The third annual NYSE CEO Report finds CEOs increasing their focus on meeting and exceeding customer expectations to drive and maintain growth in the future.

“Almost one-third of CEOs will spend more time on customer relations; more than half expect to spend more money on it; and two in ten CEOs cite customer satisfaction as the most crucial element to their long-term success as CEO.”

Related links:

• NYSE-listed CEOs say customer focus to drive growth
• Leading CEOs Optimistic about Opportunities in Global Markets, Says NYSE CEO Report 2008

Digital Transactions writes:

“PayPal is increasing certain fees associated with its Website Payments Pro service, effective Sept. 1. In an e-mail it sent to merchants Thursday, PayPal said the monthly charge for the service will rise to $30 from $20. Transaction pricing for the Virtual Terminal component of the product will also go up. The new pricing will be 2.4% plus 30 cents to 3.1% plus 30 cents, depending on volume, up from 2.2% plus 30 cents to 2.9% plus 30 cents. Also, PayPal will start levying a 30-cent fee for Website Payments Pro authorizations in cases where transactions aren’t settled within 29 days…”

Source: Volume Climbs for PayPal, While Some Sellers Will See Fees Rise

2Checkout.com is proud to announce the release of our new transaction pages.

The transaction process has been completely rewritten and many improvements have been made. Many of the improvements were made to back-end functionality, so will not be apparent to our suppliers or customers. Several others are visible, however, so I’ll briefly describe these below:

Simplify and Inform

• An improved detailed transaction summary is now included on the right side of each transaction.
• Payment methods are now “conditional”. This means that customers who do not have a payment method available to them will no longer see references to that payment method.
• There is now a “Remove” button by each product or custom cart order. This makes removing products from your cart much easier than the previous method of entering a “0″ in the quantity field.
• Personal and Shipping Information now appears on a single page. This helps simplify the transaction process and allows customers to copy their Personal Information into the Shipping Information fields with a simple checkbox selection.
• To help maintain consistent branding, supplier (vendor) logos, if provided, now appear throughout the entire transaction process.

New Payment Methods

• Customers using Internet Explorer 6 or 7 in the United States will now see a payment option for ATM Direct. ATM Direct brings Real-time, PIN-debit payments to 2Checkout.com.
• Coming soon: FX Source and Paypal

We’ll be providing more details about these changes and future improvements, so check back soon for more information.

UPDATE 7/18: FX Source has been added as a payment option.
UPDATE 10/30: PayPal Express Checkout has been added as a payment option.
UPDATE 11/29: ATM Direct has been removed as a payment option.

There is an excellent internet resource that you may be interested in checking out. MIT opened the materials for all of their courses online, allowing anyone in the world to access them. While MIT is famous for their technical curriculum, they also house the Sloan School of Management which has many courses that you, as business people, may be interested in.

Among other subjects, OCW courses include:

• accounting
• business law
• financial management
• communications
• business strategy
• Creating new products and protecting them
• marketing

2Checkout has updated it’s Affiliate Signup Program

The 2Checkout Affiliate Signup Program is our way of rewarding suppliers with compensation for referring others to use our service. Here are some of the highlights:

• Suppliers now earn $11.00 for each new supplier they refer.
• Suppliers now have access to an affiliate reporting system which allows them to track their affiliate signup sales. This report can be found in the vendor reporting section of your 2CO Admin Area.
• A column has been added to the payment section of your 2CO Admin Area (’Aff Comm’). This column details money paid to you by 2Checkout for affiliate signup sales.

If you already have a supplier account, using the affiliate signup program is as easy as adding one link to your website (replace ‘XXXXXX’ with your vendor account number):

https://www.2checkout.com/2co/signup?aff_id=XXXXXX

After the account is active for 60 days you will receive payment for referring a supplier to start selling with us.

This is just the start of our new affiliate program revamp. Please keep sharing your ideas and recommendations as we continue to add to and improve this program.

Related blog post: 2CO’s New Affiliate Program
Related forum thread: Possible Integrated Affiliate Network?