Shopping Cart Software Tutorials

Using Google Product Search to Sell Online: Video Tutorial

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.

Create Custom Webpages for Your Online Store in the Latest Release of Webplus Shop

Using Webplus Shop’s hosted ecommerce solution to sell products has always been the focus, but now you can promote your store and inform your customers like never before. Learn how to take advantage of Webplus Shop’s latest feature – Custom Web Pages.

Custom Web Pages allow you to publish web content for your online store like an “About Us” page, customer testimonials, privacy policy, sizing charts, event calendar/schedule, shipping policy, or almost anything else that you would like to provide for your customers. Once you’re logged in, simply go to Appearance > Custom Web Pages and click the Add New Custom Page button to get started.

1. Page Filename - Set your page filename to whatever you want. Use something easy to read and understand like “about-us” or “holiday-specials”.

2. Links to Page - Tell your store where to put links to your Custom Page. The label is the clickable text that your customer uses as a link. Link placement is discussed later.

3. HTML Content - Insert your own or use the easy HTML Editor to build your page. Customers will view your Custom Page like your other store pages that have the header, navigation links, category lists, and footer.

4. SEO Tags - To help search visitors find your site, fill out these fields that help search engines identify your Custom Page content.

1. Navigation Menu Button - These links appear in your Navigation Menu between the Home button and My Account button. Save these for important site pages, like your About Us page or an Event Calendar.

2. Category List Link: Beginning/Top - These links appear above or at the beginning of your store’s Category List links. Put your “must-see” product related info here like special promotions or limited-availability info.

3. Category List Link: End/Bottom - These links appear below or at the end of your store’s Category List links. Use this out-of-the-way location for your shipping/privacy policies or sizing charts.

4. Use the Page Web Address - Use the Page Web Address to insert a link to your Custom Page from anywhere. You can put links in your store’s HTML areas like your Homepage Store Intro, Featured Products Heading, Product Long Description, or your Store Footer. You can also link from outside your store in your web advertising and marketing on blogs, forums, and message boards.

Have fun making your new Custom Web Pages!

Using data imports to make bulk changes to your online store

Whether you have 5 products or 500 products, sometimes you need an easier way to make changes to your online store. Webplus Shop offers an easy to use import wizard that allows you to do just that. You can easily add products, categories and product options (among other options) to your online store or make changes from one file.

To do this, just go to the export wizard in the merchant interface, export the table you wish to make bulk changes to, and save it. For more information on that, you can check out the tutorial here. In the case of the product file you can easily make changes to multiple products. For example with the product table, you can easily change the prices, descriptions, stock levels, etc. to many products at once.

This means that you can save time and energy on managing your online business and make it work harder for you. Below is a short video tutorial to guide you through using the product import function of Webplus Shop.

To start the video, press the play/pause button twice.

Webplus Shop 6.6 Shipping Configuration FAQ

There has been some questions coming in regarding the new Webplus Shop 6.6 shipping configuration within the Merchant Interface. Here is some clarification. You may contact us if we have not addressed your question.

 

Q: How do I set a handling fee?

A: The Handling fee is set on the Settings > Shipping page. A handling fee can be set for each “Carrier-Calculated” rate, but not for flat rates. It is assumed that flat rates include any handling fees in them already.

Q: How do I get rid of the “Rest of World Option”? I can only ship my stuff within the US and as it’s configured it looks like a customer could ship for free anywhere outside the US?

A: You cannot currently remove the “Rest Of World” option, as it is used as a fallback. There are 2 workarounds that can be done. 1) You can go through each country and disable it. This will take a long time, as there are over 200 countries. 2) You can set a “Rest of World” rate that is very high to discourage sales from other countries.

We are working on a way to disable this, along with a way to disable continents (instead of just countries) for a future release.

Q: Don’t understand the “Shipping Rate” field?

A: Shipping in Webplus Shop 6.6 is completely different than in previous releases. It is assumed that all shipping is flat rate, except when set to “Carrier-Calculated” rates. The Shipping Rate field is the rate for a flat rate shipping option.

Q: Where do I select the carriers I plan to use?

A: The new shipping system allows the use of “Carrier-Calculated” rates for USPS, UPS and FedEx within the US only. International carrier-calculated shipping will be added in a future release. As a result, you need to create a US shipping rate to enable this. Here is how to do it:

  1. Click “Add New Shipping Rate.”
  2. Select “North America” for the continent.
  3. Select “United States” for the country.
  4. Choose “Carrier-Calculated Rates” for the Rate Type option (which appears when “United States” is selected for the country).
  5. Select the shipping carrier you wish to offer. Only one carrier can be chosen for each shipping rate. If you wish to offer multiple carriers, then you need to create multiple shipping rates (all for North America -> United States). Note, if a carrier is already setup in another shipping rate, it will not appear on the list to prevent duplication.
  6. Check the shipping services you wish to offer for the chosen carrier (Example: FedEx 2-day, etc.).
  7. Enter the Handling Charge to be added to the carrier-calculated rates

Use data exports to make your online business work harder for you

Being able to export your data from your shopping cart software is important to your online business. You can export and use your customer data in a mailing list to stay in touch with your customers.

You can use these exports to quickly update things like your products and categories en masse. This allows you to work smarter—not harder—on keeping your web business running and keeping your products up to date.

Webplus Shop offers an easy to use export function. This export function allows you to export various things like Customer Data, Orders, Ordered Products, etc. You can find this useful feature by logging into the merchant interface and clicking on the Import/Export tab and then clicking on the Export Wizard.

From the export wizard you can select what you would like to export, what columns you want included, and what format you wish to export to. The first option is what data table you wish to export; anything from categories to orders. From there, the second option is what columns will be included in the exported data file. Some data files have a required column, and it will be marked by an asterisk (*); all the other columns are optional and can be selected by either ticking the select all box, or individually. Then finally, you can select what format you wish to export to.

Below is a flash tutorial to help guide you through the process.

To play, just click on play button twice on the silver bar.

Adding products to your online business

Below is a short video tutorial for you that will walk you through the process of adding a product to your online business. Webplus Shop has an easy to use interface and has all the options on one convenient page. You can start out with the basics and then go to the bottom for the more advanced items for adding a product to your online business.

To start the video, just click on the play/pause button twice on the silver control bar.