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'The Electronic
Newsletter For Users
Volume XI #19 |
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Address Change!
Five years and it's now time to move again.
As many of you know, traffic here is horrendous (and that's on a good day!) so
we've been looking for a place a bit closer to where most of us live. The
'housing crisis' has given us a chance to get a new place at a bargain price so
we're going for it. Therefore, effective December 1, 2009 please address all
mail to us at:
Suntower Systems
PO Box 1643
Mukilteo, WA 98275
Through the magic of VOIP, the phone and fax numbers remain, respectively, (206)878-0578 and (206)428-6035.
Ollie Discussion: PayPal Update!
It's been some time since we added PayPal support to Ollie and
WebSAFE and we're frankly surprised that it's not become more popular. Feedback
from some of you indicates that there is a stigma about customers using PayPal
for B2B activities but, with all due respect, we'd like to suggest that this view is a bit outdated. If you look at
non-retail-commerce sites you'll see the PayPal logo displayed more and more
every day. Why? There are several great reasons to accept PayPal.
1. Ease Of Purchase For Harried Users. We don't have to tell you that budgets are tight. A lot of customers need things yesterday but just can't get the funding through their departments. PayPal gives them a way to pay for what they need now, get what they need now, then argue about getting reimbursed later.
2. Payment Flexibility Without The Hassle. Credit is tight. PayPal lets you offer customers credit card payments without having to deal with the expense and hassles of a full time merchant account. And customers feel good because PayPal offers them great consumer protections.
3. Collection Help. During this tough economic period, some customers get behind. Again, offering them the ability to catch up with their credit card can be a powerful incentive
OK, SO WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN PAYPAL STANDARD, EXPRESS AND PRO?
The Ollie and WebSAFE Shopping Carts offer a free and seamless
interface to all three current PayPal standards: Standard, Express and Pro. The
tricky part is determining which is right for your business.
PayPal Website Payments Standard (formerly referred to as "PayPal IPN") takes the customer to PayPal's site AFTER the ENTIRE checkout in order to make payment. The customer can pay without having a PayPal account (depending on what country you are in PayPal limits that feature for some countries). After the payment is completed, your store is notified of the completed payment, after which time the order is stored in your database. If the customer pays without making a PayPal account and closes their browser when presented with the invitation to make one, your store sits in limbo and never gets the order (due to a bug in PayPal's logic, which they've not fixed yet). If they do have or make a PayPal account, you get the notification and the order is stored in your database.
If there is any problem in PayPal's ability to communicate to your server, you
will never see the order in your store (or receive the confirmation email from
your store), because it relies entirely on PayPal's server being able to talk to
your server in order to store the order.
WHO IT'S FOR:
PayPal sees Website Payments Standard as a solution for merchants wanting to
collect payments on their site easily, especially if they have no other payment
method available.
PayPal Express Checkout gives the customer two options: They can jump over to
the PayPal site to login to their account before completing checkout on your
store (which allows them to select their address information there and never
have to re-type their address details on your site, thus the "express" part of
the transaction) and then choosing shipping choices and discounts/coupons etc
before completing the order. Or they can go to the PayPal site to login
to their account after making shipping/payment/coupon selections on your site
(and creating an account on your store and typing their address info on your
store), much like they do with Standard. With Express, they may be required to
have/create a PayPal account before they can provide payment details (with some
exceptions based on geographic differences, although most Ollie customers should be able to pay without a PayPal account if you have your
account configured properly.
However, Express does not rely entirely on the IPN communications to your store
in order to release the order. Instead, it stores the order immediately when
payment is completed. It doesn't have to rely on the PayPal server to talk to
your server in order to store the order. Granted, you will want PayPal's server
to be able to send IPN updates to you for any orders, in case you do refunds or
adjustments to the order... so that those updates are reflected in your store's
order history.
WHO IT'S FOR: PayPal sees Express Checkout as a payment option that's offered in addition to
other payment choices such as a credit card gateway, and that adding Express is
a way to allow PayPal members a very quick and easy way to pay using their
PayPal account. Many merchants do use Express Checkout as their sole payment
processing option, even without a credit card gateway.
Website Payments Pro appears to the customer only as a couple fields to enter
their credit card number directly on your website. They have no idea that in the
background you're processing their card via PayPal. They have to make an
account on your site, and supply the address details, but once they confirm the
order, the payment is collected immediately and the order saved. It doesn't rely
on IPN to release the order. However, it does store any transaction updates done
on the PayPal end such as refunds etc as long as IPNs can be received by your
server. Website Payments Pro is currently only offered in the USA, UK, and
Canada. A monthly service charge applies, and there is an account application
process and credit check to complete before the feature can be activated on your
account. PayPal Express Checkout must be enabled in order for Website Payments
Pro to be offered on your site.
