We live in a service economy, but e-commerce seems so far to be restricted to companies who sell stuff – not services. Every invoice, whether it’s for pest control or custodial engineering, presents an opportunity to join the party.

If you manage a service company, consider using Freshbooks to let your customers view invoices and pay online. If your current version of invoicing is to write up a word document and email it, you’re going to be in for a treat. You can sign up for free (to try it out with just a few clients). Set up a client, create a custom invoice (really just upload your logo), and then you’re off and running. You can create an invoice in a matter of minutes. Then the fun stuff begins.

When your client receives the invoice (by email), he/she can follow a link to view it on your custom site (customized with your colors and logo). Once there, they can pay with a simple click of a button. The system lets you configure your system to receive payment via a long list of e commerce gateways (e.g., Paypal, Authorize.net).

If you’re looking to use every customer interaction to differentiate yourself from the other guy, here’s an easy way to do it that your customers will love.

When you’re good or lucky enough to have someone decide to buy something from you, the last thing you want to do is make them wait around.

Google Checkout can help you close the deal … fast. This offering from the search giant doesn’t really do everything that the online payment leader Paypal does (see You’re so money). However, it shines when it comes to getting people checked out quickly. Checking out takes place in just two simple web pages, limiting second-guessing. Also, the system gives you smart assurances, such as “You can still make changes to your order on the next page.” Setting up is very easy to do – simply provide your company information (including bank account), copy the code provided, and paste it onto your site. The service is free for the remainder of 2007. Even better, while there will be transaction fees in 2008, they’re partially offset by your investment in Google’s search ads.

Are all of your buyers making it all the way to checkout? If not, there’s no risk in giving them a speedier option.

For many people, it’s a real mystery as to what you can and can’t track on a website. Most of the modern analytics tools rely on a script found on each page to provide information about who clicked where (and when!). This approach works well and is easy to implement. However, with outlinks (links that go beyond your site), they tend to drop the ball.

Now you can answer the “where did they go” question, thanks to Google analytics. We’ve covered this free analytics package before (see Follow the Yellow Brick Road), but there’s a lot underneath the covers. If you’re wondering where your site visitors are going, first, set up Google Analytics. Then, make sure that all of your outlinks are coded according to these instructions – you may need your webmaster to make it happen. Then, when you pull up your account, drill down into top content and you will be able to track activity to these links (even to some of our favorite mad scientists).

Remember, this tool is free, so there’s no reason not to know. Why not get it loaded up and start analyzing where your customers are going … today?

While price promotions can be the dangerous third rail of marketing, they can be enormously useful for so many things – inducing trial of a new product, filling the cupboard before your competitor launches a product, or maybe just getting rid of stuff that you produced just too much of.

Now you can publicize your promotions to web buyers with Mpire. It’s a shopping search engine that also pulls together promotions from across the web into one simple site. For example, if you’re looking to buy a HDTV and want to see who might be holding a promotion, this is the place. A consumer can simply enter HDTV as a search term and see what special deals are available from across the web. If you’re having a special promotion for anything, here’s a free way to publicize it and drive traffic to your site.

Just choose post a deal and add the information about your promotion. There – now you can take the rest of the day off as Mpire’s users can find your special deal and drive sales.

While there’s much talk about mobile payments, you would think that the only thing available is a faster way to charge a credit card – not really move money from buyer to seller.

That’s just not true. You can make real payments using your mobile phone and PayPal mobile. Now you can send a text message payment just as easily as an email payment, opening up the opportunity for buying and selling wherever you are. If you don’t already have one, get yourself set up with a PayPal account. Then, select a phone number to activate. The system will call you and ask you to enter your PIN. There, it’s done. Now you can send payments to any email or phone number from your phone (and in just about any currency). You can even do handy things like checking your balance.

Doesn’t this make you wonder why your bank doesn’t offer this kind of service?

Remember – the easier you make it for your customers to buy – the more likely they actually will. Are you making it easy to collect money from your customers?

Despite the fact that nearly everyone over age 10 has both a credit card and a cell phone, most retailers still require you to show up, find what you want, pay, and then leave.

Time to evolve, using the web-based system called GoMobo. Here’s how it works: 1) Your customer (who has configured an account) sends you a text message order, 2) You receive that order either on a PC or by fax (what is that?), 3), Customer picks up the order (no waiting in line), and 4) GoMobo deposits payment directly into your account. While this service has focused on making fast food even faster (users include Dunkin’ Donuts, Papa John’s, Popeyes, Quiznos, and Subway) – there’s a lesson here for nearly every business.

If you make it easy for your customers to re-order and, even better, help them save time and eliminate hassle … they are likely to buy more from you. Are you still making people wait in line?

