| LED Digest 1975: Defeating Cancelled Orders |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest post, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. May 26, 2005 Issue #1975 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Cancelled Orders ==-- ~ Mary Lee "I had to go at this problem from 2 different directions..." ~ Mark Lewis "... I would suggest setting up your own secure server and your own merchant account..." ~ John Brumage "...you might want to use a service like ccbill..." --== PHP & SQL ==-- ~ John Smart "There is a 'hack' you can use to make your server think that .html is really .php." ~ Eddie Kukiela "...use mod_rewrite which is an Apache module..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== AdSense in RSS ==-- ~ Dejan Bizinger --== The Incredible Disappearing Ezine ==-- ~ Tom Aman ~ Kathy Wilson Anderson ~ James Miller ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Mary Lee Subject: Cancelled orders > Recently, orders from my website have been getting > cancelled and refunds requested... I sell digital content > that is sent to the customer on CD-ROM. - George Oliver, LED 1974 I too serve digital content. Some is downloaded immediately and others are sent on CD. When I first started 3 years ago I had a bad problem with people buying, getting the product and then demanding a refund or initiating a chargeback. It was getting quite costly. On the web there are just too many dishonest people that will take advantage and try to get something for free if they can. I had to go at this problem from 2 different directions. First I posted my refund policy on every page of the site. Here is what I posted: -------------------- "We do not accept returns on downloadable digital products. All sales are final. You are able to download free introduction files of any of our products to make sure it meets your needs. We are also available for any pre-sales technical support you may require. We trust this will help you make an informed purchase you will be satisfied with. Free Personalized Customer Service is available at any time to help you with any questions you might have before or after the sale. We go a step beyond our competitors to ensure your experience is a happy one." -------------------- In addition to this I also use a software program that notifies me as soon as someone downloads their purchase. This is a necessary tool in our industry to avoid chargebacks from people claiming they did not get their product or they did not buy it. I have their addresses, email addresses & the date, time & IP of their access of the product. Before this I had too many chargebacks from people who just wanted to get a product free & didn't care that I had to also pay the large chargeback fees. In your case where you sell CD's the solution would be to state in your refund policy that due to the nature of digital products that you do not give refunds once the CD has been shipped. Using these 2 methods I have stopped having to deal with those people trying to get something for nothing, I have had no chargebacks & no refunds in almost 2 years, outside the normal bought twice or other legitimate reasons. You do have to be sure to provide enough information on your site about your products to be able to get potential customers to feel comfortable buying a no refund product. I have not once received a complaint about the policy as honest people understand the policy. As long as your product is as described and you are not making wild claims that you are not producing then this type of policy should not cause any problems. Mary Lee Dinner and a Murder http://dinnerandamurder.com -------- new post - same topic ------- From: Mark Lewis Subject: Cancelled orders Hi George- Since I am familiar with your site and your payment system I would suggest biting the bullet and setting up your own secure server and your own merchant account connected to a shopping cart system hosted on your own site. Using 2checkout or similar third party credit card processing systems pretty much takes you out of the loop when it comes to returns. Our site used a third party system for years and we were also plagued with chargebacks (not many returns but people just not recognizing the name on their credit card bill and requesting their money be refunded). In the last year or so we have been running everything from our site and have not had one problem with chargebacks or unwarranted returns (knock on wood). There were many other benefits from implementing this upgrade. One of which was an over 200% increase in sales. Let me know if you need any suggestions on how to start the process. Mark Lewis Partners In Rhyme markl, wetafx.co.nz -------- new post - same topic ------- From: John Brumage Subject: Cancelled orders Are you shipping a physical product? If so, you probably have proof of delivery. If that is the case, it should only be necessary to have a clearly defined shipping and handling cost for your product, and then clearly state something like: Satisfaction Guaranteed or return disk for full refund less shipping and handling. If you have shipped a product, it is not a cancellation, it is a refund. The credit card companies will generally not allow a chargeback if you can prove you shipped the product. On the other hand, if the content is downloaded, you might want to use a service like ccbill who maintains a database of deadbeats and refund scammers to "scrub" orders. These services are fairly expensive compared to running your own cards. In my case its about 15% plus an $8 fee for mailing me a check, compared to about $2 + 2.5% using NOVA. While a scammer can duplicate your disk, most crooks are too lazy to go through the return process. In the long term, i personally think Windows Media is the way to distribute digital content.. DVD's and CD's can be thrown out of airplanes, or freely distributed by download. The files cannmot be played until the customer pays to unlock the files. My understanding is that you can license by plays, days, or unlimited. By shipping with a limited play license, even if the customer copied the entire disk to his hard drive, he would be unable to play it without renewing his license. I do not fully understand the license workflow, and invite a more experienced member to post more on this subject. John Brumage -------- new post - new topic ------- From: John Smart Subject: PHP SQL If you have an established site, you do not have to rename all your files from .html to .php. There is a 'hack' you can use to make your server think that .html is really .php. This will help you to keep your established structure. If you leave .html pages that have no php in them, your server will be working a little harder than normal, because it will be reading all the .html pages looking for php code. However, unless you have a huge site (or a very overworked server) this should not be a concern. This is an Apache / *nix fix. I believe it should work on all Apaches, but for those of you playing with other programs, or those of you playing with NT servers, I cannot tell you if this will work or not (try it - it won't do any damage!). Create a file called 'test.php'. Inside it put this code: <?php phpinfo(); ?