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Is Paypal the solution for your e-commerce?

December 15th, 2010

How to win two bucks

photo credit: lejoe

By Matt Cook
Point Click Media

Back in the days when e-commerce was first starting to makes waves in gaining peoples trust about providing valuable credit card information online, one of the trusted sites that popped up to the forefront was PayPal. Not only was it a well known and secure system for processing payments, it was quick and easy for online vendors to implement into their websites and allowed merchants to accept major credit cards, checks and money transfers online.

This is pretty much still how PayPal operates today. It’s probably not a shocking development to learn that it is also owned by e-commerce king eBay. PayPal continues to allow online vendors to sell goods via a PayPal account and then request payment from PayPal itself once they’ve accumulated a certain level of earnings. This is a great feature for small businesses who don’t have the budget to implement full blown shopping software into their website. It’s something that they can do pretty much all by themselves. There are also no monthly fees or sales limitations.

The scalability of PayPal however, has always been in question. Although PayPal is quite easy to use from a vendor perspective, it’s really not designed to be a full-on free shopping cart software. You can hook PayPal up to just about any existing cart software but it comes at a price. If your small business is working off of a limited budget, PayPal can quickly outgrow its efficiency when adding large numbers of products to an account. It quickly becomes a chore to continuously set up new products and modify existing products from your account. Moreover, PayPal vendor protection also does not cover digital goods and there can be hefty fees for charge-backs.

Not everyone is keen on handing their credit card information over to PayPal either, and some avoid it at all costs. Due to the sheer size of PayPal and number of clients in its Rolodex, it is a popular target for fraud, spam and scams. Be wary of this before you begin accepting payments online.

Overall, PayPal is a handy tool that can be used to kick start your e-commerce project, but it is best used for a few simple products. If your business only has a handful of products or if you’re an aspiring author looking to sell your book online, then PayPal may be a perfect solution for you; but you don’t necessarily want to be selling magazine subscriptions or an online database for a major product line. At this point a more customized online shopping solution is likely your best bet. In any case, make sure you do your homework with any shopping cart software to know what you’re getting into beforehand.

If you’d like to chat about an e-commerce solution that fits your business, contact Point Click Media.

Posted in Product Reviews

How CTV Changed the Way We Watch Online Content

March 3rd, 2010

Congratulations, Canada!

photo credit: BaylorBear78

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games have wrapped up nicely with a golden bow for our host country on the world stage, and while the celebration winds down and the hangovers begin to recede as we ease back into our otherwise generally apathetic Canadian lives, it’s clear that we’ve reached a new standard, not only in terms of the performance of our athletes, but also in how we watch them.

CTV owned the tall task of covering the games wire-to-wire across 5 different time zones. Of course, their television coverage was top notch as usual; however it’s their online presentation that garners a gold medal from a user standpoint. Using Microsoft Silverlight technology, CTV has achieved perhaps the best online application system for watching live streaming events that we’ve seen to date. From the quality of the feeds themselves, to accessibility and usability, the whole CTV Olympic online experience was a real treat for Canadians to take advantage of.  It really showed off the power of Microsoft Silverlight as a streaming tool to many skeptics and opened up a door to whole universe of possibilities when it comes to streaming online television in the future.

Usability was the key to bringing universal coverage of the games together in Canada. With a multitude of networks sharing broadcasts of events, it was certainly a daunting task to bring everything under one roof. CTV took care of it by creating essentially a network of live and archived content that turned Canadian modems into virtual PVRs. Did you miss a goal live? Rewind the live stream. Oh, the men’s bobsleigh is in the final run? Switch that to TSN. Canadians were certainly given the opportunity to watch their athletes to the fullest, and in the online equivalent of HD quality no less. It will no doubt be exciting to see how the 2010 Winter Games streaming will pioneer the streaming of online content from now on. I know I’ll be watching.

If you haven’t had a chance to take in the online coverage, it’s not too late. Pretty much all of the Olympic events are archived at CTVOlympics.ca.

