Aberdeen, SD, April 01, 2009 (PR.com) Webplus, Inc. (www.WebplusShop.com), the leader in affordable ecommerce website hosting, announced today the launch of its free shipping scale web hosting promotion. Through this promotion, businesses and individuals who open an ecommerce website with Webplus Shop will receive a Weighmax Pozo 75 lb capacity shipping scale free. Enter promo code: SCALE at checkout to receive this promotion.
Webplus Shop is easy, affordable ecommerce website hosting. With Webplus Shop, individuals and businesses can build an online store fast and sell or showcase almost anything worldwide in their very own online store website. Ecommerce hosting packages start at just $14.95 per month with no “percent of sale” fees like many online auction sites. No programming knowledge is required to administer the store so virtually anyone can use it and a one-page checkout makes shopping fast and easy for customers. And the Webplus Shop support staff is just a phone call away if there is ever an issue.
The shipping scale is perfect for shipping orders received through a Webplus Shop ecommerce website. The Weighmax Pozo scale features a 75 lb capacity, both an AC adapter as well as an included battery and a lifetime warranty. Ecommerce website hosting plans may be canceled at any time however the scale is yours to keep. For those who are not currently selling online an ecommerce website is a great way to expand your sales base in this tough economic time.
For more information on Webplus Shop, please visit www.WebplusShop.com or email sales@webplusshop.com. Promo may be redeemed online or by calling 1-866-338-8883.
About Webplus Shop Webplus Shop is the easy way for small businesses and individuals to open an online store and to sell almost anything online 24×7. Webplus Shop displays your products and processes orders in real time with support for a number of payment methods including PayPal and credit cards. The Webplus Shop shopping cart software has been in continuous development by Webplus, Inc. since 1996 with a focus on ease of use and affordability. No programming knowledge is required to set up an online store or to make routine changes; we realize that most small businesses don’t have a computer programmer on staff and your time is better spent running your business than figuring out software. Webplus Shop is also very affordable with packages starting under $15 per month including the software, secure, US-based ecommerce website hosting with 99.9% uptime and your very own domain name. Webplus doesn’t take any percent of your sales to cut into the bottom line of your online business. Webplus also does not outsource any portion of our services and our customer support is unbeatable.
If you’re ready to invest in your online busienss and access a large volume of inventory, keep reading. We’ll examine the pros and cons of using a drop shipper that charges a recurring fee. What is a dropshipper?
Some dropshippers charge recurring fees, often on a monthly basis, to ensure that they primarily work merchants who are motivated individuals and companies. We maintain lists of dropshippers here at Webplus Shop. Call us toll-free at 1-866-338-8883 (international: +1-605-229-0307) to talk about specific wholesale companies.
Pros of Recurring/Monthly Fee Dropshippers
Dropshippers and wholesalers that operate monthly memberships often have the largest and most diverse inventory.
Products are typically of better quality at a lower price. This means you can have a greater profit margin.
A recurring/monthly drop shipper also may offer name-brand products your customers will recognize.
Cons of Recurring/Monthly Fee Dropshippers
The big disadvantage is that your recurring payment is due regardless of your sales level.
Leverage a Recurring/Monthly Fee Dropshipper Relationship
The recurring/monthly fee wholesalers are the real deal of online sales. Commit to good marketing to ensure to reach your target sales volume each month and keep current with your wholesaler membership. Good marketing and clever pricing can eventually result in a positive return on investment.
Google offers powerful and useful searches that help customers find online stores, like yours. But did you know that Google offers a “Product Search” that is specifically designed to help customers find your products? To see this great tool in action, simply go to Google’s website and click the “Shopping” link at the top of the page.
Google Product Search allows your customers to search for their favorite products and see a list of merchants offering them, along with prices and seller ratings. Many customers find this tool an essential part of their online shopping.
Not all products and online merchants are listed in this search, though. Only products that have been specifically uploaded to “Google Base,” Google’s special database of products and other information, are included in these product-specific search results.
There are many advantages to having your online store’s products listed in this database. Customers don’t have to sift through as many irrelevant search results because this special search is specific to products they are looking for. This makes it easier to see your online product. Additionally, customers will get more information about your product using Product Search than they would using the regular Google search because special data fields are included in the product uploads. These searchable fields include the following: Product Name, Category (Product Type), Manufacturer, Condition, Long Description and Price. Webplus Shop automatically includes most of these fields without you having to specifically set them.
To upload your products to Google Product Search, you need a “Google Account.” If you use Gmail as your email provider, you can use your Gmail login as your Google Account. If you’re not sure if you have a Google Account, you can ask Google to check for you. Additionally, all products uploaded to Google Product Search must meet the Google Base Program Policies, Editorial Guidelines and Content Policies, or Google will remove the products from its database.
