Allen - Tornado Profit System?

[David_Thompson]

Hey guys,

I see allen promoting this new Tornado system in the forum anyone got it yet
and is it a subscription type of system, where we pay a monthly fee to use it?

Do we host it on our own server or is it hosted on someone else severs?

Just thought I'd ask, didn't see anywhere on the site to ask a question.

--David

[Loren Woirhaye]

I looked at the letter, watched the video. It's $29.xx per month.

I think it runs on their server. Pretty rudimentary selling
argument - even though what it does is cool it doesn't appear
to do anything but OTOs with PayPal from their sales message.

Heavy Metal music in the second half of the video was
a turn-off to me (even though when I was younger it might
not have been).

[David_Thompson]

Yeah i thought it said subscription at the end but at the middle it says this:

How much is it?
Remember, InfusionSoft is the big kid on the block and people are gladly handing them thousands in setup fees and high monthly payments to do this kind of customer management to increase their profits. But only those who can afford the very expensive programming fees it would cost to make InfusionSoft do what Tornado already does.
Tornado costs $29.95. That's it!


Which made me wonder...I do like the idea behind it but would much rather have
an app running off my own server...


--David

[Loren Woirhaye]

Yeah, if they were selling a script instead of continuity
I'd be all over it. As written the offer is confusing
because of exactly what you said.

I even went through their process as far as I could
without entering a paypal password... no upsell,
which surprised me because that's what it does.

I know whoever made the product is going to read
this thread - so here's my advice: get your offer CLEAR.

[Preben Frenning]

Agreed. I also found it a bit confusing, as it first seemed like a noe-time payment, but after further reading it wasn't.

I also wondered if they had an upsell, and it surprises me as well that they don't!

[AmyBrown]

Watching the video, the magic doesn't happen until the first product is purchased. So...if you haven't bought it you won't have seen an upsell.

[admin]

Originally Posted by AmyBrown

Watching the video the magic doesn't happen until the first product is purchased. So...if you haven't bought it you won't have seen an upsell.

I agree Amy...it's a little odd he would even say that.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Loren Woirhaye

Yeah, if they were selling a script instead of continuity
I'd be all over it. As written the offer is confusing
because of exactly what you said.

I even went through their process as far as I could
without entering a paypal password... no upsell,
which surprised me because that's what it does.

I know whoever made the product is going to read
this thread - so here's my advice: get your offer CLEAR.

Loren it's not called a continuity, it's called a subscription to a service. Like hosting, AOL, a phone, etc etc etc...

Not sure what all this complaining is about...

[Loren Woirhaye]

Well I think the main issue is the site reads:

"Tornado costs $29.95. That's it!"

Which isn't the same as saying "Tornado costs $29.95. Per month!"


That's a distinction some buyers will make and others won't, no doubt.

To me it looks either sly or sloppy.

[Eric Stanley]

I'd be all over it too if it was a single purchase item for the script. It seems unnecessary for it to be a subscription product. It sounds like a great script though!

[Istvan Horvath]

Originally Posted by Loren Woirhaye

"Tornado costs $29.95. That's it!"

Which isn't the same as saying "Tornado costs $29.95. Per month!"


That's a distinction some buyers will make and others won't, no doubt.

To me it looks either sly or sloppy.

I agree. Earlier I was wondering about the same: couldn't figure out whether it was an one time payment or subscription because the sales letter is confusing. Sometimes I suspect it is my fault if I can't understand what the salespage says, so now I am glad I wasn't the only one who got confused.

[GarrieWilson]

Loren,

On the order button, it says per month.

But I would pass on this for two reasons.

1. If you sell digital goods. Yes it can be used for them but the billing agreement screen says SHIPPING address. So I think you will lose ALL complaints.

2. There will be a self-hosted option within a few weeks. Always is with this type of script/service. I'm sure the first will be $97 - $127 but then another will be out and it will be half price. Then within 6 months, there will be a MRR one.

Of course you could join until it's release.

It's not that complicated of a system.

Garrie

[Ken Strong]

Ah, the joys of trying to sell to marketers!

Even at the monthly price, seems like a good deal if you actually used it.

[AmyBrown]

Originally Posted by admin

I agree Amy...it's a little odd he would even say that.

On the other hand, it's the only time I've seen people clamoring for an upsell.

