The web could sometimes present an issue for minors looking at things that they probably should not seeing. It’s almost impossible for shopping cart software to filter how old someone on the other side of the computer is. This being said, WebCart understands that many eCommerce store owners would like to restrict certain “adult” items to adults who are over 18+.

The criteria for shopping cart software means that WebCart has a solution to this issue. With the new product restriction feature webmasters are given the flexibility to restrict pages, categories or products to people who can verify there age. An example of such a situation would be as follows

Courtney’s Online Body Products tends to sell shampoos, exotic soaps, and body products. In addition, Courtney would like to be able to sell vibrators, erotic toys and lubricants. Even though most of Courtney’s market is targeted towards an adult audience she doesn’t want children or teenagers looking at adult products on her site. With WebCart’s restriction feature she can restrict access for users who are registered or for customers that she has approved on a person to person basis. Is this a perfect solution? NO, but it’s one step closer to protecting what children see online.

The criteria for shopping cart software are being set high, and in this final post I will conclude the series on WebCart’s affiliate module.

To view the previous post click here

Let’s get started…

Affiliate Payment Control:
The internet can be a dangerous place when it comes to fraud. Affiliate fraud is nothing new, and has been around for years. I will explain how a typical fraud could happen, and the steps WebCart built to minimize it.

Let’s say I sign up as an affiliate for a website that sells speakers. Each stereo speaker sold though my affiliate link gets me $10.00. I forgot to mention that the owner of the Stereo site gives his customers the option of mailing in a check as a form of payment. Once my link was approved I would solicit a gang of my friends to purchase speakers though my new affiliate link, but have them pay with a check that they will never mail in. Of course my friends have no intention of mailing the check in, but credit was given to me for a sale. Can you see how something like this could destroy a shopping cart owners business?

WebCart’s affiliate payment control gives the webmaster the option of disabling checks, and adding an extra blanket of security for online payments. Although this blanket does not eliminate fraud, it does help by diverting fraudulent activity on your site.

Cookie Time:
Can you think of a time when you clicked a link for a product, but didn’t make a purchase right away, but came back a few days later and purchased the item? Well if you never did anything like that; let me assure you many people have. It’s something that many people who sign up with an affiliate program are concerned with.

Take the affiliates view for a second. They are sending you traffic, and just because the person didn’t make a purchase the same day, the affiliate loses a commission. With WebCart’s affiliate module a cookie is set inside of the user’s browser so if the user comes back within a two month span of time the affiliate will receive credit for the sale.

I hope this helps you understand how to run a profitable shopping cart solutions. Please feel free to post any questions you may have.

Continuing from the previous post: Criteria For Shopping Cart Software - Having A State Of The Art Affiliate Program Module. I will continue to explain why WebCart’s affiliate system is unmatched.

Private Label Pricing:
There are times when an affiliate member desires to give his users a “special deal,” by giving them a link with prices which are lower then those found on the main home page of the [roduct site. Hence, it becomes a private labeled site with unique pricing from a specific affiliate. To explain my point I will use dell as an example.

If you have ever purchased a computer from a dell  affiliate you might know what I am talking about. Those of you who don’t let me explain. Often times you will see a link that says something like “30% off your order of a dell laptop”. Once you click the link the dell prices are adjusted to 30% off for the laptop computers. This same model is how WebCart’s affiliate module works.

Reporting Tools In Real Time:
Internet marketing is all about launching a campaign, analyzing the results with analytics software and tweaking your technique based on your analysis. By doing this over and over again you will be able to fine tune any campaign in to a success. With WebCart’s affiliate module, analytics is taken in to a whole new dimension. Each report contains real time data, click rate vs impressions and that is just the tip of the iceberg. In addition, all data is served with easy to read charts and graphs with the intention that you don’t need to hire a professing to translate it for you.

The next post will conclude this series on affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing can become an enormous revenue stream for many small businesses. Yet it surprises me how many online businesses don’t make use of it. Amazon.com was one of the first companies to use affiliate marketing, and it attributed to the success of amazon.com becoming the largest online retailer in the word. The benefits of developing an affiliate program are two fold. One, you generate free one way links from who ever signs up with your affiliate program. Second, you generate revenue with FREE advertising on your member’s sites. I would love to get in to detail about how affiliate marketing works, but it’s beyond the scope of this post. I will however, discuss what WebCart’s affiliate module can do for an online business.

I know that osCommerce has a contribute called osCAffilate which adds an affiliate program on an osCommerce store. I personally installed and challenged my self to learn and use it within my demo osCommerce site. Although I am biased towards WebCart believe me when I tell you that osCAffilate doesn’t come close to the features which WebCart gives you.

With WebCart’s affiliate module your online store can enjoy the following benefits:

Co-branding
You can give your affiliate members their own private labeled store. Let me explain how powerful this feature really is. A potential affiliate would like to sell your magazines on his website. However, he would like his members to feel like the offer is exclusive, and made specifically for them. With WebCart’s affilate module a webmaster is able to add a custom logo for members coming from a specific affiliate link. This means that your affiliate’s logo will be shown every time their link is used.

In the next post I will continue to describe the benefits of WebCart’s Affiliate module.