It is easy to include your online store products in the Google Product Search using Webplus Shop. The easiest way is to simply click on the “Inventory” tab and then click on “Google Product Search Feed.” This page will tell you how many products are marked to be included in the feed and which products are not. By default, each product is marked for inclusion.
Click twice on the Play/pause button to start the video.
To maximize the power of this marketing technique, make sure that your product descriptions accurately describes the product, using keywords that your customers might use to find your product.
Another important field is the Google Category (Product Type). Although you can use anything in your Google Product Type (Category) field, Google recommends using it’s product type taxonomy for best results.
Google Product Search is a powerful tool to get the products in your online store in front of your customers. It is growing in popularity and many online merchants say it has significantly increased the number of visitors to their online store and sales. Webplus Shop makes submitting and updating your products very easy and we highly suggest you take advantage of it.
If you have a small amount of start-up cash to invest in your online business or just want to expand your inventory, keep reading. We’ll examine the pros and cons of using a drop shipper that requires a one-time fee. What is a dropshipper?
Dropshippers that require a one-time entry fee simply ask that you pay once for the continued use of their services. The fee helps ensure that the dropshipper primarily works with motivated individuals and companies. We maintain lists of dropshippers here at Webplus Shop. Call us toll-free at 1-866-338-8883 (international: +1-605-229-0307) to talk about specific wholesale companies.
Pros of One-Time Fee Dropshippers
One-time fee dropshippers tend to have decent wholesale prices made possible by larger, more frequent orders from their well-funded and motivated merchants.
Larger merchant orders also mean better selection and better availability of inventory.
The initial fee usually accompanies capable support when you’re getting started and help with any issues later on.
Some products may even be from trusted, name-brand manufacturers.
Cons of One-Time Fee Dropshippers
The initial fee is usually several hundred dollars or sometimes more. If this seems like too much, consider a Per-Order or No-Fee Dropshipper.
It may be hard to predict the value of your up-front investment to the dropshipper.
Leverage a One-Time Fee Dropshipper Relationship
Do extensive research on the dropshipper. Ask their sales staff direct questions about anything not fully covered on their website. You’re going to want to find a dropshipper that is suitable for the long-term. The longer you’re selling, the greater your return-on-investment will be.
For more information about wholesale dropshippers or starting your own online store, call us toll-free at 1-866-338-8883 (international: +1-605-229-0307) or send us an email.
When you earn a profit from your online store, you must report it to the IRS. This is normally done on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ. Profits from your website are taxed as part of your income. If you lost money on your online business, though, you may be able to deduct your losses from your other income such as a job or another business.
There are some rules to keep in mind for deducting your website and business expenses. The biggest is that you need to know (and prove) whether your online store is a business or a hobby. The main difference between these is whether you have a profit motive. If you intend to make a profit (even if you ended up taking a loss), you can declare your website as a business and deduct its expenses, such as for web-hosting, marketing and promotion, and your wholesale cost of goods or services.
If the IRS determines that you did not intend to make a profit from your website, then you may still be able to deduct some of the expenses, but they are restricted. In general, if you make money from a hobby, you can deduct the costs up to the amount you earned. This means you may be able to reduce your hobby-income to zero with the expenses, but you cannot declare a loss to offset other income.
The IRS understands that most businesses do lose money the first couple years, since it takes time for marketing and promotion efforts to pay off and initial expenses are incurred when a business starts. During this time, the IRS can use a set of criteria to determine whether your online store is a hobby or a business.
If you make a profit (even a small one) for 3 out of 5 years, the IRS will see that you intend to make a profit and will see your website as a business and allow you to deduct all legal business expenses.
What this all boils down to is that there are some tax advantages to running an online business as a second income (or even as a first income). Your hosting fees are deductible as business expenses. Also, your ISP or broadband costs, all money you invest on marketing and promoting your website, and all consulting or customization fees you pay to customize your website would also normally be deductible.
Depending on how much you make from your online business, you may be able to take additional tax deductions, such as a percentage of your health insurance costs, a home-office deduction that includes a percentage of your rent or mortgage and utilities, and other deductions that are allowed as business expenses.
This means that even if you end up with a loss on your online store, you can still win by using that loss to offset some of your other income and reduce your overall taxes. Then, when you make a profit on your online business, you have more money in your pocket. An online store is a win-win either way.
You should understand this article is not to be taken as tax advice and that you need to talk to your tax advisor about how you can use your online business to maximize your tax deductions.
What makes these techniques work, though, is to choose the right keywords that will bring in customers who buy. The term “keyword” is a bit misleading. Normally, effective keywords are not single words, but are normally 2 – 4 word phrases. Here are some tips for deciding which to use:
Use short phrases instead of single words. 1-word keywords are too broad and competitive. For example, if you sell jewelry and choose “jewelry” as your keyword, you are competing against 261,000,000 other web sites that are returned by Google when someone searches for “jewelry.” If you use “men’s jewelry”, only 3,100,000 pages are returned. That is a reduction of nearly 99% in competition.
Choose phrases that are specific, but not too specific. The goal is to have keywords targeted that will land you on the top pages of search engine results and are actually used by real people. To continue the above jewelry example, choosing “jewelry” returned 261,000,000 results in Google. Modifying that to “men’s gold bracelets” returns 674,000, which is reasonable since not too many websites are returned and people might reasonably search for that. However, if you targeted “men’s gold and ruby bracelets in minneapolis minnesota”, you would have a great chance to be on the first page, since only 4,940 websites are returned, but extremely few (if any) people would reasonably search using that phrase. The value to your online store is the same if you’re #1 on for a keyword phrase nobody uses as it is if you’re #4,000 for a broad keyword that everyone targets. Exactly $0.
Use your search engine log as a guide. One of the best ways to know which keywords to target is to see what people have already used to find you. If your use Webplus Shop for your shopping cart software, a short search engine log is shown on your Merchant Dashboard page at the bottom, showing you the top 15 keyword phrases used in the last 60 days, along with the number of times that phrase is used. To use this report most effectively, you should do searches yourself using those top 15 keywords in various search engines like Google, Yahoo and Live Search. Write down which position your online business comes up in the results for each keyword phrase. You will probably find that you are not on the top page. If that’s the case, you should use the optimization techniques listed at the beginning of this article to increase your ranking with those words.
Research your competitors’ keywords. Going to competing websites and looking at their meta-tags can give you some good ideas for keywords. To see their meta-tags, right-click on their web page and choose “View Source.” Then press CTRL-F to bring up a mini-search box. Enter “<meta” (without the quotes) to have it highlight the meta tags. Also note the keywords your competitors use in their title bar (shown in the <title> tag in the “View Source” window).
Analyze your keywords using keyword tools. A couple of the most popular keyword tools include Keyword Discovery and WordTracker, both of which are not free. Popular free tools include Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Google Trends. These tools will show you how often keywords are searched, indicating how popular they are.
Optimizing your store to target effective keywords is by far the best free method of increasing the number of customers visiting and buying. It costs you nothing except some time and the payoff can start within a week and will last for years. Every week or two, you should re-evaluate your search engine rankings and they keywords you targeted, along with your traffic and sales. This will help maintain and increase your SEO marketing efforts and your sales.
Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs in the last few months with nowhere to turn but paltry unemployment benefits. When the benefits run out, where will they go next? Welfare-offices? How do you ensure that you’re not among them? By not having all your income eggs in one basket.
Experts agree that the best way to recession-proof yourself is to have multiple streams of income. Your job is your main income source, but you should have others. An online business is an excellent way to create an additional stream of income with a minimum of investment.
It is important to start at least one online store as soon as you can, since it is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It does take some time for your marketing efforts to work and for your customer base to grow enough for the income to be steady. But as the turtle won against the hare with his slow and steady progress, a solid web business will provide a reliable stream of income.
Once you get one web store going, it will require little time and effort to maintain and grow it further. That is when you can start a second online store to provide further income and insurance against recession. Multiple online stores compliment each other. Like all businesses, they have cycles. When one is going through a slow period, like a Christmas store in June, another store possibly selling beach gear can be doing better to keep your overall income even or growing.
Compared to other types of businesses you can use to supplement your income, online stores are among the most affordable, both in time and money. For less than $15/month and just a couple hours on the weekends, you can open your own online store and begin working to diversify your income. If you need help with getting started, our specialists can help you with any aspect of running your own business, including finding products to sell and how to effectively market them. For a small additional investment, our professional designers can design your store for you and set it up with the first 25 products.
During this frightening New Year, one of the best resolutions you can make is to diversify your income. Don’t assume that your current employer will be able to keep you on board through this long recession. Don’t assume that your employer will survive.
Ask yourself one question. How much is it worth for you to have some income if the worst happens? $15/month and a couple hours on the weekend? Take control of your future and start an online store today.
All online stores experience the problem of abandoned carts. This happens when a potential customer places something in their shopping cart but does not complete the purchase. There are many reasons this happens, some of which are preventable. They include:
Customer is only browsing and is not ready to purchase yet.
