gives you a cost-efficient way of communicating with them as well as an opportunity to send further promotions to them in the future via your customer database.

In order to collect this valuable information automatically, it is a good idea to incorporate a standard form into your web page design.

The checkout page allows your users to complete their order on your web site. The purpose of the page is to collect all the necessary information from the user, to allow their order to be processed.

It is important that you consider very carefully what information needs to be collected from your customers in order to successfully process an order, as you need to make this process as efficient as possible. One of the most important pieces of information you can collect is the email address of the customer. This gives you a way of communicating very easily with them as well as an opportunity to send further promotions to them in the future.

Some of the most common information you will collect on the checkout page is:

 

• Delivery details

• Billing details

• Any special instructions

• Payment details