Julie L. Cleveland - E-commerce

Get Your Ecommerce Store Ready for Mother’s Day

2/7/2023

The next big shopping holiday is Mother’s Day for those of us with online retail stores, and now is a good time to start our preparation. Let’s go over the usual checklist, which is the same that we did for our Black Friday and Christmas rushes.

This list is included in this blog post on the subject:
· Packing tape
· Packing bubble wrap
· Boxes in a variety of sizes
· Priority supplies
· Paper for invoices
· Toner/ink for printing
· Labels
· Thank you cards – if you do them
· Tissues for packing
· Plastic bags for items
· Business cards
· Organza bags

Just like shopping for the holidays, it’s a good idea to take a moment and make sure that your site is optimized for traffic. I have included four ways to optimize your store in this blog post.

If you’ve already done this, then one thing to think about when setting up your Mother’s Day store besides offering great discounts and promoting it in advance is to have lower price point gifts for those who are on a budget.

Some ideas for Mother’s Day gifts under $10:

Jewelry
Gift cards
Personalized tote bags
Personal journal
Charm necklace or charm bracelet
Tiny gemstone rings or earrings
Beaded keyring
Planner page for kids to fill out with the chores they will do for mom

There are so many little gift ideas that you can add to your ecommerce site that may appeal to those on tight budgets. Those little items can become impulse buys at checks out, so if you have your shopping cart set up to suggest before check out, then add the impulse items to your checkout process.

Don’t forget to decorate your store for Mother’s Day. Get great graphics from Creative Market where you will find all types of beautiful graphics to not only decorate your store, but set up a product line of print on demand items.

How to Turn Your Unhappy Customers Around

1/24/2023

Online selling is hard. I do not get to see my customers face-to-face. I also know that the burden of trust is on them, and I must do everything within my power to maintain and nurture that trust. There are a lot of reasons for customer dissatisfaction.

Like you, I am sure we have all had hundreds and hundreds of online purchases over the years that we did based on the trust of the website or profile. I am sure that you, like me, stopped a few times and thought maybe this was not going to go well. We either turned away or went forward.

What do you do if a customer is not satisfied?

First, that customer must come to you for a resolution. If they cannot get it resolved by coming to you, they will take it to the card processor or their credit card. This is their legal right to get a resolution. The seller – you and me – is responsible to get a package to a customer no matter what crazy thing happens at the shipping company. This is our obligation. If a customer is not happy, you can bet they are going to do what they can to let everyone know they are not happy. I have seen this happen to a few sellers I know. It is not pretty and it was not handled well.

The first place many unhappy customers go to is the vendor’s website if they are a part of a marketplace like Etsy or any of the others. They file complaints there after they have tried to get you to resolve the problem. Independent website owners like me may find that our merchant account processor will let us know of a problem.

After that, they are headed for the social network tsunami. As much as we like to use social networks to get our products out, people who feel they are being ignored or wronged like to use them to take you to task for your negligence.

If you find yourself in this situation, there are several steps you can take to calm the situation down and turn it around.

First of all, no matter what the customer’s complaint, there should have been a resolution from the minute they yelled foul regarding the item. Regardless of who they first complained to, the first time you heard the complaint, you should have handled it. That keeps it from becoming a social media smackdown.

If for whatever reason you find yourself being blasted on social media or complaint websites or reputation websites, you must handle it.

1- Acknowledge the customer.

Let the customer know that you are there and that you hear them. They want to be acknowledged. This does not have to be public, but if you can, it does help your brand and reputation if you can acknowledge it publicly. This shows the many lurkers that you care and will engage in a civil conversation to rectify the situation.

- Hi, Jane, I heard you were having a problem with my widget. Can you let me know exactly what the problem is because I am not sure I understand what has happened here?

Open and friendly.

2- Understand the customer’s problem.

It is not enough to just acknowledge the customer, you must understand the customer’s problem. Until you can understand it, you cannot fix it. If you make your widgets, you know what needs to be done to either meet their expectation or refund their purchase.

- Your widget does not fit my widget holder. I want you to fix that.

Again, if you can do all this publically on your Facebook page or blog site, the more, the better. You can engage all the participants in the group in a discussion on how to resolve the problem. Maybe the widget will never fit because the two pieces are not compatible. You will want to refund and pay for return shipping.

