Saturday, August 4th, 2007...10:09 pm

Product Development & Simple Online Shopping Cart

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Image courtesy of ninjapoodles.

Today was a long day…! Spent a lot of time getting things ready for the fair this week.

The main things I did today were:

Product Development

  • Working on the recipes for products, including:
    • Chocolate facial
    • Oatmeal honey facial
    • Pineapple facial
    • Lemon honey lip balm
    • Cocoa lip balm
    • Almond lotion
    • Cinnamon-vanilla sugar scrub
    • Lemon sugar scrub
    • Rice pudding bath salts & sugars
    • Oatmeal milk bath
    • Oatmeal-cinnamon bar soap
  • Setting up the shipping options for the site:
    • $5 shipping (1 address, up to 1 lb.)
    • $10 shipping (2 addresses, or 1-2 lbs.)
    • $15 shipping (3 addresses, or 2-4 lbs.)

A Simple Online Shopping Cart

Here’s a quick explanation on how I’m using a blog to incorporate a simple shopping cart:

  1. I installed the Wordpress software on my own domain, purchased from GoDaddy, hosted at Hostmonster.
  2. Installed a new theme and made some other basic modifications to the blog (added akismet, changed title text, etc.)
  3. For each product, I write a post describing the product, and include a photo from Flickr Creative Commons.
  4. I signed up as a merchant with Google Checkout. (More info here.)
  5. I use Google Checkout’s “buy now” buttons (listed under “settings”) to create HTML code that makes a “buy now” button with the price, item description. Customers can click on these links to go through the purchasing process, which enters in their billing & shipping info, and lets me know there’s a new order.
  6. I set the shipping prices & include a tag on each product (before the “buy now” button) that says “(Shipping purchased separately here).
  7. Even though it’s not a “typical shopping cart”, it works. Customers can view product options, select an item and purchase it, and also purchase shipping. That covers the basics!

So anyway, it was fun– and now I’m kind of tired. More to come later! :)

5 Comments

Filed under Project4

5 Comments

  • Janet Meiners
    August 5th, 2007 at 11:22 am

    Carolyn,
    I like watching you build out an ecommerce store on Wordpress. There is a shopping cart plugin but Google Checkout might work too.
    So how do you intend to get traffic or customers to your site? Offline marketing (flyers at natural health food stores, booths at fairs)? Or online (you need some SEO).
    If you want to sell the product you need A LOT more information. I want to know the weight - see the packaging, and have more of a sense of what I’m getting. I suggest that you find spa products like yours online and read their product descriptions.
    There needs to be more trust being built up. Right now it’s sparse. You’re new and need credibility. More information, about you & the company, a 1-800#, etc.
    You’ve done a lot of production, now you need marketing and sales.
    Janet

  • olynnduncan
    August 7th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    Janet,

    Thanks for the tips– I didn’t know there was a wp plugin, but I should’ve guessed! I installed it and it’s awesome, as soon as I get some time to configure it…

    I really appreciate your online store recommendations. You make some great points– I am familiar with selling a product face to face, but there are other factors involved online, that aren’t necessarily obvious.

    I’ve kind of just slapped those products up there on the site as place-holders, and am definitely planning on getting some photos, etc. and building that up at some point.

    Thanks again for the ideas! You should be charging me when you leave great coments like that. ;)

  • HS
    August 9th, 2007 at 9:21 am

    I thought it was interesting that you implemented your online store as a blog, and then I came across this article: http://www.typepadhacks.org/2007/08/blogs-as-stores.html

    Have you read it? I didn’t read the whole thing because it’s long, but maybe there will be some useful tips in there for you.

  • olynnduncan
    August 9th, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    HS,

    Thanks for that link– I only started skimming through it, and it looks like it has plenty of great info to guide the blog-as-e-store effort.

    :)

  • Nik
    September 10th, 2007 at 9:47 am

    Very well !
    But I would ask you to redesign the site. Spice it up with some photos and some nice graphics like gradients and shades.
    Install some other plugins to show your best products or news about them.
    Also ask for feedback and testimonials.
    Ask your customers if they liked your products.
    Ask them to give you some referals and give them some coupons for free products or some discount.
    Enough for today. I’m so excited about that. If I could order some products I whould do that.

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