The Order fulfillment Process

This is the process that takes orders for your products or services and delivers these to your customer. In this section we will focus on the ordering and delivery of Digital Products such as software, ebooks, courses etc, but in the main the steps are similar for physically dispatched products.

The typical steps involved in the Order Fulfillment Process for a digital product are show in the following diagram:

Prospect Clicks Your Order Now

Button
Payments Page
Displayed

Prospect Provides Payment

Details Customer Redirected to Your Order Fullfillment Page
Customer Access Their Product

Your
Autoresponder Sends A Greeting And Access Details

Lets look at each in turn:

 

Prospect Clicks Your Order Now Button

Your prospect decides that yes they need the benefits that your product provides and click on your order now button. A typical example of an order now button is shown in the following diagram:

Payments Page Displayed

Your payments page is displayed. You need to have some way of taking payment with credit cards. Two main ways that you can do this with are using Paypal or Google Payments. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Paypal has been around much longer and potential user base is larger. Google is newer and is currently focused on the US and parts of Europe. I use Paypal but am continuously looking at the Google option as they generally provide good services. You can also get your own merchant account but we will focus on Paypal as a good example of how to take credit card payments online.

Prospect Provides Payment Details

With Paypal once the order now button has been clicked they are taken to a payments page. This page allows the prospect to use their Paypal account to pay for the transaction. If they do not have a Paypal account they can either sign up for one or simply pay with their credit card.

Customer Redirected To Your Order Fulfillment Page

Once payment has been made Paypal redirect your customer (no longer a prospect) to your Order Fulfillment Page. This is the page that provides the download or access details to the customer for your product or service. The following is a simple example of an Order Fulfillment page:

In this example a simple message is displayed stating that the customer will receive access details in an email. In many cases you may want to provide direct access to a downloadable product and hence include a download link on the page.

Your Autoresponder Sends a Greeting and Access or Download Details

Once the customer has paid for your product or service your email autoresponder (next section) will send a greeting email which will also have access or download details. By adopting this approach you are beginning a hopefully long and beneficial relationship with your customer.

Customer Access Their Product Or Service

 

Now that they have the access or download details your new customer can access their new product or service and start to enjoy the benefits of it.