Frequently Asked Questions

1. What do I get with my eCOMpal Membership?
2. What does abandoned cart notification mean?
3. What's "Reprocess Credit Card" mean?
4. What's an "Abandoned Cart Popup"?
5. Tell me about the QuickBooks, Quicken, and Microsoft Money interface.
6. How do I get started?
7. How do I set up my online Catalog?
8. How do Coupons work?
9. Where can I get more information about online marketing?
10. How do I set up the links from my site to eCOMpal's cart?
11. I use a fulfillment house. How do I get the orders to them?
12. I'm using a fulfillment house. How do I identify what I want them to ship?
13. How do I set up my shipping charges?
14. What support is available for eCOMpal?
15. Does eCOMpal work with any desktop programs other than QuickBooks and Quicken?

Q. What do I get with my eCOMpal Membership?

A. Your Membership gives you the ability to take orders online, capture your customers' information, shipping information and credit card information. The credit card is processed real time so that your customer knows immediately if the order has been accepted. The credit card information is captured with the same level of security that is used for online banking. It's totally secure.

There are two ways you can interface with eCOMpal. The simplest way is to use our catalog and add one simple link, which we'll build for you, from your site to to eCOMpal's catalog. You can have up to 225 items in the eCOMpal catalog, up to 15 catalog pages with up to 15 items per page.

The other method is to have all the items on your web site with simple "Buy Now!" links to the shopping cart. We have a feature called "Build A Link" that will create the links you can just "cut and paste" into your web pages.

There's a fee of $17.00 per month for this service. Back To Top

Q. What does abandoned cart notification mean?

A. As you've probably read many shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes the sale. There are numerous reasons for this, like the customer has questions and hasn't resolved them. Their phone connection may have failed or any one of a number of Internet issues. When a cart is abandoned on eCOMpal, we will send you an Email with the customers contact information. That way you can follow up either by Email or Phone to see why the customer abandoned the cart. This is valuable to you for a couple of reasons. One, you will probably convert at least half of the abandoned carts to sales because you followed up and this helps establish a relationship with the customer. Secondly, you may where customers are dropping out because some information isn't available that they need to make a decision. With that information in hand, you can modify your process to enhance your sales. Back To Top  
Q. What's "Reprocess Credit Card" mean?

A. Carts are frequently abandoned because your customers' credit card was declined or, in some cases, there was a communication problem with the merchant credit card processor. When a decline occurs, for example, you can contact your customer and get another credit card or another form of payment. You can then update the original order and have it reprocessed without entering all the information over again. Back To Top

Q. What's an "Abandoned Cart Popup"?

A. Sometimes a cart is abandoned before we have the customer's name and address. eCOMpal is set up to show a pop up to your customer if he or she leaves before completing the order. You can design the pop up any way you wish to find out why the customer is leaving without finishing. You can even ask for a phone number or email address if they'd like a response from you. Here's a sample of a popup that you can use as a model for creating your popup. Back To Top

Q. Tell Me about the QuickBooks, Quicken, and Microsoft Money interface?

A. If you're using one of these programs to keep track of your money, we have a small desktop program that will automatically transfer sales information from your site and update your accounting. Not only does it track the sales, it will also add your customers to, and track item sales through these programs. There is a fee of $4 per month for this application. Back To Top

Q. How do I get started?

A. Become a member of eCOMpal's service by clicking here and read our Step-By-Step Guide to online marketing. Back To Top

Q. How do I set up my online catalog?

A. You're going to find that setting up your catalog is very simple. Each item you want to add to your catalog will take about a minute to set up. In addition to the name, description, price, etc., you can enter a link to a thumbnail picture of the item and a link to a large picture of the item that you're selling. This give your customers a better idea of what they are buying.   Back To Top

Q. How do Coupons work?

A. Coupons are a great way to increase your sales. They are used to get your customer to buy now, as an incentive to purchase again, and as a way of tracking the effectiveness of marketing programs. Find out more here.

Q. Where can I get more information about online marketing?

A. Refer to our Online Marketing Guide, see it here. Back To Top
 
Q. How do I set up the links from my site to eCOMpal's cart?

A. It's very simple. There are two ways you can set up the link(s) from your pages to eCOMpal's cart. One, use "Build A Link" in the Cart Setup Menu. It will create a link that you can copy and paste into your code. Or, you can set the code up manually. 

If your User Id is 1234, for example your link would look like this:

"<a href=""https://ww2.all-secure.com/order.asp?userid=1234&desc= Something+to+be+ordered&price=12.34&taxable=no%weight=1>Something to be ordered</a>

Note that this would be all one line, but is broken up because of space considerations. You may not have any spaces in the link or information will be lost. On your page this would appear to your customers as something to be ordered. If you wish, you can also add a parameter identifying, if you know, where this customer came from. For example, an ad, or link, by using the "source" parameter, e.g. &source=abc. 

If you're going to use our desktop program, or if you're using a fulfillment house, we recommend that you use the "sku" parameter, e.g. &sku=abc1234. When the order is updated to QuickBooks, the "sku" will be QuickBooks Item number. Also, when the order is Emailed to the fulfillment house, the sku for each line of the order will be there to tell them specifically what was ordered.  Back To Top

Q. I use a fulfillment house. How do I get the orders to them?

A. There's a feature in eCOMpal that allows you to Email a copy of the order to the fulfillment house. The copy they are sent does not show any prices or credit card information, just the shipping and product information. Back To Top

Q. I'm using a fulfillment house. How do I identify what I want them to ship?

A. That's easy. Just add the "sku" parameter to each line of the order. This identifies specific items, just like any store does. Add it to your order line like this, &sku=abc123.  Back To Top

Q. How do the shipping charges work?

A. They are designed so you can have as many different kinds of shipping as you want. Shipping charges are organized by type of shipping, e.g. USPS, UPS, Fedex, etc. and by country. So, if you ship Fedex to the US you would have one price and shipping Fedex to Canada, for example, would have a different price. Within each rate, e.g. Fedex US, you have two rates. The first is for the first unit of shipment and the second is for each additional unit of shipment. For example Fedex US is $15.00 for the first unit and $3.00 for each additional unit. If you shipment was 3 units the charge would be $15+3+3, or $21. 

If you just want to charge a flat rate per shipment enter 0 for the cost of each additional unit. If you have free shipping by USPS and set up USPS with all 0's. If you have free shipping over $50 or $100 you can set that up as well. We call the shipping units weight, but it could be units or anything else you want to call it. It's only whole numbers, e.g. 1, 2, 3, etc. Back To Top

Q. What support is available for eCOMpal?

A. Support is available by telephone at 510-713-7090 or by Email Support@compal.com.  Back To Top

Q. Does eCOMpal work with desktop programs other than QuickBooks and Quicken?

A. No, not at this time. We are working on interfaces to Microsoft Money. Back To Top