Search


Recommended Products


Related Links






 


Informative Articles

A Successful eCommerce Website - Part 2
Succeeding with an eCommerce website is a dream for many these days. It can be done no matter how difficult it may sometimes seem. this series covers some of the basic success factors - things you must consider in creating, implementing, managing...

Canada and eCommerce
Canadian eCommerce growth was recently flat but still has an attractive upside... Recent studies found that Canadian retail e-commerce growth was flat year over year (2003-2004). After further examination however, approximately 60% of the...

eCommerce and other strange animals
eCommerce, Ecommerce, e-commerce; however you spell it, the term is now firmly lodged in our language. So just what is it? At it's most simplistic level; eCommerce is simply the buying and selling of goods, services or information via the World...

Eyes on your eCommerce Website
Copyright 2005 Richard Keir In a recent article I talked about Google AdSense placement based on eye-tracking research. However, research by The Poynter Institute, Eyetools and the Estlow Center for Journalism and New Media has a lot to say about...

Microsoft Small Business Manager eCommerce – overview
Microsoft Business Solutions Small Business Manager is scaled down Great Plains Dexterity based version of Microsoft Great Plains or former Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise.  Small Business Manager first release 7.0 and all the following...

 
 
What's Toll Free Numbers Got To Do With Ecommerce?

What's Toll Free Numbers Got To Do With Ecommerce?

Sometimes skimping on things can save you good money. But skimping is not always the wisest business strategy. For example, I could've written this article in the windows program notepad as opposed to Microsoft Word, and saved a good $500 and never had to buy the latest version of Microsoft Office... However, wouldn't it be worth the $500 if the improved impression of professionalism put forth in all of my writings some how garnered ten times that in profit? Would you have read this far if I had unknowingly published this article with a horribly obvious typo in the title? That's right - an insignificant error caused by "saving money" can actually COST you money in the long run.

Impression Is Everything!

If you have spent months developing a beautiful ecommerce website to give people the impression that you are the safest choice for whatever product or service you're trying to sell them, then it'd be pretty stupid to have all of that professionalism dismissed by a simple mistake: assuming you're going to SAVE money by not getting a toll free number!

The fact is, the sight of a toll free number is something that subconsciously stirs an idea of professionalism - something we're accustomed to from corporate America. Area codes are for calling your relatives and friends, after all. The phone

prefix "800" or "877" or "888" for some reason, as if by magic, stirs in us the image of a phone operator in a tall skyscraper that deals with hundreds of clients a day - someone that doesn't make their living off of ripping people off. The appearance of professionalism is the embodiment of confidence within the business world.

Okay, so you're convinced... now what?

Not having a toll free number for your ecommerce business (no matter how small) will cost you more in the long run than the short term savings will save you. The best part is though that toll free numbers are not NEARLY as expensive as one might be inclined to think! In fact, at the moment the prices for toll free numbers are as low as 2.7c/min from places like www.patricklongdistance.com .

What other services can I benefit from?

It just so happens that toll free numbers are not the only affordable telecommunications service that might be useful to the owner of an ecommerce web site. Conference calling (for those teleseminars), low long distance rates, broadband or t1 internet access, and more are all examples of things that can be gotten more cost effectively off the internet via web pages such as the one I provided in the last paragraph.

About the author:

Jacob Richards hosts a website about building the ecommerce web sites.