PayPro Europe is committed to deliver system improvements and new eCommerce tools for software businesses. This month we have updated localization of the control panel, order pages, vendor's notifications and buyer's confirmation emails. We hope that these localization activities will make your work with PayPro even better and more comfortable.

Order page updates

1. Improved order form localization

"Licensed to", "VAT ID" and "Company name" fields have been fully localized. Payment instructions have also been translated to make sure your customers successfully finalize their orders.

2. Product quantity

PayPro order pages deliver the fastest way to adjust the number of product copies on the order form: "+/-" buttons have been added to the product section. Customers can easily change the product quantity with the new buttons or manually enter it. Total price is automatically updated.


3. PayPro reseller tag

In order to comply with the credit card association requirements, PayPro reseller information and privacy policy links are displayed on every PayPro order page.


Email notification and IPN

Vendor's email notification and IPN have been updated with 2 new values to let you closely monitor your sales:

TOTAL_PRODUCT_SALES – track total sales per product
TOTAL_SELLER_SALES – track total sales in your account

If you need to check a complete list of IPN variables, please visit online documentation.

Control Panel updates

1. Tracking conversions on the custom Thank You pages

Thank You page redirecting mechanism has been revised. You are now able to track conversions when customer is redirected to your customized page after purchasing, instead of PayPro's standard thank you page. Google Analytics code is successfully transferred to enable you to correctly track your sales.

2. Expanded CD/DVD delivery options

PayPro offers flexible delivery options for vendors whose online sales involve CD/DVD shipping to customers. If you want to completely customize your product CD/DVD with a printed artwork and your own case cover it can be done within the control panel. Just specify the artwork and cover file in the Delivery tab in the product settings.



Important notice – if the product file is larger than a standard CD, it is automatically created as DVD.

3. Leads Management tool

PayPro is continually creating advanced eCommerce services for your business, and have just released Leads Management tool, located in the control panel next to the Care Center section.

PayPro's leads management is an effective tool to collect quality sales leads: all leads are generated based on abandoned and unfinished orders. These leads are potential customers as they have shown interest in your solution but have not finalized an order for some reason.

With PayPro's powerful management tool you can significantly increase your sales by automatically sending emails to these leads and possibly convert them into your customers. You can send up to 3 emails – default or customized - by determining to the number of days after order the email will be sent on and the offered discount value.



The functionality is enhanced with Instant Drop Notification mechanism which lets you store all leads coming from unfinished or abandoned orders in one place, making it easy for your marketing and sales departments to access them in the future. This feature eliminates the risk of losing any leads you have worked so hard to attain.



4. PayPro API

PayPro API is an integrated part of PayPro eCommerce solution that can be used to sell software online with one click for existing customers and get reports in the XML format.

The recent improvement has expanded the number of available XML reports with the addition of a report including all transactions. Other available report types include reports for orders, customers, specific order, and specific customer.

The true value of PayPro API is its expanded functionality for selling more products and product upgrades directly from the website or application with a single click and flexible options to manage subscriptions on the fly.

For more information and documentation, please contact us at [email protected].

Flexible recurring billing

PayPro EasyCommerce supports a variety of billing models to let you choose the best for your business demands, preventing any hassles. As SaaS market share is continually increasing, SaaS sales related questions are frequently asked. Here we would like to reveal more information on how PayPro can help you easily sell subscription-based products.

Advanced flexibility is what differs PayPro's recurring billing from other solutions.
The key benefits include:

1. Separate first payment - to let you take into account upfront fees for shipping or product configuration.
2. Flexible settings for first and future charges – multicurrency pricing and volume discount support.
3. Charge frequency choice – bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly, and yearly to match your service requirements.
4. Depending on your service sales model, you can either set up the total cost as the basis for calculation or charge a defined number of times.
5. Risk-free evaluation period for your customers - gain more credibility and trust from your customers and avoid unnecessary refunds with "Delay first payment" option.
6. Subscription synchronization – unite subscriptions if more than one was purchased by a customer.
7. Customized confirmation emails – inform your customers about all charges to let them fully understand what they are paying for.

We hope PayPro's subscription tool will help you eliminate any complexity in sales circle for SaaS products and let you concentrate on your product's development rather than on looking for a solution to manage your recurring payments.

Today we have invited Ksenia Chabanenko, CEO at creative PR-agency A-TAK. We met with Ksenia at ISDEF conference where she presented about explosive PR involving PR-motors and PR-rockets. She touched the topics of social networks and their role in IT-business promotion. The idea of this interview came up right after A-TAK released a book about using Twitter as a business promoter. We decided to ask Ksenia for more information on social networks' role in the business promotion.

- Hi Ksenia! We are so glad to have the opportunity to talk with you. Please tell us a little about yourself and your responsibilities at A-TAK.
Hi! A-TAK is a boutique agency with 6 employees, so I'm responsible for a many things. My responsibilities include not only development and implementation of our agency strategies but managing its operating activities. In addition, I'm also an account manager for a few key clients, and a curator for a few projects. At A-TAK, we have a 2-level structure while working with the clients. Each project is assigned to a curator who controls an account manager, helps him in hard situations, and communicates with the client when needed.