I'm trying to talk myself out of it. Sadly, I'm losing

[AlexNavas]

It looks like a cool system which I am considering except for one thing...

They have to go through the entire process before paying. Anyone can bail after seeing all the offers without even buying the first offering.

[summerm]

Does Tornado support Paypal's "Website Payments Pro" feature of being able to accept credit cards directly on your website (i.e., customer does not need a paypal account) instead of requiring the customer to log into Paypal?

How does Tornado integrate with affiliate management software?

Does Tornado have any competition that anyone is aware of?

[Jack Humphrey]

I'll get William in here to answer the technical stuff. I wrote the copy, so I can address that part.

I'm not Michel Fortin, and I'm still waiting for my masterpiece sales letter. But everything seemed pretty clear for a launch. Warriors are the first to hear about it, so it's brand new and copy gets updated based on feedback like this.

I guess the questions on price might be valid if it was expensive or there was anything else that did this (William is the first to figure out how to even do up-cross-and downsells with Paypal. Infusion and the others aren't even there yet.)

And for the money, nothing comes close - that was intentional. Regular people haven't had any access to this kind of thing until now, either financially or without the rocket science degree.

Reason for the monthly fee is that selling software that will want frequent upgrades and new features is better, for us, on a monthly basis. If we go with hosted, we have to setup a paid upgrade system which would have taken more time to launch.

Someone was going to do this at some point and being first to launch is more important than anything else.

But the bottom line is, if you have a one product offer right now and you can increase the avg cust value by easily adding up and downsells that don't require multiple payment forms, we could have charged a ton more and it would be a good buy. And still under pricing the full shopping cart systems which don't even have Paypal-ability yet.

Thanks for the feedback on copy. I'll make sure to clear up some things in the coming days.

In th end, I knew Warriors would ultimately "get it" though without having spent another few days tweaking the letter.

[Naveed Peerzade]

Do we have an option to buy it one time? if we do not want any updates?

Does it work with other memebership scripts like amember etc?


Thanx.

[Jesus Perez]

^^ Agreed. There needs to be a better FAQ. I have no idea how this integrates with DLGuard, SimpleMemberPro, GetResponse, Clickbank memberships, etc. It's just not clicking with me yet.

Hosted is a turn off for me, too. I like to buy my stuff and "keep" my data unless placing it on someone else's servers is necessary (back-ups). In this case, the script doesn't appear to require a hosted environment.

I would have been happier with a "buy now" and "pay for yearly support/upgrades" pricing strategy similar to DLGuard.

[David_Thompson]

I guess the questions on price might be valid if it was expensive or there was anything else that did this (William is the first to figure out how to even do up-cross-and downsells with Paypal. Infusion and the others aren't even there yet.)

Mike, no one here is really talking about price or whether William is the first as you say to do this, it is just a matter of time b4 every Tom, Dick and Harry is doing it better and getting it to work with other membership scripts out there...

The point I was making is the fact that the salesletter was a bit unclear on pricing and it made it sound like it was going to be a oneoff payment and then later it sounds like a monthly thing...and if the buyer was going to host it hem or herself...

We see this as a major breakthrough for us paypal users and offcourse it is welcome...As a techhead I do understand how it working and think it is awesome...well done William

--David

[Naveed Peerzade]

I did a bit research and I guess there are some pricing limitation that we will have on upsell depending on the technique he uses..

eg. if he uses preauthorization then we have limitation that you can reauthorize for up to 115% of the originally authorized amount

So if you are selling $1 something on the frontend you can have upsell of $1.15

[David_Thompson]

It might be he is using the PayPal API to do all of this really...but
what ever he is using it doesn't matter, what really matters is the
way the salesletter was unclear...

The man did a fantastic job on getting this working, I know a few people
that tried to get this done and they ended up abandoning their projects.

--David

[tecHead]

Hey Everybody,

Let me start off by saying thank you for all the feedback; critical and non-critical alike. Truly good software can not be developed without feedback from the marketplace and that feedback implemented.

It seems that one of the bigger current issues here is the fact that Tornado is a hosted app. Jack hinted towards the fact that this was done intentionally, and it was (initially) for a multitude of reasons.

