Cyber Monday Kicks Off Online Shopping Season

Cyber Monday - the Monday following Thanksgiving is one of the busiest online shopping days of the year because people are going back to work at their office and use the available higher-speed Internet connection to get some shopping done. The following Monday is also one of the busiest online shopping days of the year. As this article on Forbes points out, more than half of both women and men are concerned about the security of their financial information when conducting an online transaction.

One thing you can do as a small business if you sell online is to offer alternate payment methods. If you're not a well-recognzied national retailier, online shoppers may be even more reluctant to trust their financial data with you. By offering the availability of making payment through a generally trusted and highly regarded third-party, such as PayPal, your customers can provide their information only to the third-party, yet you still get your payment. You are then relieved from safeguarding their information.

My personal experience has been that PayPal processing fees are quite low (often just 3%) and your customers can pay by credit card, through an account established with PayPal or via one of several other options offered by such third-party payment systems. Such well-respected third-party payment processors open up markets for small businesses and can level the playing field a bit in the online shopping marketplace.

Happy shopping!