Taking advantage of E-Commerce for your Fitness Business
http://www.articleorange.com/articles/2184/1/Taking-advantage-of-E-Commerce-for-your-Fitness-Business/Page1.html
Mikel Bruce
none By Mikel Bruce
Published on 06/20/2008
If you have a product or service, you definitely want to make the purchasing of that product or service as easy as possible. If someone needs to contact you, write a check, or disrupt purchase process in any way; the chances of losing the sale is greater. This concept may not seem applicable to personal training, but in today's market people shop for everything over the web. Once they have decided that they are interested in a product or service, they are often times ready to make a financial transaction. Imagine if a potential clients finds your business on the Internet and calls you for information. After speaking for a few minutes, they may decide to sign up for your services. If you have an e-commerce page on your website - which could even be a simple PayPal link – you could direct them to your site and they could pay right there and then.
Adding a Pay On-line service to your website will also make it much easier and more convenient for your existing clients to pay for sessions as well. As you know, many people already have enough resistance to initiating a workout program and if you can make it easier for them to commit you will be doing them a favor. You could also implement on On-Line Scheduling program onto your website which will allow your clients to register and pay for sessions at the same time.
Once you decide to make your website an e-commerce website, it opens doors to opportunities to sell additional services and products. Even if you are not selling material, you have intellectual property that could be very valuable to your clients. With the advent of new technology, producing CD's and DVD's are easier and cheaper than ever before. You could also consider putting together an educational e-book on any topic to sell to your clients. All of these products (CD's, DVD's, E-Books) could be added to your website and sold through a virtual product component of a shopping cart which would allow your clients to download the item without any effort on your part.
Shopping carts are less expensive and easier to install than ever before. There are plenty of off-the-shelf shopping carts that are loaded with features that can be installed onto your website for a minimal investment. In addition, On-Line payment services such as PayPal can be easily integrated into your website making it easier and cheaper to get started. PayPal doesn't have any set-up fees and is extremely easy to link to a website.
Once you have decided you want to add another revenue stream to your business you can now consider Affiliate Marketing. If you become an affiliate of another company you can be compensated to promote their products simply by directing traffic to their site. They would need to have an established affiliate marketing program but many companies already have such programs in place. Affiliate marketing can be as easy as finding a product/service you really feel positive about and that allows you to sign up as an affiliate partner. When prospects click on your affiliate partner's website from yours and make a purchase, you get credit for that sale. Two sites to find
great affiliate partners are www.clickbank.com and www.commissionjunction.com. You can also search Google for affiliate opportunities – they are abundant!
Having a quality PT website is the first step to opening doors for many opportunities for your business. WebFlexor PT Websites (www.websitesforpt.com) has designed its service with e-commerce in mind by offering self-editable PayPal pages, as well as very affordable full-featured, self-managed shopping cart.
Adding a Pay On-line service to your website will also make it much easier and more convenient for your existing clients to pay for sessions as well. As you know, many people already have enough resistance to initiating a workout program and if you can make it easier for them to commit you will be doing them a favor. You could also implement on On-Line Scheduling program onto your website which will allow your clients to register and pay for sessions at the same time.
Once you decide to make your website an e-commerce website, it opens doors to opportunities to sell additional services and products. Even if you are not selling material, you have intellectual property that could be very valuable to your clients. With the advent of new technology, producing CD's and DVD's are easier and cheaper than ever before. You could also consider putting together an educational e-book on any topic to sell to your clients. All of these products (CD's, DVD's, E-Books) could be added to your website and sold through a virtual product component of a shopping cart which would allow your clients to download the item without any effort on your part.
Shopping carts are less expensive and easier to install than ever before. There are plenty of off-the-shelf shopping carts that are loaded with features that can be installed onto your website for a minimal investment. In addition, On-Line payment services such as PayPal can be easily integrated into your website making it easier and cheaper to get started. PayPal doesn't have any set-up fees and is extremely easy to link to a website.
Once you have decided you want to add another revenue stream to your business you can now consider Affiliate Marketing. If you become an affiliate of another company you can be compensated to promote their products simply by directing traffic to their site. They would need to have an established affiliate marketing program but many companies already have such programs in place. Affiliate marketing can be as easy as finding a product/service you really feel positive about and that allows you to sign up as an affiliate partner. When prospects click on your affiliate partner's website from yours and make a purchase, you get credit for that sale. Two sites to find
great affiliate partners are www.clickbank.com and www.commissionjunction.com. You can also search Google for affiliate opportunities – they are abundant!
Having a quality PT website is the first step to opening doors for many opportunities for your business. WebFlexor PT Websites (www.websitesforpt.com) has designed its service with e-commerce in mind by offering self-editable PayPal pages, as well as very affordable full-featured, self-managed shopping cart.