Maybe Jane is trying to fit the wrong end of the widgets together. Help her to make this work for her.

3- Sympathize with the customer.

You do not need to be disingenuous. Surely, you as a consumer can find a place to meet the customer where you understand their frustration and anger. If you have ever had to call the cable company or any other big business that does not care about you, you know how frustrating that is.

You can understand where your customer may be disappointed in the product. It’s not the end of the world, and your ego will survive an unhappy customer. This is about your customer, not you.

- Jane, I can see where you might think that those two widget ends would go together. Do you have Model 374747? If so, your new widget will not fit without an adaptor.

4- Gather information to help the customer.

Jane does have Model 374747, so her new widget will not fit properly without an adaptor.

Once the customer tells you what they want you to do to help them, prepare to do that.

If the customer tells you they want their money back, then it is okay to tell them you would be happy to do that once you receive your product back. DO NOT make this an issue. If you want the product back, especially if it is expensive or can be resold, then send them the postage to get it back to you. A public fight with a customer is not worth the price of postage.

For the customer to send the package back to you, create a postage label for yourself from the customer using whatever postage software you use. Then email a PDF file to the customer that they can print out and tape to the return box. This is the best way to get the product back with the least amount of trouble.

Send the postage with delivery confirmation and insurance. Do not leave this in the hands of the customer or make it their responsibility to get the product back. Help them to get it done, and explain to them how to attach the label and anything else they need to know. You are the professional; they are not.

5- Offer the customer a solution.

- Hi Jane, I am sorry, but that widget will not fit that model. However, I can help you with that by either sending you an adaptor free of charge, or you can return the widget for your money back.

Remember, this entire conversation and exchange is taking place in real-time in front of an audience. You must maintain a professional and courteous demeanor. If you need to charge them for the extra part, then let them know up front.

By using these steps in a calm and friendly way, you gain the trust of a lot of people, and that means a lot in the world of online retail.

If it should get so far out of hand because others are jumping into the conversation, just take it private. You are not trying to hide the fact that there is a problem, but you do deserve a chance to discuss this with the customer in a less hostile environment.

If you find that there are complaints against you on reputation sites, then by all means, go to the site and find out what the problem is. You only have your reputation and a few photos to gain the trust of your prospective customers. You should work just as hard on your reputation as you do your photos.

This is not a matter of who is right and who is wrong. This is about business. It is about YOUR business, and what you may need to do to keep growing. You can write off postage and products if you have to, but you cannot buy a good reputation.

This scenario is assuming that the customer is a civilized individual without a vendetta or a mission to destroy you and your reputation as a seller. We all know that there are just some people who cannot be helped and we should part ways as soon as we recognize this. It is okay to stand your ground with an unreasonable customer.

Even if you do find yourself with an unhappy customer, selling online is a lot of fun; you get to meet a lot of interesting people, and you are making money. Don't have a website, then sign up for a Shopify free trial, or open your artist website on Indiemade. The companies pay me a little money (no cost to you) if you sign up. It helps keep me running my blogs.

The Pros and Cons of Twitter for Business

1/10/2023

When I scheduled this article into my calendar last year, Twitter was a stable platform with reliable levels of performance. Since that time, it has undergone new management and has become less stable with skewed reports. This article is based on the way it has performed for me in the past with the anticipation that it will return to a stable social media site in the future.

As a small business owner/writer/artist, the best way for me to get my products to the public is through social media platforms like Twitter. Like all social media, there are pros and cons of using Twitter for marketing. I wrote about a few of those in my Pinterest article. I have found that all of the platforms go through upheaval along their lifespan and sometimes changes are necessary on your end to determine whether or not to continue with your promotions on the sites. Since so many of the newly minted business school graduates like to disrupt to motivate growth, it is best to not rely on one place for all things. It will change.

There are a couple of types of marketing available to you on the Twitter platform. One is free and the other is paid sponsored posts. I do not pay Twitter to post, so all of my marketing efforts use the free version. This means that I do the posting and work with a networking group of handmade artists to retweet their posts.

Here are some of the advantages of using Twitter for business:

You can engage with people responding to your tweet on a personal level;
Feedback on your product or service can be instrumental in growing your business;
It is a good first step toward getting someone to look at more products;
You can build a community by asking people to follow you;
Tweets are short and sweet, so you can write several of them and schedule them to post at various times;
Your tweets go around the world while you sleep;
Hashtags help you track your reach;
You can connect with friends and set up a tweet network (this is how I manage my tweets);
You can hire someone to do this marketing for you.

