Why turn e-customers away every day?
by Dale Allen II

IMAGINE ATM CARDS AND GIFT CERTIFICATES THAT CAN BE USED ON THE INTERNET. IMAGINE EXCHANGING AIRLINE MILEAGE TO SAVE MONEY ON THE PRODUCT OF YOUR CHOICE. IMAGINE E-COMMERCE MERCHANTS BEING ABLE TO MARKET TO THE UNBANKED AND THOSE WITHOUT CREDIT CARDS. IMAGINE BEING ABLE TO TAKE ANYTHING NEGOTIABLE OF MONETARY VALUE IN REAL-WORLD PURCHASING AND EXCHANGING IT FOR A VALUE SPENDABLE ON YOUR WEB SITE. NOW, THAT INVITES BUYERS – AND THAT’S POWERFUL.

Customers are accustomed to swiping their credit or ATM cards; writing cheques, or paying cash when shopping at the neighbourhood grocery store. Wouldn’t they anticipate the same convenience and choices when shopping on the Internet? Yet, nearly all e-commerce merchants turn away customers every day because credit cards are the only payment option they can offer. Virtual exchanges of monetary value must reflect the future, not the status quo.

E-COMMERCE IS NOT FOR THE SHORTSIGHTED

The Internet has empowered a huge portion of consumers to buy and sell from the convenience of personal computers. It has enabled merchants to more efficiently conduct business with their partners and customers. It has enabled government agencies to do business with citizens without the need for a physical office presence. No question, the Internet has empowered millions of people and merchants to transact business as never before.

Electronic commerce has been with us for quite a while now, ever since banks began computerising their services in their infancy as early as the 1960s. E-commerce, however, has steadily become more and more powerful, as more and more businesses seek ways to amplify their web presence to attract Internet customers.

Not only are corporate conglomerates, with their legions of programmers and millions of dollars to spend, in the race. The fastest growth in e-commerce, in fact, seems to be coming from small businesses, selling everything from skateboards to t-shirts, but needing a way to mine for bigger dollars by making it easier for potential consumers to find them and do business.

While battle-scarred veterans of the Internet lamented the recent dot-com plunge as a fall from electronic grace, computer makers, software purveyors, web designers, and software developers are again falling all over one another for a slice of the very large e-commerce pie.

The survivors, and now these newcomers with vision, have a correct assessment of the proper approach to the Internet for business. Forward-thinking businesses are increasingly reviewing the bases of their online strategies within the e-commerce evolutionary cycle. They are studying the ways people buy, how they buy, and why they buy in a given scenario. Beginning to grasp the multiplicity of profiles of Internet buyers, companies are appreciating the need to adapt in order to access a far more expansive market than anticipated. Most have banking accounts, some don’t. Most have credit cards, many don’t. However, to address the full market potential requires making available a full range of buying opportunities. The next wave of e-commerce is taking shape.

MONEY ITSELF HAS ‘VIRTUALLY’ CHANGED

Logging onto the Internet introduces the user to a new and different world. A virtual one. The Internet is virtual from the standpoint of presence. It’s not real. It’s not there. On-line money is no longer tangible, foldable, printable – nor will it be viewed that way ever again. Money is turning rapidly into whatever value that may be used on the Internet – an exchange of monetary value evolving into a new paradigm.

You cannot walk into an Internet store, yet a web site is still a ‘place’ to users. You’ll hear the familiar, “Be sure to visit my site,” as if it were a walk-in store – and in many ways, it is.

MORE PAYMENT OPTIONS MUST BE OFFERED

The first attempts at virtual money were, of course, plastic. Even though it wasn’t designed that way, it could be used across time and space. However, plastic alone is no longer an acceptable approach to market to the great majority of potential buyers. Not everyone has a credit card, thus only a small portion of the buying public has access to an Internet purchase – and a small minority of e-commerce merchants can transact with a significant portion of prospective customers. Even then, all too few customers have available credit to consummate an Internet transaction. While many e-companies offer credit card processing, only a handful offers electronic cheque or ACH processing.

Virtual Money Inc. is a company that currently offers credit card, electronic cheque, and ATM processing, and is positioned to consolidate future payment options into a single package. It is this kind of flexibility that merchants need in order to satisfy the demands of their customers. Imagine, indeed, the use of ATM cards, gift certificates, money orders, or airline mileage to buy on-line or donate to charities.

Like it or not, the ease of purchasing is bound up with how people view a given e-merchant and how simple and secure it is to make a transaction. Advertise a good product, build a way to buy easily and safely and they will come. React to the evolution of payment modes and the intuitive seller far out-distances the ‘e-sloth.’

CHOICE IS NOT ENOUGH – CONVENIENCE MATTERS

Offering more payment options empowers everybody to shop on the Internet, but the fact that the option is available doesn’t mean people will use it. After all, given the option of handing over a few coins for a newspaper or writing a cheque, everybody chooses to pay cash. It’s simply more convenient than writing out a paper cheque.

It’s the same way on the Internet. Offering every payment option known to man is the way to go – but the web site also has to make that process quick and simple. That’s where the application developer enters the picture.

E-COMMERCE APPLICATION DEVELOPERS: KEEP IT SIMPLE

Application developers have the technical ability to juggle a multiplicity of balls in the air. The truly accomplished developer never lets the end user, be it a new Internet consumer or an experienced corporate purchasing agent, know how hard the system is working behind the scenes. For the end user, the experience must be seamless and it must be simple.

This is especially true when it comes to payments. The customer has done her research and decided what she wants to purchase. So the check-out process should do nothing to impede her from completing the transaction. To this end, the interface must be as simple as possible, presenting no unexpected roadblocks.

The payment processor’s solution must be easy for the developer to integrate into his own applications and, at the same time, be easy for the ultimate customer to use. For example, the Virtual MoneyTM interface is simple to integrate into e-commerce applications. It allows developers to feature more payment options than anyone else and streamlines things by handling the back-end processing for all payment types. As an added bonus, developers are treated as partners and share in the payment processing revenue generated by clients.

Application developers must work together with payment processors and their clients in order to enhance the Internet shopping experience.

INVITE BUYERS, DON’T TURN THEM AWAY

To take full advantage of the Internet in the future, companies must learn from the past and present. Virtual Money Inc. has done that.

Virtual Money Inc. grew out of Interfund Financial Corporation, which was founded in 1996 and is the home of “Creative Financial Concepts.”

As the Company made its unique payment capture systems available to vendors, it became apparent that Internet merchants were cut off from a large segment of consumers who either did not have a credit card or were frustrated by the complexity of the payment process. Virtual Money Inc. worked to make essential

e-commerce adjustments to address the way consumers pay – and the way e-merchants receive monetary value. The Company’s continuing developmental effort has cemented the foundation for facilitating the digital exchange of a wide variety of payment methods.

The Virtual Money Inc. management team has many years of experience in banking, financial services, and technology, and is excited about the future and flexible enough to adjust to change. Virtual Money Inc. is prepared to add other payment types as soon as they become viable, while maintaining the simplicity of the Virtual MoneyTM interface. That’s the key to growth – being ready to embrace change and adjust successfully to it.

Why turn e-consumers away every day? Only an e-sloth would do so.