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Four Quick Tips for Setting Up Your Online Shopping Cart for a New Product

Four Quick Tips for Setting Up Your Online Shopping Cart for a New Product
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Four Quick Tips for Setting Up Your Online Shopping Cart for a New Product

Today, I'm going to share with you some quick and easy tips for your online shopping cart. This is one of the items on my marketing campaign checklist for releasing a new product. (If you missed the beginning of the series, start here – https://jodycalkins.com/marketing-campaign-checklist/.)

The main point I've been conveying with this series is to plan ahead and have each item ready for your release date.

You obviously need to have the shopping cart set up before you release your new product; that's a given. But you want to make sure you fill in each step.

When it comes to setting up a shopping cart, there are really only a few steps. Whether you are using PayPal, Marketer's Choice, or another merchant service, make sure to follow these tips:

Be Clear

Your item name should be clear about what the customer is purchasing. At the very least, include an abridged version of the product's title or something that makes it clear what the product is about. Also, is it an ebook, audio CD or DVD set, or a workbook? Include that with your item name as well. This gives customers confirmation on what they are buying.

Make It Quick & Easy

Make the buying process easy and let them get in and out quickly. If your customer has to go through too many steps to purchase your new product, he may just decide to cancel his order.

Capture the customer's email address and any other information you must have in order to process the sale. Is it necessary that the customer fill in a shipping address for a digital product? If not, reconsider requiring it.

Send Customers Back to Your Website

Don't leave your customers hanging after a sale. Make use of that "thank you" page you created and direct customers to that page. Give them a way to contact you in case they ever have issues, and if you were not able to sync your customer list with your email marketing service, offer them a free gift or invite them to sign up for your email list for more helpful tips.

Proof Your Work

I know, I know. This is a no-brainer, but as an editor, I feel the need to emphasize this point. It's easy to rush through the process of getting a new product up for sale, but I urge you to persevere for an extra 5 to 10 minutes.

Be sure to check your links, review the item name, and make sure the product price is correct.

If you have the opportunity to customize your cart, inspect the page for formatting issues, misplaced or incorrect punctuation, and spelling errors.

If you've lost your patience and you want to rush through the process and get your product up for sale already(!), I recommend you hire a sharp eye to review each step, as well as your whole marketing package. You've been working on your new product for a while, so give it the best chance at success by slowing down during this review phase and paying attention to the little details.

Here is one IT security-related tip for signing up with a merchant account: use a different email address from the one you use regularly. I have received numerous emails regarding my merchant account, but they are fake. How do I know? I don't have my regular email address associated with the account.

If you receive an email about your merchant account, always, always inspect the link before clicking on it and always make sure you are on the real website before typing in or changing your login information.

Stay tuned for more tips on the marketing campaign checklist. In the meantime, please let me know in the comments below (or hop over to my Facebook wall – https://facebook.com/jodycalkinsbiz) if you have any questions or if you'd like me to feature a particular topic in an upcoming article. Talk to you soon!

Jody Calkins
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