I get quite a few phone orders for products and I totally understand the fear some people have of doing an order over the Internet, and just not for Learning Chinese Materials.

When I read articles like this about a computer virus - Viruses That Leave Victims Red in the Facebook from the NY Times, security becomes even more apparent. A friend of mine from my days at a PC Mall had his facebook account hijacked, and he is pretty hi tech. So it does happen.

What I like about the shopping cart system I use is I can't see a customer's credit card number. All I can see is the last four digits. This is so nice from a security prospective for me! And I can only decrease what a customer is charged, not increase it without their security code from their credit card. This is a bit of a headache when a customer wants to add one more item, but I appreciate it as added security. This way there is no argument about unauthorized charges!

Another issue that has come up is E-Mail addresses. One customer who order over the phone don't want to get them, which I understand. All the others want the receipt, which is delivered via E-Mail. The one customer worried about getting a lot of spam, which I can understand. Without filters on my E-Mail, I was getting over 500 a day and going crazy when I changed my ISP. Since then I routed it through Gmail that reduces it to a manageable level. I don't sell/share etc. the E-Mail addresses of my customers and I treat them as I would like mine to be treated, with respect.

With my E-Mail newsletters I use constant contact, so when you unsubscribe you are really unsubscribed. I don't think with how I set it up you can even re-subcribe.

Labels: childbook