- What do you think a set of promotion activities for IT businesses should include?
A set of activities itself is not any different from activities of any other company.

- Social networks have so strongly entered our life that it is impossible to ignore this tool for a business promotion, especially in the fast developing IT-industry. What role do you think social networks should be given in the promotion activities and what results should the promoter expect?
Yes, social networks can't be ignored at all in the promotion structure. According to the research the time spent in the social networks is constantly increasing. For instance, an average computer user in Russia absolutely prefers social networks – spends almost 10 hours each month – which is even more time than spent on private emails.

IT-companies can solve the following tasks in the social networks:

• Increase company awareness for the targeted audience
• Community shaping around the trademark/product/brand/technology, ideas or company values
• Building communication with the clients and improving it
• Company promotion in the industry related communities, even as employer in the community of potential employees, IT-specialists

The main results of this promotion can be:

• Increased company brand awareness and customer loyalty
• Improved feedback system
• Increased number of returned customers
• Increased loyalty of the current employees
• Recognition and authority in the industry communities

And other positive effects.

- Is it possible to evaluate efficiency of the social networks?
In order to evaluate efficiency it is needed to determine the KPI (Key Performance Indicators). In other words, agree upon what we will measure while working with social networks. After important indicators are defined, the targeted values for them should be set.

Let this not mislead you even if it sounds very simple. People are used to evaluate efficiency of the promotion campaign with the website traffic indicator. However, in this case other indicators are needed. For instance, we have been working for a long time with one interesting client and when we meet we remember that our agreement includes KPI to measure work in the social networks but not website traffic.

- Facebook audience includes more than 600 million users and keeps on growing. Can Facebook be considered as a sales channel or it is more a tool to increase audience loyalty?
Facebook, as other social networks, offers an option to advertise goods and services on the internal pages and outside. These advertisements can be targeted by geography, gender, age, user interests. That's why yes, Facebook can be considered as a sales channel. And I'm sure that like other social networks it will be expanding in this direction.

It's interesting that a few researches have shown that advertising in social networks is not as lucrative as it is in traditional media. Researchers associate it with the fact that users connect to social networks for a different reason, and their attention is addressed to communication. This is questionable and should be considered individually in each particular case, comparing the costs and result of the campaign. Promotion in social networks that doesn't include promotional banners doesn't directly increase sales.

- What features of the promotion in social networks could you point to? Are there any special moments that need more attention, or maybe hidden dangers?
You should not forget that the common rule of corporate communication is applied here: from the beginning it is important to describe the key moments for communication on any social network, define the style of the communication, targeted groups, the main message sent to each group, position on the main questionable moments and reaction to attacks and claims. Being guided by this memorandum will simplify work in social networks even if communication is managed by a few people.

Special attention should be paid to the security of the corporate accounts and rules/conditions of the networks. It would be very disappointing if your account is hacked or deleted because of your actions.

- How do you increase popularity of the corporate page on Facebook?
Quality and interesting content is your main tool.

- If talking about Twitter, microblogging service, it can be said that many are skeptical about using it for promotion of the business on the Internet despite the fact that Twitter has already involved more than 200 million users. I think it can be partly explained by Twitter feature – all messages are limited to 140 symbols.
If you are looking for a reply to this question, you should consider the company goals. There are a number of goals that Twitter can help achieve and there are tasks where it is completely useless.

- What business goals does Twitter help to solve?
These are all those tasks that social networks help solve, we have already elaborated on. To create a community, get fast feedback from clients, find employees, expand communication with the targeted audience that uses Twitter, and promote the company or its product.

For IT-companies Twitter is valuable because it is used by many people from the IT-industry. If talking about Russia, from the beginning Twitter has become popular among IT-specialists, geeks, journalists, and then celebrities and politicians also joined it. Understanding of your targeted audience should help you understand if Twitter is needed for you and your business.

- What is a corporate Twitter? Are there any requirements, for instance, to publication frequency? What should and should not be published on Twitter?
The detailed recommendation about how to manage corporate Twitter account is described in a separate chapter of our Twitter book, so I know for sure that it is hard to give a brief reply to this question.

In short, corporate Twitter accounts can be different: for instance, formal and impersonal as Twitter accounts of huge corporations and news media, and live and actively involved in discussions as microblogs of smaller companies or even big companies that are open for communication. The same is with the frequency: some companies post frequently, others cross-post news once a day.

- What other social networks would you recommend to IT-companies?
First, it is professional IT communities. In Russia it is, of course, habrahabr.ru. The rest depends on what exactly the company produces and what information environment exists around this area.

- Can you point out any common mistakes made while promoting on the social networks?
The main mistakes are usually related to misunderstanding of goals and tasks of the presence in social networks. This leads to many left accounts and pages with unclear and not interesting content. Ask yourself for what you would need to promote in social networks and if the first reply is sales, then it is better not to start.

- Ksenia, thank you for your time and a great interview!