• Tornado was originally conceived for those that are not comfortable with installing scripts on their websites. Not to mention those without the skillset and/or not enough start up capital to warrant hiring a developer.
• Rapid development & updates is better facilitated through a controlled environment. The concept of upsells/downsells/cross-sells isn't new, but this particular functionality through PayPal™ is fairly new; which means things can change at the drop of a dime. PayPal™ themselves changed their environment about 4x in the middle of Tornado's development. Making sure every distributed copy is up to date would be not only a development nightmare but an operations cost bomb, as well. (That being understood, we do, however, have a standalone version in the wings.)
• SSL Certificate needed for backend communications. SSL Certificates, (that actually work and don't take an Associates degree in Information Technology to install and maintain), are not easy to come by. Nor are they cheap. Yet, the only way a system like Tornado to function as it should is through an environment that is maintained under the security of an SSL Certificate. We wanted to eliminate this barrier of entry for people wanting to do business on a higher level online.
• We wanted to bring it to market, ASAP. Of course, being first to market is a major desire for any business; and we're no different.

Originally Posted by AlexNavas

It looks like a cool system which I am considering except for one thing...

They have to go through the entire process before paying. Anyone can bail after seeing all the offers without even buying the first offering.

Shopping Cart Abandonment is one of the biggest problems of ANY eCommerce system on the Internet, today. Actually there are NO, (none that I'm aware of), scripts or systems that can help prevent shopping cart abandonment.

Yet, we thought about that; which is why there's an Abandoned Sale function built into the system. (It was a pretty late development so it hadn't made it to the sales page, yet).

Basically, the system will email you the Name & eMail address of everyone that abandons your sales funnel midstream. Thus, giving you the ability to follow up with them at your convenience.

Originally Posted by summerm

Does Tornado support Paypal's "Website Payments Pro" feature of being able to accept credit cards directly on your website (i.e., customer does not need a paypal account) instead of requiring the customer to log into Paypal?

How does Tornado integrate with affiliate management software?

Does Tornado have any competition that anyone is aware of?

Tornado works slightly differently than Website Payments Pro where as it allows the merchant to totally bypass any notion of need for a merchant account. Website Payments Pro still requires certain merchant account functionality; which is why PayPal™ charges for it.

Alternatively, setting your PayPal™ account's options to PayPal™ Account Optional should/would enable you to give your Customer's the option of creating a PayPal™ account or not; (except in the case of a Subscription, of course.)

Originally Posted by Naveed Peerzade

Do we have an option to buy it one time? if we do not want any updates?

Does it work with other memebership scripts like amember etc?

Thanx.

As stated above, there is a (higher priced) standalone version in development. Yet, we don't feel it should be released until we're absolutely sure that any subsequent PayPal™ updates will not alter Tornado's immediate functionality.

As for working with other Membership scripts and/or shopping cart software, yes. Tornado was purposely built rather open ended so that it can work with other scripts on the market that do what Tornado purposely does not do.

Each Tornado account holder has the ability to send transaction data to their respective scripts in two separate ways; (both of which can be used in conjuction, as well).

Through their Thank You Page; as (for those that opt to build their own Thank You Pages) Tornado will send Transaction ID and indication of each product/service bought, per transaction.

(i.e.: http://thankyou_page?transID=##&prod...d2=##&prod3=##)

Through the PayPal™ IPN feature; which would incorporate the need of a developer OR instructions of how to receive IPN data by your respective Membership and/or Shoppingcart script(s).

Tornado allows you to set your own IPN URL to anything you want; thus allowing you to capture transaction data directly to your site from PayPal™.

For those that are not familiar with, don't have developer funds available for or just don't want to muck with IPN scripting.. Tornado has an option for you, as well.

Originally Posted by Naveed Peerzade

I did a bit research and I guess there are some pricing limitation that we will have on upsell depending on the technique he uses..

eg. if he uses preauthorization then we have limitation that you can reauthorize for up to 115% of the originally authorized amount

So if you are selling $1 something on the frontend you can have upsell of $1.15

Without giving away our mission critical data; we took care of this and there are no limitations, whatsoever in that regard.

Hopefully this answers the questions posed thus far, sufficiently. Please feel free to continue to offer up your feedback; as it is more than welcomed.

Peace, Love & Prosperity..
tecHead
(William)

P.S.: Thanks David; appreciate the kudos.

[David_Thompson]

William, will there be room for using or entering your personal
autoresponder like aweber, emailaces, prosender...

