eComm Tips

I’m a big fan of Gmail. I have to admit that when I first checked it out I wasn’t amazingly impressed, but as time goes on I’m really liking this program. But, with all its benefits there are a few things about Gmail that were a little frustrating.

For one, Gmail does not allow you to put an image in the signature area of your emails. If you’re sending out emails from your business, wouldn’t you want to put your logo down there? Its a great thing to do so you can start to build up your brand recognition a little bit more each time you send out an email. Why do you think companies spend so much time using special letterhead?

Well, as I thought more about this program I started to look into it more and found out that there is a GreaseMonkey script that will allow you to put an image in your signature with Gmail! Another great hack from GreaseMonkey!

So, in order for this to work, first you need to be using Firefox. You can download Firefox by clicking on the button on the sidebar of this blog. After you have Firefox, you’ll need to get the GreaseMonkey plugin. Once you’ve installed the plugin you need to get the script for it. So here’s the link for the script: Gmail Signature Float.

Now, when you go into your Gmail account you can add an image to your signature. Here are the steps to set up a signature:

1- Login to your Gmail account
2- Click on Settings
3- The 6th option down is the Signature
4- You’ll have to choose the radio button next to the big empty box, that’s where you put in your signature information
5- Below the signature box you should have a few check boxes. Check all of these boxes.
6- Click on Save Changes at the bottom of the page

To add an image to your signature you’ll have to use HTML code. Just in case, here’s the basic code for an image reference: <img src=”full address of image location online” />. You’ll have to upload the image to your website and reference it from there.

So there you go, another great use of GreaseMonkey!

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Honestly, I never really liked the old look and appearance of this blog, so I’ll be making some changes over the next couple of days.  So if you don’t recognize the site, its ok!  It’s still the same site!

If anyone has feedback about the new look, I’d love to hear it!

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In my last post I gave you some guidelines for coming up with domain names. What I recommend to most people is that you should come up with 15-20 different names that you like, then check the availability all at once. On average you’ll probably end up with 4-5 that are still available. But sometimes it’s hard to come up with that many names on your own. That’s where DomainsBot.com comes in!

DomainsBot is a cool little tool that can help you come up with more domain names than you could think of on your own. Granted, a lot of them aren’t very good, but it can at least help you get started or help you add to your list. Here’s what their home page looks like:

First thing you want to do when you get to DomainsBot is type in 2-3 words that you think you would want to have in your domain name. As you’re typing, you’ll see a little box start to appear below the search box. You can ignore this box. Just click on “Search” when you’re typed in the words you’re typing. That will take you to the search results. Before we start going through this list, we need to filter the list a little bit. So if you scroll down the right hand side a little bit you’ll see a blue area called LiveBot. Here’s what the first part will look like:

One thing with DomainsBot that can be helpful is they don’t just look for the phrase that you typed in, but they also look for synonyms of those words as well. Sometimes you’ll get a bunch of synonyms, sometimes you’ll only get a few. Look through the list and decide if you really need any of these. Most of the time I just delete all of them. To delete them, just click on the box next to the word and then hit “Delete Synonym” at the bottom of each section.

After that we need to filter the View Only area of LiveBot. Here’s what it looks like so you can make sure you’re looking at the right thing:

For this area, with the Extensions we only want to worry about the .com. In the Status section we only care about what’s available, and in the Include section you can un-check everything (unless you really want to have bad words in your domain name LOL). Then click on “Update Results” and it will filter the list for you.

Once you’ve filtered the list, go through it and write down any of the domain names that interest you. One other thing I’ve found is that when DomainsBot says that a name is available, its accurate about 95% of the time. The registrar has the final say.

So that’s DomainsBot! Great little tool for coming up with domain names if you get stumped!

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Coming up with a name for your website is sometimes a very exciting thing to do. But how do you know if you’ve come up with a good name or a poor name? Well, in the end only time will tell how the site does, but let’s help you get started on the right foot by giving you some guidelines of what to do.

One thing I should mention here is that a lot of people will choose their name before they even know what their product or topic of the website is. That would be doing things backwards. In order to come up with an effective name, you need to know what the product is first! Otherwise you might come up with a very generic name that doesn’t really reflect what your website is all about. So do things in the right order and save yourself some headache.

Ok, so let’s get started with some of the general guidelines for coming up with a good domain name:

1. Keep the name related to the topic of the site
You don’t really need to come up with some new crazy word that will be your big name. Instead, keep it obvious so that people can very easily associate your website with the topic. If possible, its not a bad idea at all to get one of your main keyword phrases into the domain name. Doing this doesn’t guarantee you a higher search engine ranking, but it does help.

