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casperkyle

where to advertise my website

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I have started an online store to sell my products. we do not have a store. so I am looking for ideas where and how I should get the word out about my site. I will say we are located in a small town so we would like to branch out with our site. thanks in advance for any input

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Are you wanting to advertise to get it known locally or known across the internet. If you are trying to get the word out to people who are local your best bet may be to advertise with signs, letter your vehicle with your info, get some business cards and go around to businesses and what not.

The biggest thing would be word of mouth. If you can get your name in the right peoples hands then it will blow up like crazy. For instance if you get in on a job with a business owner I am sure he knows many other owners in the area and may drop your name to them if you do good work So don't be afraid to ask customers to recommend your services to people they know

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I'm glad you posted this topic. The replies should be interesting with all of the ideas on this forum, and I'll be as interested in responses you get. As you website is concerned, do you have a 'shopping cart' embedded, and what scripting did you use?

Since beginning the craft of vinyl cutting, my jobs have come from word of mouth without advertising, and has shown itself to be promising. However, I have plans to go 'world-wide' and will be considering the possibilities

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I would like to get know on the internet due to the fact we live in a pretty small town and people here use this one other guy  here, that guy is the reason i got into vinyl cutting he treats people like crap example telling them there order will be ready tomorrow and you will be lucky to get it in a month, and good luck trying to catch him around the shop. But anyway I went with zen cart for my website its free and pretty user friendly. Once again thanks for all your replys... 

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I think I've come across zencart while surfing the net looking for possibilities. Are you planning take cards, or just a clearing house like paypal. I'm looking for a good, inexpensive way to get around the paypal craze, as I'm having a dispute with them. Paypro, I believe, is out of the question, too, as they are also with high fees.

Good luck. As for me, I'm just beginning my site and have a few drafts for the index page. I'll be reminiscent of my newly designed cards.

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I am using paypal web payments standard. it allows my customers to pay by paypal or they can just input there card information without a paypal account.

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I think I've come across zencart while surfing the net looking for possibilities. Are you planning take cards, or just a clearing house like paypal. I'm looking for a good, inexpensive way to get around the paypal craze, as I'm having a dispute with them. Paypro, I believe, is out of the question, too, as they are also with high fees.

Good luck. As for me, I'm just beginning my site and have a few drafts for the index page. I'll be reminiscent of my newly designed cards.

Any of those clearing houses will have stupid high fees.  You'll need a legit CC processor to get the low fees.  We pay 1.47% on Visa, MC and Discover with a $5 monthly fee and a $.10 transaction fee.  The catch most, if not all of them have, is that there is a minimum monthly discount  of $25.  That means they have to make at least $25/ month from your account.  If they make that amount then you pay the $5 fee and your done.  If they only make $10 then they charge you $15 + the $5 fee.

In contrast, PayPal virtual terminal charges you $30 per month + almost 3% regardless of how much business you do. 

Look at both methods in an instance where you only do one $10 transaction in the month. 

(1) You run the card and pay about 15 cents + 10 cents.  They made 25 cents on your account for the month.  At the end of the month they will charge you $24.75 + $5 = $29.75 for a total of $30.

(2) You run the card and pay about 30 cents + trans fee (12 cents I think).  You pay 42 cents + the standard $30 monthly fee = $30.42.

That's with one transaction.  The number stack further in favor of a real CC processor the more you use the account. 

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I think I've come across zencart while surfing the net looking for possibilities. Are you planning take cards, or just a clearing house like paypal. I'm looking for a good, inexpensive way to get around the paypal craze, as I'm having a dispute with them. Paypro, I believe, is out of the question, too, as they are also with high fees.

Good luck. As for me, I'm just beginning my site and have a few drafts for the index page. I'll be reminiscent of my newly designed cards.

I have built literally two dozen sites with Zen-Cart, all using variations of free templates, so the appearance is a little bland, but there are some GREAT professional templates that can make a site look better than Sears.com

Zen Cart is PayPal certified to it works very well there. 

Shameless Plug: Anyone want to put up a eCommerce site on a shared hosting server, I can put it together and give you basic training on setting up your products for about $250 + $10 a month for hosting YOUR domain name.

You can PM me here or use the contact page on www.stuff4toys.com

JOhn ><>

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I have built literally two dozen sites with Zen-Cart, all using variations of free templates, so the appearance is a little bland, but there are some GREAT professional templates that can make a site look better than Sears.com

Zen Cart is PayPal certified to it works very well there. 

Shameless Plug: Anyone want to put up a eCommerce site on a shared hosting server, I can put it together and give you basic training on setting up your products for about $250 + $10 a month for hosting YOUR domain name.

