The Dreaded Chargebacks

If there is one word most Internet marketers quiver at the sound of, it is Chargebacks. A chargeback is a dispute over a charge - usually an unauthorized or fraudulent charge- between the customer and the company. The merchant must pay back the entire amount along with any credit card fees. This amount is automatically deducted from your merchant account.

There are three main problems about chargebacks that concern the merchant:

1. They lose the payment and also the inventory if it was sent,

2. Fees associated with every chargeback are between $15 to $25, and worse of all

3. Chargebacks don’t look good, and you may lose your merchant account. Merchant services are pretty finicky; they do not just hand out accounts to anyone.

The customer could either be dissatisfied with the product, or there could be a duplicate order, or it could be fraud. Whatever the reason may be, it is crucial to your online business to keep chargebacks to a minimum. One way to stop chargebacks is to stop fraudulent orders by checking to make sure the order seems legit. This may mean you may have to call each customer to confirm the order. You do not want to accept an order if it appears fraudulent. Be suspicious, because in the end, receiving too many chargebacks will damage your profit line.

If, on the other hand, your customer is simply dissatisfied with the product, give them a call and send them an email. Ask them what it is they didn’t like about the product. Ask them if there is anything you can do for them to satisfy them. If they still seem reluctant to drop the chargeback, your last resort would be to ask them if they wouldn’t mind dropping the chargeback and you can offer them a full refund. Most people wouldn’t mind this option. You will find that a simple phone call to the upset customer may actually turn things around in your favor.

Online Automated Ordering System

When you have an online company, it only makes sense to use all the online resources available. The payments you accept should be credit card and Paypal. Are you going to accept international orders? If you are going to receive orders daily, which is the goal, you will want to use an online shopping cart that automatically accepts the credit card, approves it and delivers the autoresponder emails and in the end, the product itself.

What exactly is an online shopping cart? It is a lot like a regular shopping cart, where you can add or remove items as you please. It calculates shipping and taxes and the total of the purchase and passes this information along to the merchant account by a secure site, which protects the customers’ information. Choosing a shopping cart is crucial because if you choose the right one, it can double your sales. Imagine trying to purchase a product and you are entering all your information when you order and the pages take forever to load. Or worse, there are too many forms to fill out or you cannot find the pricing or product list easily. You would abandon that idea pretty quickly, now wouldn’t you?

In addition, you will also need a reputable merchant account that can handle the amount of sales you are going to send their way. You do not want to find a merchant account that requests a very high escrow fee, because this can be difficult to come up with. Before you launch your product, you need to make sure you have a way to provide customer service. You could hire a fulfillment house that takes care of customer service, orders, credit cards, and shipping all at once. But, if you intend to have a lot of business, this is not very cost effective. It would be much easier to take care of the customer service with paid employees and have a special fulfillment house only duplicate, package, and ship products for you.

Quality Solder Eutectic that's Cheaper than Silver

I’ve been handling quite a few Electronic components orders these past few weeks for Electrical Engineering clients. So here’s a high quality solder eutectic that is cheaper than silver yet contains lead free alloys for your electrical engineering projects. The Nihon Superior SN100c from FTC Assembly is a patented addition of nickel to the tin-copper eutectic. Some of the advantages of this product: Bridge-free wave soldering at 250°C- 260°C (482°F- 500°F), does not require special solder pots; smooth, bright fillets; no shorts on QFP to 0.65mm, 100 pins; can be used in air, and so on. So, for the refined, professional look, the Nihon Superior SN100c will give the results on par with your highly developed Electronics skills.

Unlimited Bandwidth Hogwash

Bandwidth measures the volume of data transmitted over an internet connection. You have to know how much bandwidth you need while choosing hosting plans. Be careful when someone claims they provide unlimited bandwidth or monthly transfer. Anyone claiming "Unlimited Bandwidth" is simply lying. There's no such thing as "Unlimited Bandwidth" – that’s just Hogwash.

There are no broadband companies offering an internet connection as "Unlimited Megabytes per Second." So, how could a web hosting company, which normally doesn't even own its own access lines, claims to customers that it will give them "Unlimited Bandwidth"?

Most of the time, high bandwidth sites on these "Unlimited" plans will be disconnected, and no refund given. Normally, the web hosting company will say that the site violated its Acceptable Use Policy or Terms of Service whether it being true or not.

Whenever you visit a site promoting "Unlimited Bandwidth" as one of the account features, be sure to visit the Acceptable Use Policy, or the Terms of Service. Read the fine text about the so-called "Unlimited" disclaimer.

When you first look for web hosting services (those who state clearly bandwidth offered), you have to make your best estimation and watch your usage carefully in the first few months. Take these factors into consideration while estimating.

i. How many users will access your web site?

ii. How many pages to be access?

iii. How big are the graphic and HTML files?

Large audio/video files, computer programs, and file downloads require more bandwidth. Flash web sites use tons of bandwidth. Virtual Reality (VR) and full-length three-dimensional audio/visual presentations require the most bandwidth of all.

Though it is not accurate, but still gives you something to work with until your site has been online for a while and actual traffic statistics have been generated.

Don’t fall for the unlimited bandwidth trap that some companies throw at you.

Cancer Causing Diabetes Drug Go Unnoticed

Diabetes is quite a common modern disease all over the world today. There are different types of Diabetes and even more types of medicines to treat this disease. Some medicines are better than others while some pretty much shouldn’t be called “medicine” at all. One such example of the latter is Actos (Piogliatazone), manufactured by Takeda Pharmaceuticals for treatment of Type II Diabetes. Before I go on, here’s a link at the ready for people who already use Actos to treat Diabetes: actos cancer lawyers.

What’s so outstanding about this diabetes medicine called Actos? Well, for one thing, it increases the risk of bladder cancer for the user. Yes, C-A-N-C-E-R! The manufacturer should be punished because they are not clever enough to know that their Pharmaceutical product can cause cancer. The fact that Actos has been in the market since 1999 makes such an overlook unforgivable. Maybe the government’s too concerned about buying alien busting weapons rather than checking on dangerous medicines being sold for the past 10 years go unnoticed.

Newer Social Networking Websites Draw in the Masses

You’ve probably by now heard of websites like MySpace, FriendFinder, LinkedIn, Facebook, & Google+. Yes, these are all social networking websites. Some of them like MySpace are no longer as popular as they once were probably due to the newer ones being so much better in some way. The ones that do increase in popularity like Facebook & Google+ have the most extravagant number of user, amounting to tens of millions of people and growing - fast.

There is just something about these websites that draw in tens of millions of internet users. Among those reasons are them being free & easy to use. Social networking websites are, for the most part, easy to use. Most sites are easy to navigate. In fact, many require little knowledge of the internet.

In addition to being easy to navigate, social networking websites also make it easier to meet new people online in a viral way. Photos of stranger’s friend + Photos of stranger’s friend’s friend + Photos of stranger’s friend’s, friend’s friend + Photos of stranger’s friend’s, friend’s, friend’s friend = hours of mindless browsing and useless friendship connections but great for advertisers. You get the idea.