The shipping and handling charge was too high.
Your store has to charge sales tax to the customer’s shipping address because of your location.
The customer does not feel comfortable buying from you.
Your shopping cart is not easy to navigate.
It is too long or complicated to checkout of your online store.
Some of these reasons are out of your control. It is normal in all stores, both online and brick-and-mortar, for people to browse and not purchase. They might be comparison shopping or they might be looking to just get ideas on what to buy. They might be looking for a store located in another state to avoid paying sales tax.
Some reasons for abandoning online shopping carts are within your control to improve. Here are some effective things you can do to reduce abandoned carts.
Build trust and confidence. Make sure you have your contact details showing in your online store. If a customer has a question, they want to know they can contact you easily with any questions or concerns. Using a simple and easy-to-find “Contact Us” page makes customers feel more confident in your store, while reducing spam you would get by just showing your email address on your website. If your shopping cart software is Webplus Shop, you can verify this on the Settings > Store Settings screen of your Merchant Interface.
Make sure your pages download fast. The best way to do this is to make sure your image files are compressed not too large. Many shopping carts rely on the merchant compressing their image files before uploading them to their online store. Others, like Webplus Shop, will do this automatically when the file is uploaded. Also make sure there aren’t too many images on each page. It’s ok if there are a few to show the product and make the website attractive, but if there are a lot of unnecessary graphics, it will slow down the pages and many customers will leave.
Explain your return policy clearly. If a customer knows they can return a product within a certain number of days without any hassle, they will be much more likely to complete the purchase. A short statement describing your return policy should be on every page, such as in the footer. It is rare for customers to actually return a product, but they will feel much more confident in ordering if they know they can.
Reduce Sticker Shock. Explain your shipping and taxation policies clearly. A brief mention could be in the footer on every page of your online store, along with a more detailed description on a custom page. Your shopping cart should also allow the customer to see estimated shipping and tax costs before checking out. Ideally, it should show this estimate on the shopping cart page, as Webplus Shop does. If you use Webplus Shop, you can create custom pages for this and anything else you need by going to the Appearance > Custom Pages screen in the Merchant Interface.
Provide alternative payment methods. Different customers have different preferences for paying online. Some prefer the convenience of entering their credit card number directly in the store. Others prefer to use a payment service like PayPal. And some are simply not comfortable paying electronically and would prefer mailing a check or phoning their payment details to the merchant. If you offer multiple payment methods, barriers some customers perceive in completing the purchase will be reduced.
The shorter the checkout process, the better. Most online shopping carts have long, multi-page checkout processes. The customer enters their shipping address on one page, their billing address on another, their payment information on the third and then are asked to confirm on the fourth. This is a very large source of shopping cart abandonment. Many experts say that if you email people who have started the checkout process but abandoned it later, you can email them to encourage their return to complete their purchase. This is an inefficient and unproductive way to handle cart abandonment. The best way is to have the whole checkout on a single, simple page. This shows the customer exactly how easy it is, shows all details at once, and allows them to complete their purchase in the fastest possible time. There is no chasing after them after they quit. One shopping cart that offers this highly effective single-page checkout is Webplus Shop.
Offer a reason to return. It is a well established fact that it’s much cheaper and easier to get an existing customer to return than it is to find a new customer. The more repeat business an online store has, the faster it will grow. There are many easy ways to encourage repeat business. One simple way is to offer a coupon after a customer checks out to come back. For example, display a custom message on the Receipt saying something like, “Receive 5% off your next purchase! Enter Coupon Code XXXX when you return.” This can be done easily in Webplus Shop by going to the Settings > Store Settings screen in the Merchant Interface and entering your message in the “Custom Receipt Thank You Message” box. You can create your promotions and coupons in the Marketing > Promotions and Marketing > Coupons screens.
It is also important to measure and track your abandoned carts to know if your efforts are being effective. Analytics software, such as Google Analytics will help you understand your online store traffic patterns. You can also see exactly how many carts are abandoned and what items were in the abandoned carts if you use Webplus Shop by going to the Orders screen in the Merchant Interface and setting the Status field to “Abandoned.”
Periodically reviewing your abandoned shopping carts are an excellent way to measure your online store’s effectiveness in completing sales. While keeping in mind that there are some abandoned carts that cannot be prevented, there are many things you can do to avoid them. Using the right shopping cart software and following the seven suggestions will go a long way to reducing cart abandonment and increasing sales and profits.
If you’re looking to open and online store with no up-front investment or want to cheaply supplement your existing online store’s inventory, keep reading. This article will help explain some of the pros and cons in regards to the no-fee and per-order drop shippers. What is a dropshipper?
