This week, my business's web site, ResurrectionC.com, went live with online ordering for the first time. Customers will now be able to download MP3's of the talks I record at conferences as well as place orders online for CDs or DVDs to be shipped to them. Up until now, if a customer wanted to place an order, they either had to call me with their credit card information or mail in an order form with their check. They still have those two options, but now have 2 additional options (download MP3, place CD/DVD orders online 24/7). I have already received my first order for 4 MP3s.
This has been a long process that includes Winston, my web designer, my daughter, Cathy, who has been creating MP3s from hundreds of past conference CDs and myself trying hard to figure out the best way to do this that is both simple and clear.
Now I have the daunting task of putting all the talks online, going back 20 years. Once I do this, however, I won't have to do anything more but add the new conferences I am recording. But adding the past conferences will take me 6 months, if I am able to do at least one conference a day. Today, I have both of the 2012 conferences and my best-selling 2011 conference online. I will work my way back through 2011, and then 2010, etc.
Today I received an order in the old-fashioned mail that included conferences from 2011, 2010 and 2006 plus all 6 of my CD's. It was over $500, one of the largest mail orders I have ever received. That comes from posting all my past order forms online.
Cathy has also been working on updating my past order forms so that they will be accurate when I re-post them online. I had made a decision a few months ago to no longer sell audiotapes and VHS videotapes. I was still getting occasional orders for them but they were getting fewer and fewer. So I gave away most of my analog recording and duplicating gear. I still have lots of blank audiotapes to get rid of. I still have some more equipment to get rid of also. But that meant changing all my past order forms that included the option of ordering audiotapes and VHS videotapes. So Cathy has been going through all of those old order forms and updating them to CD, DVD and MP3. As I get to those conferences, working my way back through the years, I will be posting these corrected versions.
So I feel like a HUGE leap forward has happened and while it has taken thousands of dollars and many, many hours (and will continue to take many, many hours), it is a very satisfying feeling to have made this step in the direction of being able to serve my customers better.