2. Keep the name short
Shoot for three words or less. A name like “DansGreatSiteOfSofas.com” meets the criteria for guideline number one, but it’s a little lengthy for a domain name. (Yes, I realize this is an extreme example )

3. Don’t use hyphens in the name
There are some good reasons to use hyphens in a domain name, but if you’re doing a basic e-commerce site I don’t really recommend it. I’ve heard some people say that it helps the search engines to see the different words of the name, but they’re really smart enough to figure it out. The standard for years now has been to just put the words of the domain name together with no separation. Let’s stick with that standard.

4. Get the .com
If you want to get the .net, .info, and/or .biz with the .com, that’s up to you. The .com is the most common extension, so it’s the one we want to make sure that we can get. If the .com is already taken, just cross that idea off your list and get something else.

So those are your basic guidelines for coming up with a domain name. What you want to do is come up with 15-20 different names and then check the availability all at once. Remember that probably about 80% of your name ideas are already taken. So if you come up with a large list of good names, you’re just more likely to end up with one that you actually like. You can check the availability at GoDaddy, 1&1, or any other domain name registration site. Shop around and find a good price, then go for it!

In the next post I’ll go over another tool that can help you come up with names if you get stuck.

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Ok, so I’m a little stuck on this idea of finding suppliers for your site. Simply put, this is a very important step in getting your e-commerce website set up and going! If you can’t supply something, you can’t really sell it now can you?! In fact, seeing what suppliers are out there is one of the final criteria in deciding what the topic of your new site will be.

Today we’re going to talk a little bit about how to find suppliers at events like trade shows. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that this be your first avenue, but it is one to take as your business matures and grows. The reason that it might not be the best first choice is because if you’re going to approach a company at a trade show about carrying their product on your site, you better have something to show them! Most of these companies won’t want to work with you if you walk up to them and say something like “I’m considering setting up a site about … can I add your product as well?” Wouldn’t it be much more effective to say something like “I am already doing well online and would like to partner with you to sell your product online”? I think so! So wait to do this until your site is established and running.

The first step in finding suppliers through trade shows is to find the trade show! There is a good chance that in some big city in either your state or a nearby state will have some type of a trade show that you could attend. Of course, this depends on the product or industry that you represent, but make sure to look outside your town. This is another place where The Shipper comes in handy. One of the services that The Shipper offers is they try to keep you up to date on trade shows across the country that you could attend.

So what do you do when you find a trade show and even some vendors at that trade show that you’re interested in? Here are some things to consider:

Have the Right Posture
Don’t act like you ‘need’ this supplier. Approach the situation as a win-win deal. You are going to sell the product for this supplier on your site, and they don’t have anything to lose! If you sell stuff, you both make money. If you don’t sell anything, neither of you make or lose money! Make it a win-win situation and don’t be needy when talking to these people.

Have Something to Show Them
If they have a laptop or computer connected to the internet there at the booth, see if you can take a minute and show the person your site. Visual examples like this can be much more convincing. If they don’t have a computer available, give them a business card with your website address on it.

Talk to the Right Person
If this is a larger company, the owner or main person for this type of relationship may not be present. Be nice and courteous to whoever you talk to, but also don’t waste a lot of time talking to someone that really can’t help you.

Follow Up
You probably won’t close the deal there on the spot (they also may not have tons of time to just talk to you depending on the size of the show as well). Be courteous and plan on getting back with them in a day or two after the show ends to go over the final details. But, if they really like the idea, do whatever you can there at the show. You might as well!

Finding potential suppliers at a trade show is another method that will take a little bit more time, but in the long run can be very well worth it. Like looking for manufacturer directories, you might want to consider starting with an easier route like Doba, The Shipper, or World Wide Brands and then work on this as time goes on.

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I was just looking over a previous post the other day about finding dropshippers or suppliers for your site (you can read that post here) and I realized that I left out one of the other techniques for finding a supplier: looking through manufacturer directories!

There are several of these directories out there. Here’s a list of a couple that you’ll want to consider:

ThomasNet
TradeKey
Alibaba (mostly Asian manufacturers)
eSources (UK directory)

There are others of course, but you could at least get started with these.

So here’s the concept with contacting manufacturers: ideally you want to get as close to the source as you possibly can. It keeps your profit margins a lot better because you’re cutting out a lot of the middlemen. Not all manufacturers will be interested in doing a dropship arrangement with you. You can always talk to them and explain the concept a bit and you may persuade some of them to try it out with you. Others will just say that they only sell in bulk. If this happens, you next step would be to ask them who some of their main distributors are and then work up the line until you find a distributor/wholesaler that will do dropshipping for you.

This method of finding suppliers is a little bit more in depth and may take more time, but by going about things this way you might be able to arrange some type of agreement that few others will take the time to get. What you might consider doing is starting out with a company like Doba or The Shipper to supply your site for the short term, but in the mean time keep working with finding a supplier this way and make the switch when you’ve found some that will work with you.

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