VineSites - Sites That Grow

Selling your products directly - Shopify

By David on June 24th, 2008 | No Comments »

Shopify is a fairly attractive, intuitive & easy way to quickly build yourself an online store.
They offer several different pricing plans beginning with a free package that allows you sales of ten items before you have to change plans which is a nice way to set up a store and test the waters without having to spend any money.

Some of the nice features of Shopify are:

- Easy to set up, professional, standards compliant templates that are customizable.

- Product & order management that makes it easy to list products, take orders, manage shipping & control inventory.

- Integration with major online payment processing such as PayPal and Google Checkout.

These are just a few of the basics, there is really a wide variety of options. So if you have just a few items to sell or are interested in a full blown e-commerce site with hundreds of pages Shopify might be the solution you are looking for. I built a page to list some of my items and it was really easy to set-up. I need to optimize with some better images but with just the free plan it only took a little work until I had my own store. You can see it here -> GarnetStreet Books & Prints

What Did They Buy From Your eBay Affiliate Store - Part II

By David on June 3rd, 2008 | 1 Comment »

We took a look before at a way to learn what items sell from your eBay Store . There is also MyEPNReport.com as a dedicated site to the process where you can upload your transaction reports from eBay in text form and examine sales to also find out what people bought from your affiliate store. It is a fast and easy service to use, and they also have listings of eBay niche stores where you may submit your site if you wish as well as take a look at how others are building to optimize their affiliate niche. Knowledge is power as they say.

I still prefer Tropical Web Works EPN Tracker because you can upload it to your server and keep your sales transactions to yourself (and it loads a thumbnail), but that being said MyEPNReport states (at the time of this writing) - that they do not store any information and all info is uploaded as a temporary file and deleted after the results have loaded. Always inform yourself of the Privacy Policy folks or ask if you have concerns.

So check it out, see what sells and whether you might narrow your niche for increased sales.

For Whom Does The Bell Toll?

By David on May 31st, 2008 | No Comments »

It Tolls for Thee...

If you haven't switched your eBay affiliate stores from Commission Junction to the eBay Partner Network that is. May 31 was the last day to make the switch.

If click-thrus at your niche stores are still referencing your CJ account after today you will no longer be credited for any sales or ACRUs. Read More »

VineSites is No Longer Blue

By David on May 29th, 2008 | No Comments »

Dear diary, I recently switched hosting companies to HostGator. Goodbye BlueHost, I will always remember you as my first. I was shy, but you encouraged me to explore your CPanel and discover the wonders that lay within - Fantastico De Luxe, Mail Forwarding, Sub-Domains, Awstats - your shiny icons like stars in the sky...
But now we have grown distant. It's not you, it's me. New influences have come into my life and I need my space. Add-on domains are smothering my independence, I've met new sites who need their own Cpanel so we can have relationships that are discrete, unknown to the others. So farewell, I know you will be Blue but don't be sad, it was wonderful while it lasted...

In all seriousness, I thought Bluehost on the whole was a very decent host and the only time I had a big problem (which may have been my fault), I received friendly and efficient support over the phone that got me up running pretty quick. There were just a few factors that instigated the switch:

- I built a website for someone else that I provided hosting for and needed them to have access to their own Cpanel and I hope to do some WordPress sites for some other local businesses.
- With the upgrade to version 3.0 my WordPress niche stores using phpBay Pro need the correct version of Ioncube running on my servers. Supposedly this should not be a problem on Bluehost but I kept running into issues and I would rather spend my time optimizing my eBay niche stores than pulling my hair out over Fatal Errors. HostGator ran the new plugin without a hiccup.
- Lastly some strongly worded encouragement (and a coupon) from BloggerUnleashed.com.

The HostGator reseller account was payable by the month which was nice for getting rolling without a big outlay for 6 months or a years contract. There is certainly a bit more to learn to use a Webhost Manager interface (WHM) but it is not that hard and there is still the old familiar Cpanel for my separate sites. So from now on hopefully I am in a long term relationship for a while and my webhost affiliate links will reflect my commitment.

WordPress Niche Stores - Start Your Engines!

By David on May 28th, 2008 | No Comments »

One of the best tools for building eBay niche stores - phpBay Pro - has just gotten better.
With an upgrade to version 3.0 - Wired Studios has improved the ease of use, functionality and aesthetic of their WordPress plugin.

Some of the new features include:

Display Listings in columns - this is a sweet feature allowing you to maximize display space with selectable number of columns.
Pagination - Display up to 100 items navigable on separate pages.
Geo IP Targeting - Increase your customer base to include people from around the world. Multiply your profits!
SEO URLs - Cloak affiliate links and provide urls that reflect the product for sale.
eBay Logo - that can be turned on or off at top of your listings so you can brand your niche store more privately or reassure your visitors with major brand name recognition.

These of course are in addition the many features that were already available in phpBay that make it such a powerful tool for building niche stores with WordPress:

Listing items by seller, zip code, price or auction ending time.
Keyword exclusion to fine tune your WordPress Niche Store.
An excellent forum with helpful fellow users and great support from the software creator.

And much more! PhpBay Pro has also added some new tutorials and updated the user manual to help you get the most from the product. So what are you waiting for, head on over so you can quickly start building niche stores with WordPress. If you already own a copy you are of course entitled to any upgrades with your original purchase.

Here is a sample listing with many of the features enabled: