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Thursday, March 10, 2005
Toral: Teaching via instant messaging
By Janette Toral
Digital Filipino
OVERBOOKED FLIGHT. Two weeks ago, I was scheduled to arrive in Cebu to conduct an online payments and Internet marketing workshop. As the flight was overbooked, I arrived at 4:30 p.m.
already instead of 9 a.m. It was a good thing that a friend was available to assist my students.
Upon getting the news of having no chance to go on board, I immediately went to Netopia in front of Dusit Hotel Makati City and chatted with my students via Yahoo Messenger.
For two hours, I explained the concept and examples of online payments. As the audio reception was not so good, I had to rely on my typing speed in explaining and answering questions.
Before going to the airport to board the 3 p.m. flight, I gave all the seatwork that needed to be done so I could check them upon arrival. By the time I reached Netopia in SM Cebu, my students had completed their assignments and answered further questions. From this, I realized that
conducting a hands-on online class via this
simple method is possible.
Merchandising and Discounts Tools. The first online
payment system that I used in DigitalFilipino.com was CCNow.com. At that time, the service required no monthly fee. Even though it charged a per transaction rate of nine percent, its market entry cost and mechanics were very entrepreneur-friendly compared to local payment gateway services in the country today.
Last week, I decided to tinker around with its two unique tools that I hadn’t seen in other payment systems. These are the merchandising tools and discount coupon.
I am marketing an e-commerce book. To create the urgency to get it, I offered a limited discount coupon. I generated a 10 percent coupon that can be used until the end of March and distributed this to my free e-commerce workshop mailing list members. On that same day, orders came in.
Another interesting thing is the merchandising tool. This allows you to cross-sell a specific product while the customer is about to purchase one that he just clicked on. I’m experimenting with our Philippine Internet History book with this one to see if it will work.
CCNow.com also launched a facility where Google AdSense and Overture advertisers can monitor if their advertisements are generating the sales results online.
In addition, the company will also launch soon an ATM card that merchants can use to withdraw their sales online from any Visa ATM worldwide. This is far better
than the check issuance that is being used to pay most merchants worldwide by CCNow.com.
It is great to see services that are sensitive to the needs of online merchants today. CCNow.com has raised the bar once again. I’m glad to see this site evolving.
(janette@digitalfilipino.com)
(March 10, 2005 issue)
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