No-fee dropshippers simply require that you sign-up with them to use their services. Per-order dropshippers charge a small fee each time you place an order for products. We maintain lists of dropshippers here at Webplus Shop. Call us toll-free at 1-866-338-8883 (international: +1-605-229-0307) to talk about specific wholesale companies.
Pros of Per-Order & No-Fee Dropshippers
You have very little or no overhead on your inventory. You don’t have to keep any stock on hand and you don’t have to worry about packaging and shipping from home.
“No Sales, No Fees.” This means that if you experience a slow month, you won’t be paying a monthly wholesaler fee that eats into your profits.
Cons of Per-Order & No-Fee Dropshippers
Often the products will be at a higher wholesale cost and you won’t have as high of a markup.
Sometimes the products are not name-brand which can, but doesn’t always, indicate questionable product quality.
Leverage a Per-Order or No-Fee Dropshipper Relationship
You can easily use a no-fee or per-order drop shipper to your advantage. Not only does it have zero or very low overhead cost, it also allows you to widen your catalog with no initial fee. A larger catalog can quickly widen your customer base.
Lastly, keep an eye out for drop shippers with steep minimum order requirements or consistently low quantity-on-hand (i.e. in stock) amounts. These can result in an inconvenience to both you and your customers.
For more information about wholesale dropshippers or starting your own online store, call us toll-free at 1-866-338-8883 (international: +1-605-229-0307) or send us an email.
Times are tough right now. If you’re looking for a job, either by choice or unfortunate circumstance, chances are you have plenty of competition. You NEED to stand out from the rest.
By creating a simple Website Resume, you can direct potential employers to see that little bit extra about who you are and what you offer. An About.com article reflects this idea.
“The rules have changed and you are no longer confined to the boundaries of a sheet of paper. Because it’s a resume and a Web site, you have a little more freedom to express yourself.”
“Make it clean and brief, and grab their attention right off the bat on the first page. Don’t include too many extras on the first page, but rather link to them.”
There’s a number of things you can include on a Resume Webpage that either wouldn’t fit or don’t belong on a typical résumé. Here’s a list of some ideas and recommendations from us and Virginia Tech’s Career Services Department…
Include a small photo of yourself to match a face with your name
Have copies of reference letters, certifications, or other relevant docs
Showcase your professional papers or provide abstracts
Link to items or businesses referenced in your résumé
Detail your work experience and/or responsibilities from past jobs
It’s even a good idea to keep a redundant copy of your resume online in case an employer happens to find your page via the web. Also, list the cities or regions where you’re willing to work and if you’re open towards relocation. If an employer is outside of your area then they’ll know to move on.
Having your own professional website also means that when human resources searches your name on Google, your Facebook or MySpace page won’t be the only results with all great pictures you probably keep there.
Why Use Webplus Shop to Manage Your Resume Website?
The Webplus Shop software was built to allow online businesses to easily market and sell products. Although you wouldn’t need to sell products on your resume website you can still use our powerful tools and extensive features to help market your experience to potential employers.
These tools would be especially helpful…
The Custom Page Editor easily builds web pages, even if you don’t know HTML code
Our Design Area is easy! Use the Resume graphic set and the Cool Blue Professional colors
The Webplus Shop Search Engine Tools let employers find you by searching online
Our staff can advise you on how to leverage the web to improve your résumé
The best part is that our Custom Page Editor has a Paste from Word function that allows you to take your already carefully crafted resume and quickly turn it into a webpage. Give it a try in our Webplus Shop Online Demo.
We’ve made a hosting package Just For Your Online Résumé
Here’s what you do: enter in promocode RESUME when you signup for Webplus Shop Hosting and we’ll give you the following hosting plan to build a website resume.
$30 for 3 months for hosting, cancel any time – that’s only $10/month!
Get a free “.info” domain name, like http://YourName.info
Get a free website email address, like contact@YourName.info
Use our included email support when you have questions about your site
Get a one-time, free phone consultation with our Online Business Specialists
Once your website is up and running, make sure to include your http://YourName.info web address on your paper résumé. It can fit well among your other contact info or you can make it bold to ensure it gets noticed by those who are seriously considering your services.
Don’t wait. Sign-up now and use the RESUME promocode.
Please give us a call at 866-338-8883 or send us an email if you have any questions.
![[Photo by Dizznbonn]](http://onlinestore.webplusshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/taxes.jpg "taxes")
All online stores experience the problem of abandoned carts. This happens when a potential customer places something in their shopping cart but does not complete the purchase. There are many reasons this happens, some of which are preventable. They include:
