Microsoft Office Live Small Business Community

Since my site has been Online, I've had a lot of new visitors, but all my customers have rung or come to see me in person. I would really like some-one to use the contact us page, just to post a comment and prove that it works, or make a booking online. Any suggestions on changes I could make which might encourage this would be extremely welcome.http;// www.tarotconfidential.co.uk

When I first read you post my first thought was to offer a discount if done through the website. Then I saw that you are already doing that. Have you asked the people calling and visiting if they have seen the website? Maybe they don't know it is there. My only other suggestion is that it is a little confusing to go through Paypal and the come back to the site to type in info. 2 suggestions:

1) Use a third party form designer such as jotform, http://emailmeform.com/, www.wufoo.com, and set the return page to a payment page where you have they paypal link. With all of these site you can add as much or little info as you want to gather.

2) Use a third party payment service such as www.mals-e.com. It's free and you can have the input any info you want the pay all in one click.

Don't know if this is what you were looking for or not. Good luck in all that you do.

Thank you for the suggestion,but I don't feel confident about asking people to input their personal credit card details directly into a form on my site. As you probably know, there is a lot of suspicion about Identity fraud and Data protection issues in England at the moment, and I know that I would be wary of giving out my own details to an unknown recipient, that's why I like Paypal. The Paypal site comes up in a new window, which you close when the payment is sent, and you don't have to return to my site, as you're still there, anyway. It's possible to fill out the Question form, then go to Paypal afterwards, so I don't think that's too much of a problem . I have looked at the links you recommended, and thank you for your helpful suggestions. Maybe I'll reconsider when I've researched it a bit more. Regards, Gaynor.

I guess you misunderstood. I didn't mean to use the form to collect credit card info, I meant to use them to gather whatever info you needed to do a reading on them and when they click submit they are redirected to a payment page that has your paypal button on it instead of being redirected to a thank you page.

The other solution was to use a different collection system like mal's e-commerce to collect data. It is similar to the above set-up but it does everything in one click. For my use if I sell a step stool to someone I need to know color, name, design options, etc. Look here and act like you are going to buy something to see what I mean, after you click add to cart it takes you to a payment page and the to paypal. I agree and for liability reasons I would never ask for any personal info, nor would I give it out. Bofore I went to Mal's I was doing the same thing you were doing and it wasn't working well. I hope this helps. Good luck in all that you do.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to clarify. Sorry about the misunderstanding. That was a really helpful suggestion and I've started working on it now.. Best Regards, Gaynor. 

It looks much better now. I also thought about business cards/fliers that you can hand out to the people that come to see you in person. If you handed them out maybe they would be more willing to check out the site. I guess the main piont is that you are having sales no matter what. Just a thought. Hope you do well.