Like yourself I do understand the issues with paypal and their
updating or fixing stuff all the time, I have an app that works
off of their API which is briliant...I'm would be much more
interested seing this badboy first hand, do you have a working
demo setup we can test...

--David

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by David_Thompson

William, will there be room for using or entering your personal
autoresponder like aweber, emailaces, prosender...

Like yourself I do understand the issues with paypal and their
updating or fixing stuff all the time, I have an app that works
off of their API which is briliant...I'm would be much more
interested seing this badboy first hand, do you have a working
demo setup we can test...

--David

Hi David,

Tornado is already set so that you can incorporate a squeeze page; all you need do is set your autoresponder "thank you for subscribing" page to the first page of your Tornado sales funnel. Beauty in motion.

Actually, the Tornado sales process IS the working demo.

PLP,
William

[David_Thompson]

I was thinking about backend demo admin stuff.

I see the selling process or rather I know the
selling process, the backend inner workings...

--David

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by David_Thompson

I was thinking about backend demo admin stuff.

I see the selling process or rather I know the
selling process, the backend inner workings...

--David

David,

No, not at the moment; there is no demo of the Member's Area. However, the video shows you pretty much what the back end looks like and how it functions.

I'll look into how I might want to implement a backend preview; as live demos can become rather troublesome with certain individuals, (present company not included), having less scruples than most.

PLP,
William

[LB]

C'mon folks.

$29 a month is about $360 per year. If your 1 click upsell isn't adding at least that much to your pockets you're doing it wrong.

Additionally, a good SSL cert runs about $100 annually and is a pain to install and not all hosting packages work with a SSL setup.

It's good to discuss the virtues of a product, but I'm kind of confused why the complaints about the monthly cost.

[David_Thompson]

ok bro

--David

[Thomas Belknap]

Maybe it is just me but this looks friggin cool. I think this will make us a lot more than $30 bones a month. Man think about adding this to RAP. Katching!

Yeah, I am a little excited about this if you can't tell.

[tecHead]

Just to clarify something.

One of the main reasons we brought this to the Warriors first; (and especially via Allen himself); was due to the built-in 35% affiliate system. Yeah, that's 'residual'.

3 = free

Just thought I'd make that clear.

PLP,
William

[David_Thompson]

So William, so you guys have an affiliate system setup?

Nice when are you open it up?

--David

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by David_Thompson

So William, so you guys have an affiliate system setup?

Nice when are you open it up?

--David

I was informed by Marketing, (Jack), that we'll be opening it up to the general public whence he returns from London, (next week).

Right now, its only available to Members.

PLP,
William

[David_Thompson]

K, I'll keep my eyes out for it, as I said it looks like
an awesome addition to any web business that uses
paypal...

--David

[JVManna]

I just watched the demo video. It looks like it does what it does really well -- minimizing the barriers for customers who use PayPal. I think it tad unfair to compare this product by itself to the likes of other full-featured shopping cart/CRM solutions available on the market.

Seeing solutions like this work so easily for marketers definitely helps us consider new ideas and ways to make our software better. We plan to have long-term support for PayPal and better 1-click-upsell implementations soon. (They were voted on by customers as an important idea for us to undertake.)

That said, I am curious about the success/sustainability of this app for marketers. That is, are disputes/chargebacks handled well, does it lead to high customer satisfaction, etc. Only time will tell and will vary between marketer to marketer, methinks.

~Joe

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by JVManna

I just watched the demo video. It looks like it does what it does really well -- minimizing the barriers for customers who use PayPal. I think it tad unfair to compare this product by itself to the likes of other full-featured shopping cart/CRM solutions available on the market.

Seeing solutions like this work so easily for marketers definitely helps us consider new ideas and ways to make our software better. We plan to have long-term support for PayPal and better 1-click-upsell implementations soon. (They were voted on by customers as an important idea for us to undertake.)

That said, I am curious about the success/sustainability of this app for marketers. That is, are disputes/chargebacks handled well, does it lead to high customer satisfaction, etc. Only time will tell and will vary between marketer to marketer, methinks.

~Joe

Hi Joe!

Definitely glad to see you.

#1 - Thanks for the kudos; its much appreciated.

#2 - Its very interesting how you've managed to answer your own curiosity question.

