This is my journey as an E-commerce Consultant
Archive for June, 2009
Shipping Integration for an ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT and Channeladvisor
1057 days
Well, there isn’t any really. You need to set up the ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT shipping as is and the methods will map to your CA checkout. The prices are defined in the ASPDOTNETSTOREFRONT admin panel and your CA shipping values are NOT used. There is a work around, but it sounds a cuffuful and a half.
So, for the UK the only two sections you need to worry about is:
Configuration> Shipping > Shipping Methods:
and you only need to use ‘set allowed countries’ for the UK. Northern Ireland comes under UK already and….
The shipping methods available to you for all inventory are:
- By Weight
- By Total
- Individually (Not integrated with CA so it would mean editing each and every one)
- Fixed prices
- Free Shipping
- By Total and Percent
Zones are not available for UK users, but you can use in store pick up or live rates from companies such as Fedex and UPS. But lets face it we mostly use Royal Mail in the UK for all its faults.
One nice attribute on the shipping side is that when your customer has their item in checkout, there is a neat ‘Get Shipping Estimates’ button which allows your customer to find out how much the shipping will cost and the options available before carrying on through checkout.
Oh, and did you see what I did there? I set up a shipping method for International Signed for Europe and a separate one for Rest of World (ROW) to mimic zones.
You can of course do this for every zone you need and just call the method Royal Mail International Signed For (Zone 5) etc and set the allowed countries appropriately. Possibly just shorten it to whatever you need, but that is the only way I can see that UK users can use zoned shipping as we know it.
But remember to map it to your CA account in Stores > Premium Stores (Configuration)
Death and Destruction always sells…
The big news at the moment is the untimely death of Michael Jackson at 50. But as always people are ready to cash in on such an event and the on-line world is no different.
Take Tesco, when you Google Michael Jackson they are up there with their advert for MJ cd’s. We all know there are a cold and faceless corporate but why shouldn’t they cash in on an event like this? In MJ’s case the money made might appease his creditors to the point that his family and children might be left with a few quid for an ice cream.
Online music retailers jumped straight on the situation and on the front of most (if not all by now) MJ tributes and links to his back catalogue …..to be purchased of course.
But, most importantly eBay purchases of MJ tickets will be refunded:
27/06/2009
EBay and Paypal confirm buyer protection for Michael Jackson tickets bought on eBayThe sad news of Michael Jackson’s death has left fans of the King of Pop bereft. eBay is committed to ensuring that no buyer is left out of pocket as a result of the unique nature of the event, and will ensure all buyers on the site can receive a full refund for their ticket purchase.
On this basis, eBay and PayPal is extending its Buyer Protection to all Michael Jackson concert ticket purchases bought on eBay. The company will also help sellers by refunding eBay’s sales commission when they refund buyers for Michael Jackson ticket sales.
Final details of how buyers and sellers can work with eBay and PayPal will be announced early next week.
But how about the seller? The buyer gets their money back from paypal which I imagine comes from the sellers pocket if I know Paypal, but will the sellers get their money back from the promoter?
But who will end up taking the full brunt of the loss? The promoters? The sellers? On average 300 million will be lost due to the cancellation of the O2 event.
But we do forget, a man is dead.
Auctiva Responds..For your information only
1079 days
Auctiva emailed in a response to my recent blog post regarding moving from Auctiva to Inkfrog and this is their side of the argument for neutrality’s sake:
I wanted to respond to your recent blog post re. Auctiva’s pricing plans. £150 per month is not a realistic cost expectation for the majority of our users. We have a very large user base, many of whom would pay less than say, a $10 per month flat fee, by using our current pricing structure. We have always been, and will continue to be, a selling tool geared towards all sizes of sellers and we believe that our structure helps make Auctiva an affordable solution.
I understand the confusion and frustration of our customers. This is a big change, and with all change, it presents its own share of challenges. We want to make this transition as trouble-free as we can. For our current customers who have the last 60- 90 days of eBay sales data stored with Auctiva, we’ve calculated their average usage and once they log-into Auctiva.com, on the pricing tab, we identify the most cost-efficient plan for them. Additionally, for those who don’t have existing data available, we
created the Pricing Calculator to assist with the plan-selection process. And finally, we do have a top-notch customer service team standing by to provide one-on-one assistance when choosing a plan as well as answer any remaining questions.The pricing information is a lot to digest. I think it’s important for our customers to take a step back and really take a look at their selling practice and evaluate the plans we have available. As I mentioned previously, when the correct plan is selected, many customers will only pay a few dollars per month to continue to take advantage of our powerful selling tools and fundamental management features.
