Archive for September, 2009

BigCommerce – eCommerce Shopping Carts

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

Online shopping is now very common. Because of the increasing number of online stores on the web today, shopping carts are also gaining much popularity. Conventional businesses are too costly and so many businesspersons are now putting their investments in online stores. The risks involved are also minimal and as long as there is an internet connection, people can now shop conveniently. The shopping cart by BigCommerce is now recognized as one of the easiest eCommerce software. Today, it serves more than 8,956 stores in the World Wide Web.

So why do a lot of online businesses go for the BigCommerce shopping cart?

Customization is quite easy. The designers of the eCommerce software have complete access to CSS (through FTP), HTML, QuickEdit, and other tools. To customize the layout of your own store, you can simply pick among the fifty store designs or you can also use the Drag and Drop Design Mode.

Some store owners find it hard to learn how to use the shopping carts but with BigCommerce, there is no learning curve. With the aid of this eCommerce software, you can easily sell products on the web. If you have no idea how to use the software, you can use the ‘Getting Started Wizard’ and after that, you can now operate your online store together with the shopping cart. With a bit of research, you can find step-by-step videos that you can use just in case you’re stuck or you encounter problems.

SEO experts optimized the eCommerce software. In fact, Aaron Wall (an SEO guru) reviewed BigCommerce and all his feedbacks are now incorporated in this very powerful shopping cart. Just imagine how you can easily outrank all your competitors online!

The eCommerce also has built in intelligence reports that store owners can use. If you need help, BigCommerce can help you in making better business decisions. You get to work less and yet you’re earning more money.

BigCommerce will not penalize stores that tend to sell more. You can sell as many products are you like and the software will not get in the way. There are no transaction fees involved and most all, there are no hidden costs.

The top priority of Big Commerce is the security of online stores as well as the uptime of the shopping carts. Because of this, the software boasts of 99.99% uptime average track record. You can be sure that your store is protected with the same encryption and military-grade security like the large and prominent banks.

This eCommerce software has many features. For the design, the layout customization was already mentioned earlier and aside from that, you can also choose among the many templates, edit CSS and HTML from your browser, upload business logo, edit the email templates, etc.

The features are divided into the design features, SEO features, tax features, in-store features, marketing, support, hosting and security, payment and shipping, content management, search features, order and checkout, product and inventory, import or export, customer, and the reporting features.

Big Commerce is also far better than that of the Yahoo shopping cart and Volusion shopping cart. In terms of monthly price, BigCommerce offers the lowest monthly price of only $24.95 as compared to $39.95 of Yahoo and $29.95 of Volusion. A fifteen day free trial is als available with this new eCommerce software as compared to that of the 14-day trial by Volusion (and Yahoo doesn’t even offer a free trial!). The Drag and Drop Design Mode for easy customization is unique to BigCommerce as well the W3C Complaint Templates, online HTML/CSS editor, and the optimization by SEO gurus. The software offers 46 templates whereas Yahoo offers only 1 and Volusion, 20. This year, BigCommerce is recognized as one of the best shopping carts known today.

By visiting BigCommerce.com, you will be guided accordingly on how to open your very own online store. You can start by determining what you want to sell on the web. If you have a business in your area, then you can make it visible on the net. After choosing the products that you’re going to sell, you will now determine how to ship orders. Will you focus internationally or just locally? Know your shipping methods and jot it down.

Creating your own BigCommerce store is free and you can do this by filling out the form. You will simply provide your full name, organization, email address, phone number, and shop address. After providing the required fields, click on the ‘create my store’ button.

Once you’ve completed the sign up, you will need to decide how you will accept online payments. BigCommerce already has built in payment gateways and you’re free to use them. Picking a domain name is another vital decision and just make it short. You can use the default or you can pick your own domain name.

Various store designs are offered by BigCommerce and you can personalize your store’s layout. With so many designs to choose from, it’ll be easier to pick one that suits your business and requirements.

Use the import wizard Big Commerce to import existing products, categories, photos, and variations. If you no business yet, it’s also easy to add products with the use of the simple wizard and it already comes with descriptions, photos, etc.

Once you’ve completed all these steps, you can now launch your online store and start with the promotions. Add the URL in the marketing materials, invoices, and business cards so that you can effectively promote your new online store. Just in case you need help from the experts of BigCommerce, check out the contact details of the company found at the page’s top portion.

Having a thorough business plan before opening an online business is necessary to ensure success. The eCommerce software of BigCommerce is the perfect solution for your shopping cart needs. Having an automated and efficient payment gateway will make the shopping experience worthwhile for most customers.

If you’re still looking for a shopping cart, it’s time to go for BigCommerce eCommerce software. This is a name you can trust.

How to use Twitter for business

Monday, September 21st, 2009

As more and more traditional media talk about twitter, and more and more personalities leverage both for there own gain, a greater number of small business are starting to consider using one or the other as part of there online strategy. In the past year we have noticed three distinct types of business appear on Twitter.

  1. Click Me – These twitter businesses make no attempt to engage in the conversation. They have twitter accounts purely to post links to there own products. Most are controlled by robots and blog plugins.
  2. Shy Businesses – these business generally just retweet other people’s posts. There is rarely if ever a link back to there business, there is rarely a personal post. A quick chat to the people controlling these accounts and you will undoubtedly here the phrases “I’m embarrassed about posting anything like that” or “No one wants to read what I did this morning, it’s boring”
  3. Let’s Be Friends – Twitter businesses that get so involved in the conversation that they forget to try and monetize there followers. Not necessarily a bad thing (well form a profit point of view it s akin to collecting newsletter subscriptions and not sending a newsletter). Some of these businesses are classic and I really enjoy following them, it is refreshing to follow someone that has no motive, but from a business point of view it wouldn’t hurt them at all to remind us they have something to sell.

Get your Twitter Ratio Right

So – how much should you twitter and how many should link back to your website ? There are a few schools of thought and precise numbers are debatable. A couple of rules to live by before I make some specific numbers up.

  1. Don’t twitter so much that you become a burden. With people following hundred – even thousands – of people if you are tweeting 20-30 times a day you will become annoying – especially if you aren’t really saying anything. The smart money is somewhere around 6-8 times a day.
  2. Don’t twit about your own website so often that people stop reading your tweets. Obviously – if the bulk of your tweets are about how great you are- people won’t have to read your tweets- they will assume it is the same old crap and either stop following or stop reading – eventually both.If you tweet 6 times a day – once a day include a link to your website and once a day include a link to something else. 1/3 posts can include a link, 1/6 can link to your own website
  3. Retweet ? I keep having trouble coming up with a number for retweets. I follow people that retweet 8 times a day  – and I look forward to each and every one of them. Other people retweet once and I will block them after a week. The difference ? If the things you are retweeting are new and unique (well internet unique) AND you are retweeting something genuinely interesting go for it. If you are retweeting because the person id famous or you want to see them naked – don’t. We have all followed that person that doesn’t tweet without including the @account of some celebrity – painful isn’t it. The golden rule of retweets is if you truly think your followers will benefit form the retweet and havn’t seen it before go crazy – if not – save it – your followers will thank you.

Do you use Twitter as part of your sales strategy ? Is it working ? Have you found any pitfalls we should know about ?

Step by Step Guide to Setting up an eBay Store

Monday, September 21st, 2009

An eBay store (as opposed to selling your wares on eBay individually) is a great way to ease into selling online.

There are very few requirements.

  1. You need an eBay account
  2. You need a feedback score of 5
  3. You need to keep a credit card on file.

Getting an eBay account is free and easy. You could use your existing personal account – but you should consider getting one specifically for your business, among other things it will make it easier to sell later if you so decide and it keeps things nice and separate and easier to manage. Signup in a couple of minutes and come back to us.

With all the pre-paid and saving account linked credit card options these days there is no reason you can’t get your hands on one. You really should get one regardless, it s awfully hard to get anything done on the internet without access to some form of credit card. Ask your bank or check there website – they will have something for you.

Getting a feedback score of five basically means that you need to sell 5 things – and have those five buyers leave you positive feedback. Simple ? Before you go out and try and game eBay there are a few things to consider. You have to have been a member for five days (at least, at the time if writing) so you can’t setup 6 accounts and buy your own stuff before lunchtime. What you can do is put up 5 products, cheap, with the Buy Now option and get some friends and family to buy your products. Otherwise you can setup five auctions and sell your products for real. It is great fun (and slightly addictive) and will give you a great indication of the competition, the demand and the process involved in selling on eBay.

I know it sounds a little sleazy but eBay have some pretty advanced “scumbag detection tools” so they will let you get away with this to join – trust me – if you try and scam people once you have a shop they will slam the door shut on you quicker than you can cash a cheque.

Once you have completed the five sales, you are can apply for an eBay Store and start getting down to business. Come back in a day or two and we will walk you through building your new eBay Store.

The Truth About Selling Online

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

No this is not an affiliate speech with a “buy now” link at the bottom – there are no Commission Junction links in this post. In the past decade I have seen shopping carts evolve from complicated Perl scripts to far away hosted applications a pretty as they are functional. What I haven’t seen change is the attitude of the people getting into online sales.

The simple fact of selling anything online is that it takes time and effort – occasionally this can be offset by money – but at some point you have to work. Tens years and people are still surprised at how much work is required to make an online shop successful. Please don’t be put off – you can still make it work for you and the lifestyle is great once you find the right balance – but you can not install a shopping cart and retire in the same week. Just doesn’t happen that way.

I can give you a page of steps to take to simplify the amount of work required, and I have a book here that will streamline your day to day processes – but for whatever reason too many people out there just interested in “working on the internet”.