You said: "That said, I am curious about the success/sustainability of this app for marketers. That is, are disputes/chargebacks handled well, does it lead to high customer satisfaction, etc."

But first said: "Seeing solutions like this work so easily for marketers definitely helps us consider new ideas and ways to make our software better."

... which is actually the answer to your curiosity; as Tornado merely acts as a conduit between Merchant and the PayPal system. The processor is still PayPal, therefore the actual transaction will always be subject to their mechanisms that are already in place.

Tornado operates well within their guidelines and TOS and we've purposely made the code unavailable for manipulation, therefore such things as chargebacks and/or disputes will be handled just like any other transaction conducted through their system; (which really has nothing to do with Tornado).

Actually, integration between Tornado, InfusionSoft's API and PayPal is a part of our next update.

Thanks again for the drop by..
PLP,
William

[4Highflyers]

Jack/William,

Nicely done!

Do you run this on a dedicated server? That's the only thing I'd want to know about
in relation to it being a hosted service that my actual sales system relies on.

Thanks for any info,
Adam

[David_Thompson]

Kickbutt looking app and from what i can see William is doing
his part which is being here answering our questions, that shows
a really good sign...customer support should be awesome as well
as for getting updates...

--David

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by 4Highflyers

Jack/William,

Nicely done!

Do you run this on a dedicated server? That's the only thing I'd want to know about
in relation to it being a hosted service that my actual sales system relies on.

Thanks for any info,
Adam

Hey Adam

Thanks, dude!

Yeah, I made sure the host provider housing this puppy was up to par. They're one of the best I've dealt with; (and that's saying something since I've been at this since '97 - geez, I'm getting old!)

I pretty much drilled them to the point that they roll their eyes when they see me coming, now. Their specialty is hosting big bandwidth eaters and they have redundancy up the wazoo.

Also, Tornado was built from the ground up to limit the need for resources; as we already knew that PayPal will sometimes just crap out on you with no warning, (that we can't control -- but they've been progressively getting better and better with that).

Thanks for the questions.. keep 'em coming
PLP,
William

[Naveed Peerzade]

One more question... here is the situation

1.. Member signup as silver membership (he see paypal site to login and authorize us) and he pay the silver fees say $9/month and a recurring profile created so he will be charged $9 every month

2.. After a week he decide to upgrade to Gold i.e. $20/month

Will this work the same way i.e. without taking him to paypal?

OR do we need to show our upsell downsells only during the first time purchase?


Thanx


Naveed

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by Naveed Peerzade

One more question... here is the situation

1.. Member signup as silver membership (he see paypal site to login and authorize us) and he pay the silver fees say $9/month and a recurring profile created so he will be charged $9 every month

2.. After a week he decide to upgrade to Gold i.e. $20/month

Will this work the same way i.e. without taking him to paypal?

OR do we need to show our upsell downsells only during the first time purchase?

Thanx

Naveed

Hi again, Naveed..

Good to see you thinking!

However, because Tornado is built specifically with a "hit it and quit" type functionality.. a week later Tornado wouldn't be in the picture anymore.

Actually, as soon as the transaction has been completed; (whether you're offering/presenting an upsell/downsell/cross-sell or not); that transaction is no longer connected to Tornado. Therefore, your scenario of one week later would require some other scripting/programming.

Tornado won't be implementing that type of extended functionality until Version 2; (shameless plug); which is pegged for release in late August '09. Within the PayPal guidelines, you'll be able to update subscriptions without having to cancel the current subscription and start a new one, (like pretty much everyone needs to do now).

Hope this answers your question, adequately.

PLP,
William

[Ronnie Nijmeh]

This sounds incredible, I have to say. A couple of questions:

1. How does this integrate with Amember? Easy? Possible?

2. I know you say that you're within the Paypal terms of service and guidelines, but what systems are in place in case Paypal pulls the plug, changes something, or (worst case) shuts down accounts?

Thanks

Ronnie

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Nijmeh

This sounds incredible, I have to say. A couple of questions:

1. How does this integrate with Amember? Easy? Possible?

2. I know you say that you're within the Paypal terms of service and guidelines, but what systems are in place in case Paypal pulls the plug, changes something, or (worst case) shuts down accounts?

Thanks

Ronnie

Hello Ronnie,

Thanks for the kudos!

