Category: Ecommerce

Posted on

Programmatic Advertising: Beginners Guide For Tauranga Based Businesses

[Image credit: Searchengineland.com]

What have you heard about Programmatic Advertising so far?

(Perhaps only by book summary from a few weeks ago?)

It seems like awareness is only now starting to grow here in New Zealand.

Some say that NZ is perhaps 3-5 years behind the rest of the world.

It’s time for us to catch up.

In fact, our timing is good, because getting involved now has the benefit of us accessing a much more mature system. The rest of the world has been removing the bugs for us!

I have come to believe that Programmatic Advertising is about to explode in New Zealand, so I’m looking for a handful of Tauranga based businesses that would like my help to get started.

Enquire Now

At the bottom of this page in an enquiry form, but first, let’s answer questions you might be wondering right now.

Q: “What is Programmatic Advertising?”

Continue reading “Programmatic Advertising: Beginners Guide For Tauranga Based Businesses”

Posted on

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

Here are my notes on the book “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” by Tony Hsieh51oR41Z4zoL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_

Tony Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos, which is now wholly owned by Amazon and sells a wide range of items online, but made it’s start selling shoes online.

It’s the classic start-up story many of us dream of: a couple of friends get together and quit their jobs on the back on a single idea, they make it through the good times and bad times and desperate times to somehow scale it up to a billion dollar company within 10 years.

Here’s a collection of my favourite quotes from the book: Continue reading “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh”

Posted on

Is Your Blog Stale? How Not Updating Your Blog Can Damage Your Business

“When I look at your blog I can almost see the tumbleweed rolling through…”

Are visitors to your website thinking that?

If you have a blog section on your website, at some point you thought it was a good idea to get one.

You might call it your “news section” or your “article section”, they are all the same thing.

You were probably told one, or all, of these reasons.

3 Reasons Why Writing New Articles For Your Blog Is Good For Your Business

Continue reading “Is Your Blog Stale? How Not Updating Your Blog Can Damage Your Business”

Posted on

Is PayPal The Easiest, Cheapest Way For Your Non-NZ Customers To Pay You Into Your New Zealand Bank Account?

I’m hoping that this article will save you the 45 minutes of research I just had to do.

  • Do you have clients or customers based outside of New Zealand?
  • Do you want to know the easiest, cheapest way for those non-NZ customers to pay you into your New Zealand bank account?

That’s exactly what I wanted to find out.

I found many options, most of which I’d never heard of.  But one brand kept coming up again and again: PayPal.

I found lots of criticisms, but it is probably the #1 payment service in the world, so let’s just go with that.

But I’m worried my profit will be whittled away with fees.

My next mission was to find out what fees will I be charged:

  1. For the transaction?
  2. For currency conversion from US dollars to NZ dollars?
  3. For withdrawing the funds from my PayPal account into my New Zealand bank account?
  4. For receiving the funds into my New Zealand bank account? Will my NZ bank charge me?

You’d think I’d easily find the answers to these questions on PayPal’s website. Sadly, no, that is not the case.

1. What fees will I be charged for the transaction?

  • 3.4% + $0.30 USD

Source: PayPal Website

2. What fees will I be charged for currency conversion from US dollars to NZ dollars?

  • 2.5%

Source: PayPal Website

3. What fees will I be charged for withdrawing the funds from my PayPal account into my New Zealand bank account?

  • $1.00 for amounts below NZ$150
  • Free for amounts above NZ$150

Source: Helium.com

4. What fees will my bank charge me for receiving the funds into my New Zealand bank account?

  • Zero. (I’m guessing. If I’m wrong, please correct me in the comments below)
  • But it can take 6 – 8 days to arrive

Example #1: US$100 transaction

  1. Transaction Fee: 3.4% x US$100 = US$3.40 + US$0.30
  2. Currency Conversion: 2.5 % x US$100 = US$2.50
  3. Withdrawal Fee: US$1.00 because US$100 = NZ$135 which is below the NZ$150 threshold
  4. Total PayPal Fees: US$7.20 = NZ$9.80 (which is a whopping 10% of the clients invoice!)

Example #2: US$200 transaction

  1. Transaction Fee: 3.4% x US$200 = US$6.80 + US$0.30
  2. Currency Conversion: 2.5 % x US$200 = US$5.00
  3. Withdrawal Fee: Free because US$200 = NZ$270 which is over the NZ$150 threshold
  4. Total PayPal Fees: US$12.10 = NZ$16.47 (which is 8.2% of the clients invoice)

Here’s a cool world currency calculator if you want to do your own calculations.

