Feature Release: Accept payments online with Tula!

I'm thrilled to announce we just released the most important new feature for Tula since we first introduced Payment Center. Starting today, all our customers can now sell their passes and accept payments on their own websites using Tula Software's new online store!

What's great about this new feature though isn't just that you can accept payments online - it's HOW you can accept payments online.

The 'usual' way companies enable this kind of feature is that they make your customers sign up for an account on their software platform. Then, once they have an account, they can purchase something from you. But we think that's the wrong way to do it.

That method adds friction for someone who just wants to buy something quickly by making them sign up for a software product just because their favorite yoga studio happens to use that software.

And on top of the desire not to require people to create user accounts with us, we also didn't want to take students away from our customers websites. These students are OUR CUSTOMER'S CUSTOMERS, not our customers.

So we took an approach that was far more difficult to engineer, but provides a much better experience for the students of our customers.

We now enable everyone that uses Tula to create an online payment form that they can embed on any website. This form is a direct connection to Tula Software, and is 128 bit SSL encrypted so it's secure. And even better, students only need to fill out their name, credit card info, and their zip code.

When someone fills out this form to make a purchase, on the back end we do a lookup on the name and email of the person that submitted the form and make a recommended 'match' suggestion inside Tula.

Once you match the payment, the credit card is processed and credits are assigned.

The result is that your students can buy something directly from you, without having to create an account with us.

And of course, when they do, we'll send you an email and text notification.

We think you'll love this new feature, and as with everything we build, Maile uses it for her own studio. Want to see the payment form in action on a real website? Check out Tula Yoga Studio's payment page right  here.

Oh, and if you don't use the best software ever created in the history of the world for independent yoga studios, you can check us out at www.tulasoftware.com

 

The rarity of disconnection

My wife Maile on the rarity of being disconnected and how it's likely to increase in value:

Looking to the future, I anticipate that the experiences that allow this disconnection will become more and more valuable. Right now, the value is placed on connection - Wi-fi, faster internet speeds, more wires, cell phone towers. I believe that in the future, that value will be placed on disconnection - internet 'dead' zones, retreats, getaways, yoga classes. This disconnection will be become more and more elusive and we are going to crave it in our lives even more.