1. How does this integrate with Amember? Easy? Possible?

Its definitely possible; as, if I'm not mistaken, aMember has facilities built in to accept PayPal IPN posts. I haven't had the chance to fully investigate aMember, as of yet; but Tornado was built from the ground up to be scalable for such things.

Right now, you can set your IPN URL to anything you want as well as implement your own Thank You Page; which Tornado posts to with TransactionID and variables containing the Item Number of each product purchased through your sales funnel, per transaction.

2. I know you say that you're within the Paypal terms of service and guidelines, but what systems are in place in case Paypal pulls the plug, changes something, or (worst case) shuts down accounts?

Tornado is not directly affiliated with PayPal, therefore we have nothing to do with their implementation of their TOS; we only follow their rules.

We really don't see them "pulling the plug" on anything we're doing; as they've been pretty commited to their end of development for more than a year now.

We would also have nothing to do with PayPal "shutting down" any account; as we're not facilitating anyone to do anything through our system that violates their TOS. If an account is shut down, it would be the responsibility of said merchant, (and would more than likely be the fault of said merchant for violating some clause in the PayPal TOS -- which is 99% of the time the reason behind PayPal shutting down an account).

PayPal is in the "business" of running transactions for merchants and individuals. They do this internationally. Just like there are viruses being constantly created by individuals with little to no scruples; there are those that go out of their way to fraud people. It is only logical that PayPal is strict when it comes to anything that could be and/or looks like fraud. Yet, at the same time, they would be pretty much shooting themselves in the foot if they were to randomly choose innocent merchants to shut down -- wouldn't they? With the most powerful advertising being word of mouth on the Internet, no matter how big they are, they'd wind up going out of business fairly quickly.

Yet, they've been doing business and growing in customer base rather strongly since 2001. Even the big boy merchants are implementing PayPal as an alternative payment method, now.

So, as long as you're not doing anything to violate their TOS; (which isn't that hard to not do); then you have no worries of them ever shutting down your account.

Our main business account has been active with them since 2001; we've never had a problem with them -- nor them with us. That account has been involved in nothing but IM since its inception.

Hope this answers your questions, adequately.
PLP,
William

[summerm]

Thanks for all the information!

So my understanding is that Tornado DOES currently have the option of having customer's enter their credit card info directly (as long as you set Paypal Account Optional). Could you please confirm my understanding is correct?

Would Tornado allow you to set a flowchart --various branches of the sales funnel, depending for example on whether the user paid with paypal account or without the paypal account (so you could offer subscriptions to those with a paypal account, and something else to the others)?

[lakshaybehl]

What?

Do I see people complainin'?

I mean... Complainin'?

And them too... marketers?

Woah! Gimme a break.

I know this comment of mine is going to send me off into the hatebin of a lot of Warriors, but anyone who feels this 1-click upsell service on PayPal for $29.95 a month is over-the-board, sorry, you have not seen what getting a Merchant Account and Gateway is like... especially for International merchants.

I mean come on- Aweber costs me twice that much and doesn't bring back what this will if it works correctly. Think about it, Aweber just lets me drive traffic to a site, not to increase the average visitor value all that very much. And 1shoppingCart-- the need is pretty much eliminated for that. That's at least $34.95 a month saved.

Look William bro, I don't mind if you change it to 199.95 a month AT ALL... And I am serious, try me. That'd still add in at least a few grand extra each month into my pocket.

I have been pulling my hair for not being able to implement 1 Click Upsells in the past, and now William bro-- I was thinking about getting my team of programmers to work along with PayPal. In fact, I just scheduled a meeting for this Thursday about the same thing. So technically I should be pissed off that you did it before me, but this is surprisingly the first time ever when I am happy someone else did what I was about to do. You just made my day.

Of course, a BIG thanks to Allen... You are THE man. You know what we warriors really need and point us to the best solutions... Hats Off, as always. In fact, if I were to take my hats off everytime Allen did something that benefitted me, I would never be able to place that thing back on my head. No Flattery! Serious.

Just one question for William though-- Will it work with aWeber? If it does, you really have a rockstar on your hands.

I already signed up, but still can't login. Just PM'ing you the transaction id. Let me know where to login.

-Lakshay

P.S. Anything that Allen promotes has gotta be solid.