Here are some of the disadvantages of using Twitter for business:

Getting followers can be difficult;
You need followers to get more eyes on your products;
You need to respond to tweets and keep them alive;
You are open to negative comments that can break your business;
Not all followers are engaged;
Your message may be considered spam that can turn followers off;
Your ROI can be low;
If you hire someone to tweet for you, make sure you know them and approve all tweets;
Trolls can break your business for fun.

If you are wondering how often you should post on Twitter for your business, my networking group posts at least three times a week, and we do retweets the rest of the time. Anytime I am on Twitter and I see tweets from my friends, I hit the retweet button to give the tweet a boost.

Twitter can be a toxic place, which brings me to the disclaimer I added at the beginning of this article. I have used Twitter for my business since 2008, and over that time, I have found that does a reasonable job of getting traffic to my website. Whether or not that will continue in the future is yet to be determined, but I hope that it will continue to give me and my handmade artist friends a place to share our wares and make some sales.

There are a lot of books on Twitter available, but if you want to really delve into marketing, this might be the book for you. It is an older book, so it won't take into consideration the current 240 character limit and it is only available in paperback, but the marketing principles and the actual platform are the same. Check it out for yourself.

Pros and Cons of Pinterest for Business

12/27/2022

Image by Shahid Abdullah from Pixabay

If you're running a business, then you know how important word-of- mouth advertising is to your bottom line. This is particularly true when your business is online. Unless your business is very new, you
're probably already sharing on social media

While not a social media site, Pinterest is an integral part of online ecommerce. In 2010, this new site gave the public a place to pin (as in bulletin board) their favorite ideas, photos and content as a visual idea board.

Creatives will recognize this as an inspiration/design board and wedding planners may have been the first to really grasp the concept. Once people realized they could visualize their ideas, Pinterest took off.

As a jewelry designer and bead maker, I was on board from the beginning. Pinterest has made some changes over the years, but for the most part, pinning still offers artists and online sellers a great place to show off their wares.

Here are some pros and cons that I have found over the years:

Pros

433 million global users a month;
Qualified audience with an average income of $75,000;
The search engine is accurate without any "suggestions" from the site;
Conversions are higher;
Marketing budget can be almost zero;
Photographers and graphic designers can set up a samples board for clients;
Private boards can be set up for clients where ideas can be worked out;
All boards are public, so everyone has a chance to see your content;
You can add a link to your photo driving traffic to your site;
Users find it to be a positive site without negative images or advertising;
Posts have a longer life-span around 4 months;
It is a great source of inspiration and mood for artists and designers.

Cons

It takes a while for a post to gain traction;
It can be very niche oriented, which is good if you have a niche;
You need to constantly share in order to get traffic;
Images can be shared without the link to your site;
Images can be stolen and uncredited later;
Design ideas can be copied without your knowledge;
There are specific image requirements such as size and dimensions;
It can be time consuming to post several times a day;
Scheduling software can be expensive.

I know that Pinterest drives a lot of traffic to my site, but it's also very easy to get into trouble with the site. They only want certain content, products and information on their site, so it can be tough to get your site okayed.

I've run afoul of their requirements by having the same "About Me" across the internet. I've been selling online since 1996, so yeah, it can be a duplicate. If they send you a rejection, just comply, as they are a great source of traffic and sales.

If you need a site, then check out Shopify. They have a free trial.

With Shopify, there is an addon that will do scheduling for you. I use Outfy to run all of my product posts. If you need help, you can hire a freelancer to do things for you.

Should I Close My Store for the Holidays?

12/13/2022

The holidays are just upon us, and every year I wrestle with the conflict between “should I keep my store open, or should I close it and take some time off?”. The last few years I have been faced with a mountain of paperwork that needed to be done at the end of the year, and I have had an office/studio/bedroom that looked like a herd of wildebeest had run through it.

Veteran sellers always said they took the time off at the holidays because they had worked so hard. That was back in the day when eBay was hot and they were selling collectibles. Those times have changed, and now everyone scrambles for every dollar they can get since online sales are not the least bit reliable.