Loyalty seems to be the exclusive domain of man’s best friend, not customers. There are so many advertisements, so many temptations. Then there’s the natural inclination for customers to be a bit … promiscuous. What are you to do?

Why not let them subscribe to your product or service using Paypal’s subscription and recurring payments service? As you’ll see in this demo, all you need to do is define the parameters of your subscription (provide a name, a duration, and a billing cycle), choose or create your own customer subscription button, then publish it on your site. This system will take care of everything else: Accept credit card or bank account payments, and then maintain detailed transaction records of every subscription.

Here’s your chance to get creative about how you might use subscriptions. While of course traditional subscriptions are helpful for publications, don’t forget that you can subscribe to products (how about a toothbrush subscription … ) just as easily as you can subscribe to services (landscaping, cleaning, even … search marketing). Don’t you need to work harder to keep your customers in the fold?

Sales on the Internet are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales. With so many products being sold on the web, and so many stores, it can be hard to really stand out in the crowd.

One potential way is to use Amazon’s webstore to create a micro-site to sell your unique products. For a price of $60 per month and a charge of 7% of sales, you can create an unlimited number of stores – perhaps carrying special products or even unique brands. Instead of making your shopper scan through inventory, you can create a focused store through the combination of a targeted website domain (sorry, bigdogbeds is taken, but groovydogshoes.com is available), search optimization and a search ad campaign.

These webstores can be created in a matter of minutes and may be just the secret to growing sales, especially for your unique, hard-to-find products. Do you have a product or brand that’s so special that it deserves a store of its own?

As we discussed in itsy-bitsy, the web presents a remarkable array of possibilities for using new approaches to merchandising. In the same way, it presents new ways for you to think about how you might help your customers compare competitive products.

oSkope can give you an idea of what’s possible. In the same way that Progressive Auto Insurance lets you comparison shop in one place, so does oSkope show you how you can help customers comparison shop. Only in this case, they let you “shop” across Amazon, eBay, Flickr and YouTube. Give it a try and one word you’ll use to describe experience is . . . fun.

By intersecting convenience and comparison-shopping, oSkope should give you an idea of how you might set yourself apart from the rest of the pack.

giants that exist today and why the banks we remember from our youth . . . have disappeared. The concept is cross-selling. While there are some great examples of the concept being more than an illusion, nearly everyone has a lot of work to do to really make it happen.

If you’re ready to figure out exactly how to do that, Offermatica offers the tools that can help you answer two simple, but important questions. First, what products should I cross-sell, when? Second, where (on the site) and how (what creative) should I execute a cross-sell? Much like our conversation about site optimization in The Dating Game, this system lets you identify the variables in the equation. Then, as traffic visits and you gather data about all of the potential scenarios, the system will narrow the potential choices down to the best one. It uses the power of the web and your flow of traffic to optimize how you sell.

As they describe in this e-tailing related article, the benefit is real – more sales, profit, and share. And, since you’re really just optimizing the revenue that you get from existing customers, it’s often the most efficient way to improve your results. Don’t let the numbers or process scare you. There’s no reason to be guessing.

For some categories of products or services, customers have been trained or conditioned to expect to receive it for free. This can often be the case with everything from software to the air pump at the gas station to, um, daresay what you’re reading right now. Even if the provider wants to charge a nominal sum, customers will revolt. Now there’s a tool for monetizing these prospects.

It’s called TrialPay. Take WinZip software as an example. It’s the software the zips and unzips files and we admit that we thought it was free. It’s not.

When people download the trial version, they’re invited to get a version for free when they try or buy any product from Winzip’s (really TrialPay’s) trusted partners. These partners are companies like Gap, eBay, Lancome, and Blockbuster. So, what sort of thing to do you need to try or buy to get this handy software? In this example, there are 94 different potential offers, including things like applying for a credit card at Citi, paying for a $10 AAA card, or even just signing up for a trial of eFax.

Everyone wins. Customers get WinZip software for free. TrialPay partners get new prospects or customers. Winzip gets paid. And, of course, TrialPay gets a few points in the deal as well. If you’re selling something that’s tough to charge for, this is the system for you.

Many new salespeople have to learn a simple rule. Ask for the business. In the same way, so many display ads perform poorly because they’re unclear, they’re either intrusive or fade into the background like wallpaper. Most of all, they don’t really ask for the business. Not anymore.

Just take a quick look at Tailgate, an e-commerce system that fits an entire transaction right in a display ad. It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen. Yep, it’s a display ad. But, click on it and you can add an item to a shopping cart. Then enter your credit card number and close the deal (see this example).

Why make someone click over to a site when they can do a transaction right where they are. Time starvation knows no bounds. Don’t you think asking for the business more often will lead to . . . more business?