You can PM me here or use the contact page on www.stuff4toys.com

JOhn ><>

That website just downsized from 5400 items to 88.  We are rebuilding our product database, so it looks a little bleak right now.

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If a person wanted, or needed to stick with paypal, then I suppose an option would to be inflating the cost of goods to cover expenses; or rip-off customers by inflating the cost of delivery. Either case is not what I'd call kosher, and the latter would be downright deceitful. I have skipped over many purchases because of the high cost of shipping on many sites.

Since I'm committed to 'making this right' and not follow the business model that dictates obscene profits, it's my opinion that a merchant should provide and honest product in exchange for honest receipts.

There is a story I'd like to relay to you that was told to me over 20 years ago by the father of a gorgeous lady I dated at the time.

"She was 1st generation Greek. Her father, who was a wealthy restaurantuer in Chicago, liked me as a person, but deplored the fact that I was 'doing' his daughter. Ha, go figure..... As a young man he 'jumped ship' in NY while serving as a mariner onboard a Greek freighter. He didn't have two nickles to rub together, didn't understand a single word of English, and not knowing anyone in the States; he was determined to be an American and to live free. His business model capture his attention on the very first day after arriving. He told me, "I saw all of these people on the sidewalks, in shops, and buildings, and they all had money to spend. So I wondered, how to go about collecting just 2 cents of each of their dollars."  After working and sleeping in the back of a mechanics garage, he saved his money and bought a hotdog cart...and another...and another....

The point he was making to me was....if you reach for all of their money, you will fail to succeed. The greed will consume you. If you give them a good product for honorable cost, they will come back to you with repeat business.

There's more to the story but I will leave it as that, for now. 

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Taking credit cards is a part of doing business. The cost of doing it is like everything else that goes into making products. You figure your supplies and overhead into the price you ask and this should be no different.

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As far as getting on the search engines do some reading on SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Get the site designed to be search engine friendly and then look into some of the apps to submit your site to the search engines. A lot of them can give decent recommendations as to what you need to change to get your ranking higher in the list.

Can't remember which one I was using (just reformatted my workstation) but it bumped up my ratings

There are a few outthere, submit wolf comes to mind, there are also some free ones on line but not sure how well they work.

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well if you can fall into a genre of decals then that will help. for instance i am into import cars and have been on some of those forums before i got into vinyl. so since that is an avenue where a lot of individuals are looking for that kind of stuff it has given me an in on the market.

as for in person. if everyone uses that guy and he is a such a dick then you need to get your name out there and show people how much better your customer service is and they will start flocking to you instead of having to deal with him

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Wow, $250 for a website design, plus $10 per month to host on a shared server.

I'll stick to a basic website and let people email me if they're interested.

I know you have to make money, and they need a website so fair is fair.

I have people ask me for sites all the time. I send them to a guy that charges $250 but it's basic, and he won't do shopping carts at all. He hates building them.

Also Credit Card companies also charge three tiers. They charge you one price if you're present with your card, and other charges if you pay online or by phone. Actually, they add the charges together to give you a much higher cost.

Paypal only charges me 3% and the customer doesn't get hit at all. 

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Paypal only charges me 3% and the customer doesn't get hit at all. 

The customer never pays the fees.  I pay 1.47% swiped and 2.17% keyed.  Those are not added together.  Start doing some real numbers on credit cards and you'll see a huge difference at the end of the month.

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If you're going to take CC's at all it's best spend some time and look around, about 3 years ago i needed a cc machine and account setup fast, had someone who said they knew what they were doing look at the numbers and he said the rates were typical...

Big mistake.. I found out if i don't use the machine at all it's a $58 monthly fee - if the machine was used the base rate dropped down to around $30, but their charges still took a major bite out of my income.

Just bought my own machine a couple months ago, a VX870? cellular, base cost on that a month (including the cell access) is $15 / month + a very small percentage on each transaction.

If i hadn't run into the last company I would be dropping credit cards all together.

Which reminds me, need to go buy another one so i can ship this expensive one back and tell em where to stick it! :thumbsup:

As far as websites, most companies that sell domain names give away free basic hosting and email and offer premium packages to boot, some complete with ecommerce built in. I have about 15 sites, most of the ecommerce sites are running oscommerce with over 20k items.

If you are just trying to compete with the local a-hole, i wouldn't worry to much about the website, found that my main company website is only used by existing customers when they forget my phone number! A lot of people think that just because you put up a website you'll get start making money. I've had a dozen sites that have been up for years that haven't made a dime yet (another reason they're hosted in house!)

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