Let’s look at the Pros and Cons of keeping your store open:

Pros

More income as people spend holiday money
The chance to get rid of more inventory
Clearance and holiday sales to spur buying
People are home during the holidays
Post-Christmas shopping

Cons

You have to work during the holidays
People expect things delivered quickly
No time to spend with family
Gambling the income will be worth it

Personally, I prefer to take the time off and work towards making up the income difference along the next year. I am less stressed, and it gives me a chance to breakdown my art studio, clean and reorganize. I throw things to the side when I am packaging orders one right after the other, so it’s a real mess by the time I shut down. I do the same thing with my bookkeeping, too.

This year, I am shutting down the second week of December. This helps me avoid the stress of people asking where their package is and will it get to them by Christmas.

In the meantime, during my holiday, I am going to catch up on some of my reading!

Happy Holidays!
Julie
PS - Here are a few things on my reading list this year:

Decorate Your E-Commerce Store for the Holidays!

11/29/2022

Decorate Your Store for the Holidays!

You wouldn't shop in a mall store that didn't have holiday decorations up in December, so why would your online customers want to shop at your website if there are no decorations to enjoy?

Decorating is really easy. There are so many freebie graphics available on the internet that you can use to spruce up your logo or even create a banner.

Here are some ways to spread good cheer:

Add a wreath to your logo
Add a holiday greeting to your home page
Create a banner ad with holly and mistletoe
Add festive stripes to your pages

Here are some great places to get festive decorations for your website:
Pixabay
Public Domain Vectors

Creative Market’s Cyber Sale

Light up your creativity with the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for designers and creators! Up to 50% off fonts, templates, graphics & more design assets — limited time only!

*Sale ends 11/29 @ 8:00 pm EST

Spin-Off Products Create Revenue Streams

11/15/2022

Creating can be time consuming, but the process is satisfying. One thing that I have found is that spin-off products naturally occur in the handmade industry. Create one mitten, and the next thing you know, you have matching hats and scarves.

I found this type of creating not only enjoyable, but profitable. The new product might create a new revenue stream for you.

Here is an example of what I mean by that:

I purchased commercial rights to one peacock image and that one image led to several products. Originally, I had selected the peacock for my thimble designs, but it was so pretty that I added it to a pair of earrings, which lead to a bracelet, which lead to a keyring. I am sure that I have a small necklace with this image somewhere, too.

As you can see, there are multiple markets for one design, and they do not always have to be related. I can reach several types of unrelated buyers with the same image. A spin-off product helps you open new streams of revenue.

If you want to know where I go for my art, here is the link to the Creative Market. There is much more than just images; you can buy fonts, backgrounds, templates and anything else creative. They have a freebie Friday, so sign up for your freebies.

If you're looking for a place to host your new handmade website, try Shopify. I have been with them for seven plus years, and I couldn't ask for a better ecommerce platform. I've been selling online since 1996 and have always built my own sites. I don't do that anymore with Shopify. I no longer have to spend all my time trying to figure out the latest technology; it's already done for me, so all I do is sell now.

Indiemade is a platform for handmade if you are not interested in Shopify. I have several handmade friends on Indiemade who have been there for years. Indiemade is responsive and has a lot of perks for a small platform.

Have your own artwork that you'd like to put onto mugs, posters, t-shirts, etc.? I use Printify for all of my print on demand products! Click here to read this post on how to start your own website using print on demand.

How to Start a Business with Print on Demand

11/1/2022

If you’re a creative soul like I am, the first thing you do when you create something is wonder what you’ll do with it. Or you might wonder, how can I make money from that?

I created hundreds of fractal art images in the 1990s that I wanted to put on products, so I spent a good amount of time trying to get posters printed, cards done and the occasional mousepad. It was the 90s! I bought the HP Photo printer of the 1990s and did my own card line, and I cobbled together foam and t-shirt iron on transfers to create my mousepads.

I fiddled with decals and stickers, and I really wanted to make mugs. In the end, I didn’t have the budget for a sublimation printing set up that would accommodate all the products I wanted to make, and my local print shop was limited to sizes of posters that didn’t suit my needs. The colors on my fractal art were brilliant, and I couldn’t find anyone who could reproduce those colors other than me printing on silk or cloth.

I stuck to small things like cards, keyrings and magnets, but I was never quite happy with that.

The internet aged, and I kept creating more art like pencil sketches and colored pencil drawings that I would print into greeting cards or little things to sell.

When I discovered CafePress, I was so excited! That quickly dissipated when I had to jump through hoops to set up my fractal art work. I had to open a store for every image. I had over 80 images. I suppose that I never gave being a power user a thought. In the end, I had 85 stores and products that were strangely colored when I got the product. They were heavy on the reds.

Enter Zazzle and Spoonflower. I used Zazzle to create my mugs and cards, and Spoonflower does fabric. Spoonflower makes you buy fabric from them before they will print your design for sale. I have some cute fabric with my colored pencil horses on them that I occasionally get a few dollars for, but I never put any more designs up.

Zazzle was a good source of income for a while for my classic car photography. When I go to car shows and swap meets with my guy, I use the time to take photos of the classic cars. We’re talking 40s and 50s cars with an occasional 60s car like the Mustang or Chevelle.

At some point, the car manufacturers decided they didn’t want anyone but themselves to sell car art, so they purged everyone selling car art. I still sell on Zazzle, but it’s my National Park and Western Art that sells now.

I’ve made the mistakes, so here’s how to make the money you want from your art. This is what I do, and this is what I found to be successful.

Open a Shopify storefront
Open a Printfy, Printiful and/or Art of Where account
Integrate those print on demand companies with your Shopify account
Open and Etsy or Indiemade account – or set up an Amazon account
Integrate your print on demand on your Etsy store – manually add them to Indiemade or Amazon
Create your products and populate your site if it is integrated – I use Shopify and Printfy, as well as Etsy and Printify. I also have Printiful and Art of Where integrated in my Shopify and Etsy sites, but don’t use them as much. Other print on demand options include Redbubble.
Push your products to the sales channel and then work on your SEO and advertising.

While I have all of these set ups, I prefer my Shopify/Printify account lineup. There are products on Art of Where that I can’t find other places, and there are products on Printiful that I can’t find anywhere else. Depending upon what you want to sell, you may have to search the available products to find the POD company you want to use.

The nice part about integrating your Printify account with your Shopify storefront is that you can create your product and push the publish button. It goes to your shop and is ready for sale.

Both Printify and Shopify have FREE TRIALS, so click ABOVE to start yours today! Get your products online in time for the holiday shopping season!

You can make unlimited amount of money by creating your own products. Some companies have been known to try to suppress the markup percentage, but I have not found that to be true with any of the companies that I use. Of course, it still comes down to what the market will bear and how unique your design is. I do find that my car art does well, so I stick with that for the most part, and throw in occasional home décor.

Some of my home decor items like the coffee mug above come from art that I have purchased through Creative Market. They have a lot of freebies, as well as paid goodies. Sign up and get their daily email or find some art you like and create your first product through Printify.

Pros

Passive income
Set it and leave it
No overhead
No upfront expense
No shipping issues
No stock to keep
Updated shipping templates
Order updates

Cons

Discontinued blanks
Shipping costs rise
Print quality (I have not had that issue with my work on these companies)
Broken shipments (there are easy returns with these companies)
Profit margin can be low
Limited product lines

If you’ve got a lot of art sitting around, or you want to use artwork from places like Creative Market images (click above to get there), there is a whole market of potential customers looking for unique or clever gift ideas. Create to your heart’s content and then load up social media with your promotional posts!

Check it out - there's even a book on Kindle Unlimited on how to sell on Etsy with print on demand!
Sign up for Kindle Unlimited and read for free today.

Black Friday / Cyber Monday Checklist for Ecommerce

10/18/2022

Don't have an ecommerce site yet? Then come join in the fun of running your own business.

Holiday Checklist for Your Ecommerce Store

10/4/2022

Preparing Your Store for the Holidays

The holidays will be upon us before you know it, and then it will fly by as you run around filling orders and shipping them out. The key to the whole process is to make sure that you have all of your supplies together before the first rush of customers.

It doesn’t matter where you sell, if you do your own shipping, here are some things to check on right now before it gets too late or shipping prices go up:

Packing tape
Packing bubble wrap
Boxes in a variety of sizes
Priority supplies
Paper for invoices
Toner/ink for printing
Labels
Thank you cards – if you do them
Tissues for packing
Plastic bags for items
Business cards
Organza bags

This is the lull before the storm, so use this time to get prepared.
I hope you have lots of sales!

Author

I am a manic writer who has to write all the time about something, even if it is a detailed 'To Do' list.

More about me:
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