Hopefully the doom and gloom has scared off a few of the wombats that came looking for a crappy eBook to make them a millionaire before dinner.  Look, working on the internet is great. As a rule you work your own hours, if you have a laptop you can get around and away without any hassles and it is very lucrative if you apply yourself.

I have seen many a shopping cart fall to ruin because the owners lost heart when it didn’t ,make $10,000 in it’s first month. Are you one of those people that thought you would get rich fast just by selling online ? Did you go in with your eye’s open and expect more realistic returns ? How much work did you think it would take ? How much work did it take ? Let us know we are interested in your stories.

An email offering to get me to the top of Google

Monday, September 14th, 2009

“I got an email offering to get me to the top of Google for only $100, it seems so cheap and I need the boost, should I accept ?”

I get asked this, or some variation of this, every single week, and much to my surprise the same people usually ask more than once. I understand why, the offers look tempting, and if they were real they would probably net you quite a few sales. Let me break this down for you one last time. If you accept these Google and Link Building offers you will regret. Maybe not for a month or two – but you will regret it and you will need to spend thousand’s of dollars just to get back tp where you are now.

I don’t care if the company has an office just down the street – if they are promising you top spot in Google you need to walk away. Actually back away – if you turn they are likely to steal your wallet. Sweeping statements, sure. But true non-the-less. The faster someone gets you to the top of Google the faster you will drop right out of sight.

I am not saying you can not get to the top of Google, and I am not saying that people out there can not do it for you – but the ones that can actually do that wouldn’t be caught dead sending unsolicited emails – they are flat out responding to requests for highly paid work.

If you would like to get to the top of Google find a reputable consultant that will organize a long term plan that will get you to the top and keep you there. It will be the best money you can spend on your website.

How to create a theme for Interspire Shopping Cart

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

For all the things that Interspire Shopping Cart does well (and it does do so much, so well) when it comes to creating custom themes you might find information a little sparse. Thankfully it is both incredibly easy, and incredibly powerful. Unlike X-Cart, osCommerce and Zen Cart Interspire Shopping Cart does not use Smarty Templates. It uses it’s own version of templates that  are very easy to follow and are either full HTML files or partial HTML Snippets and Panels.

The HTML files are very elegantly form and incredibly easy to follow. Once you lay a few foundation pieces you will be able to cut and paste your way through Interspire Template creation in no time.

The Bare Essentials to an Interspire Shopping Cart Theme

  1. Create a folder for your theme. Everything will live under it.
  2. Create the following folders within your theme folder
    • Backup – this is where the cart will save revisions of your theme for safety
    • Panels – include things like global headers and footers
    • Snippets – list item templates and such
    • Previews – small screen shots that display in the shopping cart admin area
    • Styles – CSS style sheets
  3. Apart from your theme name you can specify a color, shade or variation. If it is a true custom theme I tend to stick with Default.
  4. Using Default create an image Default.jpg 250px wide and 154px high, put it in the Previews folder
  5. Create a style sheet  default.css in Styles

Upload all of that into the templates directory of your Interspire installation and you will be able to activate it and begin the process of copy and editing the template files.

Part 2: Editing an Interspire Template

Have you ever created an Interspire theme from scratch ? What is the website ? We would love to hear about your experience.

What is the best blog platform for a business ?

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

This one keeps coming up. The only blog a business should run should be one hosted on there own domain, running under their own domain name.

  1. Do not use Blogger. Not even in publish mode. Not even with a custom domain
  2. Do not use WordPress.com
  3. Do not use Tumbr or Posterious no matter how simple they make it look.

Why do so many people chase me around on this one ? Is it because as a business in a building phase you are looking to save money anyway you can ? Is it because they are looking for the easy way out ? Ignore for a minute what some teenage, amateur web developer said or worse what that design agency quoted you, you can host your own blog and still afford dinner. I will even tell you how if you give me a minute.

Let me be clear I have nothing against these services and do use them form time to time for non-business reasons. However, when it comes to a business, a money making venture anything but full control of your online tools is simply unacceptable. You need to own and control every aspect of your website including your blog.

How can a business setup their own blog without spending a fortune ?

I will fly through this for now because over the next few days I will be expanding this into a series of posts.

  1. Download and install WordPress (if you can’t any capable geek can do it for less than $100)
  2. Make it look good. Either use one of the free themes WordPress provides access to or if you are after something a little smarter try something like the Thesis theme or something from Woo Themes
  3. Start blogging.

Experience has shown that greatest cost of getting a blog running is the design phase.  To offset that I offer two alternatives. buy a pre-made theme, it won’t match your site or your branding but it will look sharp and visually effective. The other option is thesis which is great for the do it your-self bloggers. It offers an attractive default and an extremely flexible back-end that anyone can use to mold there blog into anything they want.

External Shopping Carts

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

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Hosted Shopping Carts

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

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Installed Shopping Carts

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

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