Offline Orders

**Baby Boy** · 06-02-06, 03:54 AM

Figured I'd start a new topic of offline orders. We all have them, we all take them, so share with us your clever ideas or offline sales processing. In this example, I'll say, checks and money orders as well as offline credit card processing.

Anybody have any clever ways of making their business stand out when it comes to offline sales processes?

SophMedia · 06-02-06, 03:59 AM

Confused by your second question, you mean techniques for selling face-to-face?

But to answer your first...

I run everything through PC Charge and my billing system (Platypus). We process online orders identical to offline orders.

Michael S. · 06-02-06, 05:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SophMedia

Confused by your second question, you mean techniques for selling face-to-face?

But to answer your first...

I run everything through PC Charge and my billing system (Platypus). We process online orders identical to offline orders.

Thats a good idea, especially when you are just starting, and if you hire new employees, it could be hard for them to get in the groove of one system, two systems could cause them to mess up a lot. I have never worked with billing systems, so I'm not exactly sure about the frustration of them, but if they work similar to cash registars, it isn't hard to get things mixed up. I work a registrar at a crab house, and I don't use it often, but when I do, I sometimes input it wrong because I was never told how to do it right, I was told how to use it different ways, and never a "you do this when... and this then..." I got more of a "you do this... and then a you have to do this too", but that last addition was only in certain conditions.

**Baby Boy** · 06-02-06, 06:23 AM

I've heard of PC Charge, always figured that was a simple retail system. (Using PC Charge and a credit card swiper/processor on top of a good T1 phone line connection you could run a seamless checkout system in a retail store IMHO.)

But when I said for the techniques or whatever, I meant like, what clever ideas have you came up with to do offline orders. Do you accept check, process credit cards, use virtual cards and member numbers, purchase order (credit accounts, used mainly for companies.)

sopaman · 06-14-06, 07:32 AM

I don't know that it is very unusual, but we will take cheques/postal order/bankers drafts offline, or else cash and if the customer wants will invoice through Paypal so that they can pay by card as well.

We don't have a merchant account for processing credit cards direct, but it has never caused us any problems yet.

We don't offer any sort of credit or account facility though... unless you are billing periodically for a service or trust your customer's implicitly, I think this would be too risky for most small businesses.

Slashmire · 06-16-06, 05:50 PM

I think nice tricks that I see here and there, is some sort of "reward" system, similar to a "buy 10 coffee and get 1 free" mentology.

It may be a little sidetracked...but I think it fits.

GlobalWebDan · 06-17-06, 09:05 AM

We've always accepted checks. (Personally, I'd love to move 100% to PayPal for all orders, but some clients are still stuck in the 1970s...GRrrrrr!

)

Melos · 06-17-06, 10:43 PM

I have always taken checks, money orders and PayPal. In my 5-6 years of selling stuff online, I have only ever had 1 check bounce so I accept the risk to make it easier on my customers.

However, I do not take offline orders - all come from my website, etc.. Do you mean... what do you mean?

sopaman · 06-18-06, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlobalWebDan

(Personally, I'd love to move 100% to PayPal for all orders, but some clients are still stuck in the 1970s...GRrrrrr!

)

Cheques aren't that bad

. At least you don't have to pay any Paypal charges with them. They do make a transaction go slowly, though....

**Baby Boy** · 06-20-06, 03:28 PM

Yeah, but with technology, we're advancing on, online checking, eChecks and everything, soon, you won't even need to process checks offline... people will just use that, but checks sounds like a logical one.