[Josh Anderson]

A nice implementation of the checkout process using PayPal API but this is not really a one click upsel system.

The way true one click upsells work is:

1. Credit card is captured payment is processed for initial order.

2. After order customer is immediately offered the upsell and one click processes the payment for that upsell.

This is done using merchant account gateway api where the merchant's system has the credit card data so that the single click processes the payment.

What you are describing with the tornado approach is a shoppingcart with linear offers that lead to a final checkout confirmation step... in other words... more than one click. You might call it two or three click.

This means that the visitor accepts initial offer but is not charged yet, then is forced to continue shopping so that they can see the upsells which they can accept (add to cart) or reject.

The visitor then has to confirm the order and complete the process which technically ads several clicks and steps to the process before they are even charged.

So its definitely not "one click."

Closer to it and a nice funnel yes.

The main problem with this approach, which only testing could truly show, is that it is easy for the client to mistakenly think after the acceptance of the initial offer that the transaction has been completed and the payment sent...

The reason I know this is because the process being demonstrated is not new and has been used by PayPal pro users for some time. The new twist is the way that the upsells are offered.

So though it is a smooth process and could possibly increase conversions over the traditional paypal upsell process you may want to test it first because the one advantage of the traditional paypal upsell process is that at least the first transaction is completed so definately less chance of abandonment due to confusion.

The only reason confusion could be introduced which could impact abandonment is because so many are used to the traditional paypal checkout where the payment is complete before they see the upsell.

I know you guys want to market this as a "one click" upsell system but it is really a one click add to cart funnel organized in a more efficient way than most have approached it since you really have to end back up with the cart and confirm the entire order before any charge is made.

In some ways this may be more desirable from a consumer standpoint because if they do make it to the final confirmation (I will explain why I say "if" next) they can clearly see the entire package that they have agreed to and are asked to confirm the decisions that they made along the way and given a second chance to change their mind or even abandon the cart all together.

I just know that I myself have fallen for this very mistake when making a purchase from a nearly identical, but poorly implemented, paypal pro checkout process via one shoppingcart. I thought the order was complete only to find it was not and to be forced to return to the site and do the checkout process all over again...

I actually have experienced that same experience two times with two different similar Paypal checkout processes. Each time I could not understand why my account had not been debited as I thought that I had completed the checkout process.

So among the excitement you guys might want to think more deeply and test this before you assume it will increase your bottom line... It may well do that... but it also could introduce other issues such as increased unintentional shoppingcart abandonment.

I know that the developer tried to argue against that in this thread even going so far as to say that it could not be reduced... but that is the very purpose of true one click upsells... the original purchase is complete first and subsequent are complete in just one click with no confirmation.

[tecHead]

Josh,

I respect your expertise and most everything you've done, thus far. I've even purchased one of your products.

No offense, but everything you just took a good 12+ paragraphs to verbosely express could easily be remedied with a prominent and non-abrasive simple notice stating, "You have not been fully charged, yet..". Or something to that extent; (which thank you for the input causing me to think of such a message).

Secondly, my argument regarding cart abandonment; I actually said there's no way to prevent; didn't say reduce. Also, I mentioned that Tornado has a Abandoned Sale Notification sub-routine built in.

This sub-routine will email the Merchant with their Prospect's contact information. Thus giving the Merchant various options; mainly the ability to contact said Prospect "asking", (instead of assuming), why they abandoned said transaction.

That in and of itself greatly minimizes the ability to actually lose a customer. In fact, this type of Customer Service could very well build the Merchant's customer base.

I must say that I am a tad bit crestfallen that you would expend such an exuberant amount of energy presumably dismantling Tornado basing the premise of your polemic entirely on semantics and assumptions. Yes, we say "one-click" and you say "tomato".

Ultimately, any sales processes fruition will be determined by the Merchant's ability to "sell". Tornado is merely a mechanism by which that 'selling process' is made more interesting and flexible. We're not looking to; (nor have we claimed we can); save the world from itself.

We're simply trying to help some people out with making a little more money without asking them to sell their souls, first.

Have a blessed day, Josh. And thank you so much for your input..
PLP,
William

[tecHead]

Originally Posted by summerm

Thanks for all the information!
So my understanding is that Tornado DOES currently have the option of having customer's enter their credit card info directly (as long as you set Paypal Account Optional). Could you please confirm my understanding is correct?

