The first online payment system that I used in DigitalFilipino.com was CCNow.com. At that time, the service requires no monthly fee. Even though it charges a per transaction rate of 9%, its market entry cost and mechanics are very entrepreneur-friendly compared to local payment gateway services in the country today.

Yesterday, I decided to tinker around with its two unique tools that I haven’t seen with other payment systems. This is the merchandising tools and discount coupon.

I am marketing an e-commerce book. As it can be bought anytime, there’s a need to create an urgency to get it. One way to do that is by offering a limited discount coupon. I generated a 10% coupon that can be used until end of March and distributed to my free e-commerce workshop mailing list members. Within the same day, orders came in.

Another interesting one is its merchandising tool. This allows you to cross-sell a specific product while the customer is about to purchase one that they just clicked on. I’m experimenting with our Philippine Internet History book with this one and will see if it will work.

CCNow.com also launched a facility where Google AdSense and Overture advertisers can monitor if their advertisements are generating the sales result online. In addition, the company will also launch soon an ATM card that merchants can use to withdraw their sales online from any Visa ATM worldwide. This is far better compared to check issuance that is being used to pay most merchants worldwide by CCNow.com.

It is great to see services that are sensitive to needs of online merchants today. CCNow.com has raised the bar once again and glad to see this site evolving.