Orders & Reservations
When making a sale, payment on the spot is often not essential or even appropriate. But providing live information about the availability of a product or service can make the difference between ultimately making that sale or not.
This means that having a payment system isn't always necessary to 'sell' over the internet.
Booking accommodation is one obvious example. Some suppliers demand credit card details at the time of reservation, but others don't. However, information about availability and prices is essential. If the customer can't find out whether a particular holiday cottage, hotel room or hire vehicle is available on a particular date at a particular price, he or she is likely to go somewhere else until they get an answer.
The information doesn't have to be real-time - but it does need to be up-to-date. The customer needs to be able to know:
- Do you have what I need?
- How much does it cost?
- Is it available?
- Can I book it?
Increasingly customer's patience will not stretch to waiting for an answer or possibly wasting time on enquiring for something they can't have.