If you can’t “meet” someone here, you’re toast!

Last week, two of us from 2Checkout attended the Internet Dating Conference in Miami, and of course, the puns are seemingly endless describing the number of interesting people we “met.”

So, go ahead and laugh at the fact that an online dating conference even exists, but keep in mind that this industry is highly profitable and professional, very popular with consumers and becoming more mainstream everyday. But, I know that those of you who are not entirely familiar with the online dating and matchmaking industry are asking the question — what could dating industry professionals discuss for two and a half days?

The fact is, i-Date varied little from traditional internet marketing conferences. Exhibits included typical services such as insurance and fraud protection, but also included a mix of industry-unique companies selling products such as security monitoring services designed to make follow up calls to women to ensure they have returned home safely following a date, and white label dating sites designed to make the “do-it-yourself” as easy as possible.

Breakout sessions included standard topics such as search engine marketing, newfound revenue, and fraud fighting. However, industry specific discussions focused on date screening background checks, making sites more female friendly and reviewing new DNA matching systems.

While listening to a fraud-fighting panel featuring industry experts such as Elena Kolyasnikova from Russia’s Pilot Group, we were pleasantly surprised to hear panelists agree that 2Checkout vendor Stop-Scammers.com was an excellent resource to verify potentially fraudulent dating site customers. Stop-Scammers lists thousands of known scammers involved in dating fraud with photos, scam reports, media files, fake documents, scam scenarios and warning signs that industry professionals can share to protect their collective interest. Hearing unsolicited praise for one of our valued vendors was very rewarding.

2Checkout is proud to provide an ecommerce option for dating sites and services around the globe and when it is time for i-Date 2010, we will be there… “it’s a date!”

So many people want to start a home-based, “spare-time” business. I receive e-mails telling me that I can “make millions while I sleep by using the Internet”. While I am sure someone at some time has made millions while sleeping it is hardly common, standard, or expected. In reality the “big names” in e-commerce took years to become profitable. With the right attitude and a little help you can make consistent sales as well as turn a profit. I will list some common, often over-looked, problems with start-up e-businesses. Where applicable I have listed how 2Checkout can be a partner in helping your company grow.

Continue reading…

2Checkout representatives are on the road again and we would love having the opportunity to continue meeting and treating our vendors!

If you see that one of us is going to be in your area, please email reservations@2co.com to schedule a time for one of our representatives to take you out for lunch or dinner. This is one of many ways to show our appreciation and personalize your partnership with 2Checkout.com. Following is a list of locations and dates (schedules permitting) that will be available:

• Jan 21-24 Miami, Florida
• Feb 8-11 San Francisco, California
• Aug 10-12 Tampa, Florida

Keep an eye on our homepage for updates and additions as we confirm dates throughout the year.

We look forward to meeting you!

You spoke — in multiple languages — and we listened!

2CO’s purchase routine is now better able to accommodate customers, by providing 15 languages to checkout in. The language options have been added to the top-right corner of our purchase routine, each displayed natively.

This feature provides immediate translation of our standard checkout form to one of these additional languages, with a click of the mouse!

If you are a vendor, and interested in choosing a default language to match your site and further enhance the customer experience, you can pass in a new parameter, “lang” when you hand off to 2CO.

As promised, we are staying true to our commitment of continuously improving our customer experience. By offering our service in multiple languages and facilitating better communication with customers, we are taking one more step toward improving customer conversion rates.

Traditional Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Slovenian, European Spanish, Latin Spanish, and Swedish are now available in addition to English. To see working examples and integration instructions, please see our updated Knowledge Base article “Do you offer any languages other than English?”

As we monitor the success of this first round of translations, we hope you continue to provide us suggestions for a second round of language translations that will help reach us out to even more customers.

Stay tuned for more news on positive changes to the purchase routine as we continue to test and refine our layout, research additional languages and consider alternative payment options. We thank all of you who provided valuable feedback throughout the testing process.

Payoneer will be taking all of their online services down on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 for 6 hours from 1am – 7am EST for scheduled maintenance and security updates.

The following services will not be available during this time:

• Payoneer API – No payment distributions/queries for existing payees/payments
• Payoneer hosted Partner Landing Sites – No new cardholder registrations
• Partners’ Administration Console
• Report Services
• Cardholders’ My Account services
• Cardholders’ private loading services
• Cardholders will not be able to claim payments
• Card loading services
• Card issuing services
• Email services

Your cards may be used at points of sale and ATMs as normal.

Please contact Payoneer directly with any questions.