Allen - Tornado Profit System?

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).

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

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!

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.

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.

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!

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

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?

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.

^^ 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

ok bro

--David

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

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

Nice when are you open it up?

--David

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)?

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.

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.

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

Josh, is right in one way it might not be the one-click-upsell
most guru's are using but to have this working with Paypal
is amazing to say the least.

So he is using the merchant API to get all the data and all
stuff, the mechanics isn't at all important i feel, yes he could
have worded it different but this product fills a need...don't you
guys think?

It's a good breakthrough and if users do the things need to
get buyers to go through the process and pay at the other
end then I can't see why this service can't be a hit...

It will offer users like myself who use Paypal everyday
some advantages over the current way we use Paypal...

--David

I haven't read through the entire thread but just a note for the sales letter - Infusion doesn't do upsells on an order form - only on the shopping cart, which leads to 1 of 2 scenarios:

1. People see all of the other products in your cart, making them confused and/or distracted away from purchase

or

2. You can hold the shopping cart so that people don't see other products in your cart through the process, but then they're only charged at the very end after they go through all the OTOs (which means they might realize they can't afford one of the OTOs, get disgusted, and not want to check out, thinking they can't succeed without all of the pieces)

You can use that to your advantage.

Edit: You can buy a custom upsell solution - it just won't accept PayPal and costs more for both the script and for the programming of it.

Like Josh, I am also an ecommerce developer who understands what is going on here. I know how this software is using the Paypal API, and it is definitely a creative use of it...

There are two things that everyone needs to consider:

1) As Josh mentioned, shopping cart abandonment could cause you to lose an initial sale that you would have had doing it the "regular" way. But, upsells made through the system could potentially increase your overall revenue, even with the reduction of customers. But, testing will be required to find out if this is the case.

With that being said, abandonment can be limited by good copy and notices to the user that help them understand what is going on and teach them how to complete the process. However, it never can be as simple as true "one-click" systems using a merchant account.

2) While this method is currently working, Paypal could "break" it at anytime. An important question that needs answered here is: Did the developer show this system to Paypal and have them give it a the green light?

If the answer is yes, then it will probably be OK. But, I have a feeling that the answer is no, and there is a good chance Paypal will not like this "creative" use of this particular API.

Anyway, it would certainly be nice if Paypal would allow this, and even make it a more straightforward process to implement. Paypal is introducing its "Adaptive Payments" system later this year, and that will make a lot more things possible.

Mike

Great feedback everyone, thanks!

It's no small issue - the difference between Tornado and the more expensive, complicated stuff. But that's the difference we are capitalizing on. It's not a negative - it's a sales positive.

While massive carts and systems have been developed to try and handle every concievable thing an online business could ever need - a lot of what's been developed doesn't take into consideration that if you strip all the extra away, while you'd certainly be losing a lot of functionality, automation, and even "true" one click upsell, it is simpler and cheaper to do what's most important to anyone starting out: make more from each customer they gain.

There's only one way to do that easily for most people, not geeks, but average people with low budgets.

My company uses infusionsoft. We can afford it and we have someone on staff who has taken the many many hours of learning to get to know how to run it. We personally love infusion, but we're at a totally different level than the people Tornado is helping.

In that context, we thought it was a pretty good step to take even though the sematics of one-click (which don't matter to the target market this is designed for) can be argued. I don't disagree in the least with the argument either. As long as no one tries to say this isn't one click upselling. That would be a mistake too.

On the whole, we're talking about tweaking your processs for a minority of people who abandon the process. This isn't about the overall conversion process, but a fraction of it that we'd all like to keep as healthy as possible, but we know it's an ongoing testing process just like anything else to keep abandonment low.

Everything about one click is averages. Averaging the # of people who take product 1, with the number who also take product 2, with the people who take nothing or abandon the process alltogether.

Simply put, your average customer value is all you care about at the end of the day. If you make $569 more in sales in a day, you aren't sitting there freaking out because 4 out of 100 people abandoned the process.

Hi Jonathan,

Firstly, thank you for your interest in Tornado. I apologize for the eMail coorespondance; I had planned on getting to those pending some time, today. Yet, here you are; which makes things a bit easier.. so thanks

You don't necessarily need to abandon all of your other methods of conducting transactions, really. Tornado is just another alternative to what you're already using; granted a pretty lucrative alternative, but an alternative nonetheless.

I guess you could look at Tornado as more of an extension to your current shopping cart(s); as it was built to do one thing and one thing only, (this version anyway).

Think of Tornado as the Super Sales Rep. that you send qualified leads to. Tornado closes the initial sale and attempts to raise the Customer value by offering a couple of your other products while they're in the buying mood. Tornado then reports those sales back to the main office, (in your case 1SC).

As far as communication, you'd basically tell Tornado to use the IPN URL that 1SC tells you to use when its just 1SC and PayPal talking. (I know that sounds a little confusing..)

So instead of..
1ShoppingCart --> PayPal --> 1ShoppingCart

it would be..
1ShoppingCart --> Tornado --> PayPal --> 1ShoppingCart

As illustrated directly above, (and in previous posts), once Tornado hands the final transaction information over to PayPal for processing and presents the "Thank You Page".. Tornado is pretty much out of the picture.

Therefore, any subsequent activity involving that transaction would be handled through either your main office, (your Main shoppingcart system), or PayPal.

As long as your shopping cart system can receive IPN data for transactions from PayPal, this shouldn't be an issue if that same shopping cart system is designed to run the reports you want.

This is the case with Tornado. Tornado is only a Super Sales Rep.; little Tornado dude doesn't do Accounting.

That's pretty much the premise behind Tornado.

To give Merchants the ability to offer more than one product while the Customer is in the buying mood without having to ask for financial information more than "once".

Simple, but VERY powerful.

I hope this answers your questions. We've got the email thing pretty much squared away now, so feel free to contact us if you have any further question.

THANKS!
PLP,
William

Can this be implemented with the "Butterfly Marketing Script"? and if so does anyone have an idea how to do it.

Jason

I'm confused, do you need to upgrade your PayPal account to PayPal Pro to get this working? That seems to be the only way to take advantage of the pre-authorization - kinda like what GoDaddy does when they keep your PayPal account on file.

I know PayPal Pro offers an incredible amount of flexibility to a developer and it pretty underused in the Internet Marketing field.

Peter

I just heard about this on Russell Brunsons micro c weekly training. This looks really cool for those of us that want an easy solution.

Hi everyone great post and great script, I was wondering if it is possible to intigrate it with the rapid action profits script? It would make a very valuble addon