Recommendations:

  • Wait until you have more than NZ$150 in your PayPal account before you withdraw the funds into your New Zealand bank account
Posted on

Accepting Credit Card Payments Online – List of NZ Providers

  • Do you want to sell your products online?
  • Do you want to be able to accept credit card payments?
  • Want to avoid spending the big bucks on getting your website redesigned with ecommerce functionality?
  • Just want to provide a simple “Buy Now” button for your customers?

If so, you’re in luck, because today I have been researching all the different credit card transaction processing companies in NZ for a client, and thought you might like to know what I’ve found.

1. PayPal

Internationally recognised, always updating and improving their code and security. Polished.

But: You have to withdraw funds from your PayPal bank account manually, and they reserve the right to charge a fee to send it to a non-US bank account (they don’t tell you what the fee will be).

Costs:

  • Setup: Free
  • Monthly Fee: Free
  • Transaction Fees: 3.4% + $0.45 (Eg $500.00 x 0.034 + 0.45 = $17.45)

2. Paymate

Australian based with a decent NZ presence. I’ve been using them for 3 years. Pretty basic, but good.

Bonus: The funds are deposited straight into your bank account.

Costs:

  • Setup: Free
  • Monthly Fee: Free
  • Transaction Fees: 3.0% + $0.50 (Eg $500.00 x 0.03 + 0.50 = $15.50)

3. Payment Express

NZ standard for online Credit Card processing. Website a little hard to understand. (Formerly called “DPS – Direct Payment Solutions”)

Costs:

  • Setup: $150.00
  • Monthly Fee: $ 50/month
  • Transaction Fees: 100 free transactions a month

4. Eway

Polished website.  Very good price.

Costs:

  • Setup: Free (subject to change, but it probably won’t)
  • Monthly Fee: $25/month
  • Transaction Fees: $0.40 per transaction
  • Bonus Offer: Put their logo on your websites home page for a $100 credit (subject to change, but it probably won’t)

5. Paystation

Looks ok.  Lowest monthly cost.

Costs:

  • Setup: $200.00
  • Monthly Fee: $15/month minimum
  • Transaction Fees: $0.10 per transaction

6. Super Secure

Crap website put me off completely.

Costs:

  • Unknown. I didn’t stay long enough to find out.

7. Flow2Cash

  • Looks decent. Good list of clients give me confidence
  • Fees: 3.95% + $0.45 per transaction

8. Paymex

  • Fees: 3.25% + $0.55 per transaction
  • It’s a bit of a worry that their link to their FAQ page is dead. If they make errors like that on their website, will they be careful with our money?

9. Eftpos New Zealand Limited

No pricing on their website. That is so lame. No, I won’t call your friendly customer service team.

10. NZ Banks: Eg ASB

As far as I can tell, they need you to sign up with a payment gateway anyway so I don’t see why anyone would want to use a NZ bank for their ecommerce…

Have you used any of these companies? Tell your story.

Posted on

Essential Steps for Building a Website That Generates Business For You

8 Essential Steps:

  1. Define the most important action that you want the audience to take. Is it filling in an enquiry form? Call your toll free number? Download an information pack?
  2. Make it dead easy for them to take that action. 1 click or 2 clicks. Not 5 clicks
  3. Make your forms super short. Ask for essential information only. Not their age, not their gender, not even their address (if you aren’t posting them something, don’t ask for it). And it doesn’t matter if some of your form field aren’t compulsory, if it looks too long it will turn people away
  4. Ensure your code is search engine friendly:
    • Clean urls like “this-is-a-page-about-how-to-do-stuff.html” rather than “index.php?ss=2&s=abc”
    • Clean html code, eg use H1, H2, H3 tags instead of heavily formatted paragraph tags
  5. A stripped down CMS for commonly updated content (like blog entries, articles, products). Lock down other pages so you’re not tempted to wreck them with crazy fonts and colours
  6. “Write for the web” by formatting all your content with headings, sub-headings, short paragraphs (none more than 3 sentences), bullet points, numbered lists, and internal hyperlinks
  7. Follow usability guidelines, such as:
    • Hyperlinks that look link hyperlinks. Buttons that look like buttons
    • Breadcrumbs so when the users deep-link they can quickly figure out where they are
    • Disable the hyperlink in the navigation if the user is already on that page
    • And just about everything else website usability guru Jacob Nielsen recommends
  8. Choose a web site developer who knows about all this stuff

Continue reading “Essential Steps for Building a Website That Generates Business For You”