Please let me know if you have questions.
Thank you,
It came from an Auctiva domain email, but I have omitted the name in this case.
So opening up for comments if Auctiva customers are so quick to find blogs on the subject as the company itself! I pose these questions:
1. With the new pricing plan how much will Auctiva cost you?
2. And the image hosting?
3. Are you going to stay?
4. If not where are you going to?
*edited to add – Auctiva have reviewed their pricing and now offer a $9.95 flat rate plan (July 2009)*
Moving from Auctiva to Inkfrog….aggggh!
1081 days
I attended a webinar last night introducing inkfrog. Its a nice $10 per month system to help you launch to eBay, a system I will use if I start selling pre-made hairpeices on eBay. Just trying to find a decent Chinese supplier to make hairpeices to my specifications!
Auctiva is going from free to paid (and quite a lot of paying to be done) and within one month, you either pay up or get out. So quite a few who it doesn’t make sense to pay up to £150 per month (baring in mind you can use Channeladvisor for £300 a month) will move to the next cheapest system, inkfrog.
*edited to add the cost is based upon their professional seller rate of never pay more than $199 ~ $40K+ eBay seller and around $60 for the e-commerce functionality on $3k sales, total of $260 = £162.70 (Live rates at 2009.06.07 19:00:38 UTC)
You can tell by the flurry of questions in the webinar that people are in a panic. Sellers who cover their own wage with their eBay business (and there are a few) can not afford the kinds of outlays Auctiva now want. There are however a few problems if you have used Auctiva templates.
If you are Auctiva template free then moving to inkfrog should be a nice 2-3 week transition and things shouldn’t get very scary, but as template code is contained in your descriptions surrounding your item text using the inkfrog importer can be difficult. They are working on something to strip out the code, but it is inherently difficult as code is just text to a computer.
It is a shame that Auctiva users have only had a month to pay up or get out. This tactic has been used by other companies in the industry and they are preying on eBay dependant wage earners. I don’t like to be under that kind of control.
To avoid this type of calamity in the future, invest in an inventory system (or excel spreadsheet) with all of your product details with no template or code so you can feasibility hop from one system to the next.
The columns you will need are:
Item Title
SKU or Unique Number
Plain Description
Image names/URLs
Seller Cost
BIN Price
Starting Price
and any other details about your items important to you!
I have added a new page to the site : http://kidsontalks.com/ebay-marketplaces-and-e-commerce/ which are services and companies I have worked with and my clients use with no problems.
Related blogs on Auctiva’s Change:
http://3rdpoblogs.com/colderice/2009/06/01/auctiva-falls-to-epn-changes-and-inkfrog-leaps-to-the-rescue/
http://aswas.typepad.com/hall_of_fame/2009/06/left-auctiva-using-their-templates-beware.html
Channeladvisor Store SEO Basics
1083 days
OK, so it is asked a lot so here we go:
Preamble
Liz Glossary:
Keyword = one or two words to define an item e.g mobile phone, cricket bat, golf, socks, Addidas etc
Keyword phrase = Puma cricket bat, kids Dunlop golf clubs etc
Category Set Up:
1. Define yourself 4 main keywords per category (search for the best ones here https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and this include sub categories too.
2. Build and use the keywords in your category names, you don’t have to use all 4 as it probably won’t make sense.
3. Place your four keywords in your category meta keywords information in stores>manage categories a place your should know well by now!
General Store Set Up
Pick 20 keyword phrases that encompass your whole store, you have used keywords (single words/phrases like cricket bat, cricket gloves) in your categories, so now its time to use key phrases. We pick small number of keywords as SEO?marketing is a fluid beast and you might need to change and flex your keywords if they are not working. Place these in your main store meta keywords and also for your additional pages.
Store Item Titles
Still think a bit eBay when it comes to keywords as your item titles make up part of the URL for each item in store. Also make sure you have implemented your own URL for the store, it is much nicer!
Use Third Party Google Tools
Set up Google base as a standard and also Google Analytics and tracking to see if your keyword choices are being used and if you are missing anything.
If you have these elements as basics then your store should be indexed and attract appropriate customers (remember your customers in your keyword choices, they are not experts in the products like you are…what do they call things? Listen to them in emails and on the phone to how they explain the product and the language they use)