Well, I thought I could; but I'm not going to give you false information, so I can't; (confirm, that is).

It seems that PayPal has decided to change directions, again; see, this is why we are only offering a hosted version right now.

They are currently only offering this functionality through their most primary website payment option.

Originally Posted by summerm

Would Tornado allow you to set a flowchart --various branches of the sales funnel, depending for example on whether the user paid with paypal account or without the paypal account (so you could offer subscriptions to those with a paypal account, and something else to the others)?

Yet, you bring up a very interesting scenario here.

No, the current 'simple' version of Tornado does not have this functionality. We will more than likely compensate for the situation above with updates allowing similar functionality that you're asking about, here.

Essentially, there will be the simple Tornado version, (on sale now), for the purposes of incorporating one-click upsell/downsell/cross-sell sales funnels into your existing sales solution... and the extended Tornado version, (which you'll see the likes of come August '09 -- will have a standalone option and will carry a higher price tag).

Hope this answers your questions..
PLP,
William

[Josh Anderson]

I was merely adding to the discussion offering professional insight from the perspective of an experienced ecommerce developer.

You should not feel badly about my observations as they are not meant to be negative.

They are however correct and offer you an opportunity to more clearly explain the technology you are describing as "one click" in your copy which may confuse some people due to the true nature of the add to shopping cart checkout process which is not a one click transaction and must be confirmed before the transaction is completed.

There is nothing wrong with that approach. But as I explained it is different from one click checkout processes and introduces the chance for increased accidental cart abandonment.

This does not detract from the quality of what you are offering. There is no question that it will benefit those that use it.

Originally Posted by tecHead

Josh,

I respect your expertise and most everything you've done, thus far. I've even purchased one of your products.

No offense, but everything you just took a good 12+ paragraphs to verbosely express could easily be remedied with a prominent and non-abrasive simple notice stating, "You have not been fully charged, yet..". Or something to that extent; (which thank you for the input causing me to think of such a message).

Secondly, my argument regarding cart abandonment; I actually said there's no way to prevent; didn't say reduce. Also, I mentioned that Tornado has a Abandoned Sale Notification sub-routine built in.

This sub-routine will email the Merchant with their Prospect's contact information. Thus giving the Merchant various options; mainly the ability to contact said Prospect "asking", (instead of assuming), why they abandoned said transaction.

That in and of itself greatly minimizes the ability to actually lose a customer. In fact, this type of Customer Service could very well build the Merchant's customer base.

I must say that I am a tad bit crestfallen that you would expend such an exuberant amount of energy presumably dismantling Tornado basing the premise of your polemic entirely on semantics and assumptions. Yes, we say "one-click" and you say "tomato".

Ultimately, any sales processes fruition will be determined by the Merchant's ability to "sell". Tornado is merely a mechanism by which that 'selling process' is made more interesting and flexible. We're not looking to; (nor have we claimed we can); save the world from itself.

We're simply trying to help some people out with making a little more money without asking them to sell their souls, first.

Have a blessed day, Josh. And thank you so much for your input..
PLP,
William

[summerm]

Hello William,

Thanks again for the answers to my questions!

Does Tornado Extended Version have plans to integrate with Paypal's website payment services so direct credit card can be supported? Please?

If you support branching in your sales funnels, you'll be unstoppable! This feature is critical in many applications that, for example, only upsell some super expensive item to people who have chosen to purchase all 2 previous upsells, but don't bother to try upselling to a person who hasn't selected any upsell and clearly just wants to check out.

Originally Posted by tecHead

Well, I thought I could; but I'm not going to give you false information, so I can't; (confirm, that is).

It seems that PayPal has decided to change directions, again; see, this is why we are only offering a hosted version right now.

They are currently only offering this functionality through their most primary website payment option.


Yet, you bring up a very interesting scenario here.

No, the current 'simple' version of Tornado does not have this functionality. We will more than likely compensate for the situation above with updates allowing similar functionality that you're asking about, here.

Essentially, there will be the simple Tornado version, (on sale now), for the purposes of incorporating one-click upsell/downsell/cross-sell sales funnels into your existing sales solution... and the extended Tornado version, (which you'll see the likes of come August '09 -- will have a standalone option and will carry a higher price tag).

Hope this answers your questions..
PLP,
William