> Go to that page. If php is working, you will see a lot of information! If not, get out the manuals. Now upload a file called '.htaccess' (without the quotes - the filename does start with a period). This should contain the following: AddType application/x-httpd-php .html Now copy test.php to test.html - look at the page in your browser. If you see the same information, you know this worked! If you prefer to use the extention .htm, then you can edit the above line to: AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm And if you want both, you would make your .htaccess file read: AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm AddType application/x-httpd-php .html John Smart, Technical Director InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World -------- new post - same topic ------- From: Eddie Kukiela Subject: PHP SQL > What you have to look out for is a problematic URL structure. URLs > with too many parameters or problematic characters (?, =, &, etc.) > act as a stop / warning sign to search engine spiders. - Shari Thurow, LED 1974 An easy way to stop using &, ?, and = (and others too) is to use mod_rewrite which is an Apache module. From what I've seen, most Web hosts have this module installed in their Apache, assuming they are running it and not IIS (or another server). For example, http://www.yourdomain.com/forums/topic.php?topicId=326&forumId=235 could be (with mod_rewrite): http://www.yourdomain.com/forums/topic,326,235 I am not sure how to do this since it is mostly regular expressions, but you can do a Google search for "mod_rewrite," which should have many pages you can look up about this. Eddie Kukiela ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Dejan Bizinger Subject: AdSense in RSS Google announced that as of Wednesday they launched its beta program for contextual advertising in RSS feeds based on AdSense. --------------------- "The idea is simple: advertisers have their ads placed in the most appropriate feed articles; publishers are paid for their original content; readers see relevant advertising." - published on their Google Blog at http://googleblog.blogspot.com --------------------- This is great news for bloggers that can start monetizing their RSS feeds with AdSense. Best regards, Dejan Bizinger, eMarketing Blog http://bizinger.blogspot.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Disappearing email > HTML emails are not the same as web pages. They need more > testing, once sent it is too late! ... You cannot guarantee ANY > external content will be loaded in. - Malcolm Bailey, LED 1973 I would like to add a couple of additional comments to those made by Malcom with regard to Martha Retallick's disappearing HTML emails. First, I get a lot of SPAM, hence see a lot of HTML emails. A surprising number do not display as HTML. I have never bothered to check into the reason for it but, quite often, all that displays is the raw HTML. Since I do not really want to be bothered trying to figure out what content is buried the HTML code, I just delete such emails. Second, like many people, I run Windows XP and use Outlook Express (6.0) as my one of my email clients. The setting of this client is such that, in an HTML email, the loading of images is block to prevent the sender from identifying my computer. Unless the sender is someone I recognize and the email is something I really want to see, I just delete these as well. So there are two concrete examples of how an HTML email can "disappear" - it reaches the inbox but is essentially ignored. Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Kathy Wilson Anderson Subject: Disappearing email Hi Adam, > BTW, Adam, LED fills less than half the screen, could > we make this newsletter twice as wide? - John Barendrecht, LED 1974 Actually, I prefer the narrower format for LED. It's easier to read. Magazines and newspapers are formatted with very narrow columns for just that reason. When the eye gets to the end of a long line of text and then moves back across the page - or computer screen - it may have difficulty finding the next line of text. How many times have you found yourself reading the same line of text in an article? Chances are it was in a wide format and not in narrow columns. Contrary to experiencing the format of LED tedious I find it a relief to my eyes. Love, Kathy Wilson Anderson http://www.under-one-roof.net Life Purpose Coaching ~ Website Solutions ~ Vibrational Healing ------- new post - same topic ------- From: James Miller Subject: Newsletters I've recently introduced a spam challenge program. Some newsletters are an absolute nightmare to get through it. I can set say like with this one that *@led-digest.com is allowed through, but some companies send newsletters from a different e-mail address each time. So if you are designing a newsletter system make sure that it comes from This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or something that means it can be easily recognised. Also when someone signs up, let them know how the newsletter will be sent. Otherwise the spam challenge programs and other anti-spam systems will just dump it! Incidentally, I dumped the spam challenge program on my main e-mail and resorted back to POPFile. James Miller Daisy Analysis: www.daisy.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet." - Plato |