Posted in Product Reviews

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

November 25th, 2009

I before E - except on my PC

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

How would you feel if I offered you a brand new FREE 40-inch High Definition ready flat screen television, right now, no questions asked? Would you reply with: “No thanks, Law & Order looks much better on my black & white 19-inch Hitachi with limited reception and a missing volume knob.” ? Don’t lie now…

Well unfortunately it’s not free TV day at Point.Click Media, but there is a point to my rhetorical inquiry. Why would you want to keep a piece of technology that’s fit for the pit when there’s better, faster, stronger and best of all, FREE products out there ready to knock your socks off? I’m looking at those of you still plodding along on Internet Explorer 6.

So what’s wrong with IE 6?

The average Canadian lifespan is now 80.4 years, so I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible, but there aren’t enough letters in the alphabet to create a volume of encyclopedias detailing the problems of IE 6. It was first released in 2001, which may not seem like a long time ago but by technology standards is as old as time itself. Do you remember your work station in 2001? That old milk carton with a 90 lb monitor you used to surf Napster before it got shut down? That thing came with IE 6. Why would anyone still subject themselves to such torture? Apparently self mutilation is a popular activity, as IE 6 still operates 23% of the overall browser marketplace today. It’s shocking. Old habits die hard they say….

A plethora of security holes and bugs, outdated technologies and rendering issues ensure that users who still use IE 6 simply aren’t able to get the most out of the web that they could be getting… and most people don’t even know it. To see a great example of what a webpage can look like in IE 6 versus other web browsers see our article on the browser wars. It is simply not the same user experience. IE 6 doesn’t include many new technologies that are now virtually imperative with proper web development. Many larger web-based companies have even begun shutting down support for the old maiden of madness. YouTube is a good example.

So how do I upgrade?

I thought you’d never ask.

If you don’t want to stray too far from Mother Microsoft, don’t worry, there’s still hope for you. We’re up to version 8 now folks. There’s also a variety of other browsers on the market that suit all of your web based needs: Firefox, Chrome, Safari… take your pick. If you’d like to do a little recon mission before upgrading your browser, I highly recommend the Which Browser For Me? site.

Hold up, cowboy. I’m still upset about not getting my free TV

OK, fair enough. I thought you might say that, but to be fair, nobody will be going home empty handed today. That’s right…

FREE BROWSER UPGRADES FOR EVERYONE!!!

You won’t regret it. Guaranteed.

If you’re having trouble focusing on the light of day after emerging from the dark ages, don’t adjust your set. Those menu buttons are supposed to work. This text is supposed to be here. Spread the word. Point.Click Media welcomes you to a new world.

Posted in Product Reviews

Part 2: Google Analytics – Doing Some Mythbusting

July 22nd, 2009

Comparing brand visit

photo credit: Search Engine People Blog

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Last week we took a quick look at some of the most basic tools that Google Analytics has to offer and how it can offer valuable feedback data for your business. However, since Google Analytics is a free service for anyone who wishes to use it, naturally there is bound to be some negative PR from some of the naysayers out there. What we’re doing this week is looking at busting a few of those myths to prove that there’s no reason not to take advantage of this extremely powerful business tool. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Product Reviews, Web Tools

Part 1: Google Analytics – Who’s Visiting My Website?

July 15th, 2009

Google logo render - Mark Knol

Image by Mark Knol

By Matt Cook
Point.Click Media

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to see who was visiting your website? I don’t mean just counting the number of hits with one of those horrible looking black and fluorescent green hit counters that you see at the bottom of some websites, but to see some actual data about who is visiting your site and what they’re looking for?

OK, the jig is up. Google has a simply magnificent piece of web-based software available to anyone and everyone who wishes to use it, and here’s the best part: It’s free. I’m talking about Google Analytics. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Product Reviews, Web Tools

Firefox 2 – Review

October 30th, 2006

The battle of the web browsers rages on.Only days after Microsoft released its latest browser, Internet Explorer 7, the Mozilla Foundation has released its new browser, Firefox 2, ahead of schedule.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Product Reviews

Need a Free E-mail Program?

August 18th, 2006

Mozilla Thunderbird – A tip from us to you.

Running a small business can be a challenging endeavor, especially when you are looking to get the kind of software that an office needs for basic functions. E-mail has become such a necessity to business life that if you don’t have you could be in danger of missing out on possible sales. Some companies even have multiple email addresses and often from more than one provider.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Product Reviews, Tips and Tricks