WHO IT'S FOR:
PayPal sees Website Payments Pro as a payment gateway for handling credit cards.
That's exactly what it is. Coupled with Express Checkout, it gives your
customers the maximum amount of choice about how to pay: either by credit card
directly on your site, or by using their PayPal account to submit payment.
More information about the various PayPal services can be found on the
PayPal website.
One Other Thing!
Another much-less-commonly-asked-about PayPal service is
Payflow Pro
Payflow Pro is essentially only a merchant account. Transactions conducted
via Payflow Pro (for US Merchants) do not appear in your PayPal account ...
instead, they are forwarded directly to your merchant bank account. Basically,
Payflow Pro is just like any other traditional payment gateway (akin to
Authorize.net etc). In North America you can connect the Payflow Pro service to
your own merchant bank account. In the UK, the Payflow Pro service is actually
bundled as a hybrid service with Website Payments Pro, connecting all the
transactions to your UK PayPal account, and all monies are deposited to your
PayPal account, instead of directly to your bank account.
Ollie does not have built-in support for the US Payflow Pro service. However we
can program to it if required so contact us directly if you are considering
using Payflow for a custom quotation.
Til Next Time!
Ciaran's
Corner: Accessibility
I've been going on a lot about Health Care recently but there's
another side to this that has become personally important to me and we're
committing our company to it's furtherance: Accessibility. Accessibility means
making your business easy to use for all people; regardless of disability. If
you are working with any federal agency, it's actually the law. You must make
your business accessible to all users. And that means your web site!
Business people hate unnecessary expense. That is not only understandable, but necessary. So if I go to a business that has an accessible ramp or other accommodations that aren't obviously there because of a specific ordinance? I usually find that it's because they have a current employee with that need. They didn't make the change as an enticement to future workers, or out of some intrinsic altruism. And that's why there is the law. Because every year there are more and more disabled people and if they can't get in the door (literally) how can they hope to get the job?
And what about your customers? How many of them have trouble reading? Typing? (Heck, I'm using reading glasses and I bet many of you are too!) If you don't make the effort to make your web site accessible, how many potential customers are you leaving out? (Answer: a lot more than you may think.)
What does it mean for a web site to be 'accessible'? In the broad strokes, it means that
a) Your web site works with screen readers for the visually impaired (such as Lynx). All the pictures are properly captioned. All the media files are properly described.
b) It works well with speech to text programs such as Dragon Voice Naturally Speaking so users can activate menus and press buttons by voice command.
c) It means that when you hit the zoom keystroke on your keyboard, the text and picture re-format in a sensible way. (You did know there is a Zoom key in your browser, right? You didn't? Take off your readers and try pressing Ctrl/+, mate.) Note that, as the text gets bigger how crappy the rest of most sites tend to look.
d) It means that the web site functions properly on other alternate devices such as SmartPhones (iPhone, Blackberry, et. al.)
e) It means that your web site can be used without a mouse with keyboard equivalents for everything.
Sadly, most web sites are not accessible. Amazon isn't. Yahoo isn't. E-Bay sure ain't. Maybe that bolsters your feelings to stand pat. Guess what? Target recently paid out six million dollars in this now famous case: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/29/target-settles-accessibility-lawsuit-for-6-million/
In my view, that's just the beginning. Compliance will be necessary, sooner or later. But more than the fear of being sued, and more than the desire to do good, you, as a business person should be focusing on the money. The fact is that it doesn't take a lot of money to make your web site fully accessible. And we can help in two ways:
1. We can offer a validation service to guarantee that your web site(s) are Section 508 compliant. It's usually just a few hours labour, regardless of the size of your web sites. We offer you a comprehensive report that will show you exactly what you need to do to get your site up to snuff.
2. We offer Ollie/9 and WebSAFE. And both are already accessible. Right now. No extra charge. Really.
And what do you do once your sites are accessible?
If it were me? I'd shamelessly place a big, fat logo somewhere on every marketing piece I put out trumpeting how we are a company that is accessible. I'd tell everyone I came into contact with about it and I'd just sit back and wait for comments about the people in their office who would appreciate it. Or how they have a kid at home that needs something like that at school. Over time, you will reach people with this apparent act of altruism.
Even more important, there's the stuff I would not have to do. Namely, I wouldn't have to worry about all the customers I can't reach because they can't use my web site.
Ciarān Marron
Technical Support Manager
cm@suntowersystems.com
End of E-News From The Suntower, Volume XI #19
