It’s official! 2Checkout has been selected as one of the Best Employers in Ohio by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) – Ohio State Council and Best Companies Group.

The entire list and numeric ranking of the 20 Best Employers in Ohio will officially be released to the press in April. 2Checkout received notification of the award yesterday morning and we are happy to say we made the list.

Best Companies Group and SHRM-Ohio worked in conjunction to develop a list of criteria enabling their panel of analysts to measure local companies competing for the honor. Measurement tools included a 72-question employee engagement and satisfaction survey and a detailed employer benefits and policies questionnaire designed to capture crucial information about each company’s policies, practices, and demographic makeup. Companies were judged on their leadership and planning, corporate culture, communications, work environment, training and development, employee/supervisor relationships, and pay and benefits, among other criteria.

Focusing our energies internally on the recruitment and retention of highly qualified Ohio-based talent while providing our employees an excellent work environment is just one more way 2Checkout is working for you!

You may not realize it, but small design changes are made to 2Checkout’s purchase routine daily, resulting in significant sales conversion increases for our customers – and we are thrilled with the results!

So, you might be asking — “what does an increase in conversion rates of 2CO’s purchase routine mean to me and my business?” That’s an excellent question. An increase in customer conversion rates means more of your customers are checking out and completing the purchase of your products or services, as opposed to abandoning the process, which often results in a loss of sale.

Last fall, while working daily to improve conversion rates, we contracted with Amadesa, a leader in the testing and analytics business, to provide an expert third-party assessment of our site optimization strategies. We are happy to say Amadesa’s additional testing is working – in fact, to the tune of a 4% increase in sales conversions for the customers using our ecommerce solution. What’s even more impressive is that this 4% increase is the result of only two waves of multivariate A/B page testing, with future waves to follow.

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2Checkout is happy to announce the re-launch of our demo store, ACME Online Books.

The new ACME Online Books provides both basic and advanced code samples that show how to create 2Checkout purchase links on your site.

The “basic” examples show some of the possibilities of our Plug and Play parameter set, for vendors with relatively simple purchase needs.

The “advanced” examples are intended for vendors with more advanced requirements and web developers adding 2CO compatibility to their shopping carts. We’ve even included a downloadable sample return script.

In the future, we will be unveiling even more resources for our vendors and third-party developers, so keep an eye on our blog for more announcements.

One day last May, we offered free vendor accounts to anyone signing up in a non-US currency. It was such a success, we’ve decided to do it again, but this time, we’re opening it up to everyone, regardless of currency.

To claim your free account, just sign up any time between 12:00AM and 11:59PM Eastern Time on Monday, February 16th. We’ll refund all signups made during this time, within the next week.

This is a great opportunity for small businesses and those in emerging markets to get started in ecommerce and save $49 USD at the same time.

Have something you want to sell online? Thinking about using 2Checkout to allow you to make those sales? It is, as they say, “easy as pie”. But like pie (or cake, or tarts). there are a few steps until the desired results. Here is a brief step-by-step explanation of what you can expect between the moment you click on “Start Selling” and receiving your first payment.

1. Start Selling – the selling wizard. This collects the basic information we need to create your account. We make our policies and conditions available and require that you agree to them. Then we collect contact and banking information so we know who you are and where and how to send your payments. Then, we have you create your account user name and password and use that information to connect to your brand new 2Checkout account.
2. Risk Document and site review – You may be sent a copy of our Risk Document to complete, so we can verify who we’re doing business with. The site review lets us make sure that your site is operating within our terms of service. The vast majority of sellers pass shortly after we receive their documents, but from time to time we need to request clarifications or suggest changes before a site is approved.
3. Validation – On the statement of the credit card used to pay the initial signup fee, you will receive a code. Use this code to validate your account from within your account, or by calling the telephone number listed after the code. This is quick and easy and can also be sent via fax or ticket if voice/telephone contact cannot be made. UPDATE: As of March 25, 2009, validation is no longer required.
4. Verifications – Once you start to sell your products this last phase of our signup process begins. We will contact some of your customers to verify that they have received and are happy with their purchase(s).
5. We send you your money – This is the best part! After the Account Reserve is applied and you meet the account’s Release Level we will send you your money.