Tips for Creating an Online Store

1. Go to Google’s www.Blogger.com

2. Click “Create a Blog”

3. Thats it.

Here is a video of me giving you the top 3 reasons on why you need to start a blog.

Google Checkout has just changed their fee structure.  Yes it is going to be more expensive

You can still sign up for free and they have no monthly costs.  However they now take a larger cut on each sale (pretty much the same as PayPal).

Here is the new fee structure:

You can read more about the changes on the Google Checkout Seller Fees page.  Remember you always create a store on Flying Cart and use Google Checkout in seconds.

We love designers. Designers make us look better.  They make things look beautiful.

We are looking to feature designers right off our homepage.  This is a great place for our new customers to learn about your design services.

If you are a designer and want to be featured please send us an email.

• Flying Cart Meetups in Texas this week! Monday 7pm in Austin at Genuine Joe’s north. Meet Rishi and Margo and learn about Google Adwords. (#)
• Crash and Smash! http://crashandsmash.flyingcart.com/ (#)
• Meetup tonight in Houston! 7pm. Show us your products. Email Rishi or Margo for details. (#)
• Video from the Austin Meetup: http://tinyurl.com/d2sdnj (#)
• Google adwords meetup in San Antonio Texas tonight at 7pm. Email us for details. (#)
• Craigslist.org is a great place to advertise your products for free. (#)
• @Rockinrobbinrae Everyone on Twitter can see your tweets. Tell us about your products. Use the search to find more people to follow. in reply to Rockinrobbinrae (#)
• @Rockinrobbinrae Happy 50th Robbin! Make it a great year in reply to Rockinrobbinrae (#)
• @pandarazzi Wow, a camera for an eye… that’s a really interesting project. I squirmed a few times during the video though. in reply to pandarazzi (#)
• @TagIts … I go green all the way when cost isn’t a huge issue. -margo in reply to TagIts (#)
• The San Antonio Meetup was awesome! Here is the video we took:
  http://tinyurl.com/cqrfoq (#)

For those of you that use Google Checkout, you can now offer coupons to your customers! Google allows you to create coupons for a percentage off the order total or for a specific dollar value discount.

Here’s how you set up a coupon in Google Checkout:

1. Log in to your Google Checkout account and go to “My Sales”.
2. Click on the “Tools” tab at the top, then click on “Coupons” on the left side.
3. Click on “Create a new coupon”.
4. Fill out steps 1-3 to create your coupon and click “Create”.

When customers make a purchase with Google Checkout in your store, they will see a place on the order page to enter the coupon code. The discount will be applied right there and the person can pay as usual.

The coupon code and the discount will be shown on the order page in Flying Cart.

You can mail out your coupon codes to customers with a fan mailing or offer them to all shoppers by posting the code on your site. You could even mail a special coupon code in your shipping notifications to try to get repeat business. You can get pretty creative with your promotions.

You have to use Google Checkout for this, as the service is not offered for PayPal users.  Here are some directions on how to switch to Google Checkout.

I live in Austin and Rishi lives in Chicago. We only see each other in person about 3 times per year. This week Rishi came to Austin for our Texas meetup tour and after spending some time together it came to our attention that we have very similar tastes in fashion.  Here we are both wearing our favorite “work-at-home” outfits. It’s good when the two founders of a company are on the same page, right?

• Show and Tell your product in Chicago
  http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=56612756743&ref=mf (#)
• Show and Tell your favorite product http://tinyurl.com/amqcnv (#)
• Elyse & Co featured on Mentality Magazine:
  http://mentalitymagazine.blogspot.com (#)
• This Friday Rishi is at Whitewater, Wi giving a speech on starting a biz *
  http://tinyurl.com/bp5v4g* (#)
• Blogs are the best Search Marketing Investment: http://tinyurl.com/bmqgpo (#)
• Cut and Paste http://www.cutnpaste.ca (#)
• The Chicago Show & Tell was fun! I took a video at the end of it:
  http://tinyurl.com/d7bgcy (#)
• A BOW IS LIKE A TIARA ALWAYS MUST BE WORN BY A PRINCESS
  http://tinyurl.com/ctdjvq (#)
• The Indian Soul Printed on Fabric http://www.attirenmore.com (#)

I’m in Texas this week hanging with Margo and hopefully YOU!

Here is our Schedule

All of them start at 7pm.
3/2 Monday – Austin http://www.meetup.com/Online-Selling-Beyond-eBay-Austin/
3/3 Tuesday – Houston http://www.meetup.com/Online-Selling-Beyond-eBay-Houston/
3/5 Thursday – San Antonio http://www.meetup.com/Online-Selling-Beyond-eBay-San-Antonio/

Looking forward to seeing you.  Let me know if you have any questions.

If you are using a banner logo in your store, it looks best when the banner fills up the whole top section of the page. This is especially true when the background color of your banner is a different color than the background color of the body. To make your logo fill the top part of the page, all you have to do is:

Upload a logo image that is 800 pixels wide

Our stores Aylio and El Esqueleto are doing this already.  If you need an image editor, I recommend Adobe Photoshop or Pixlr which is online and free. This small change will make a huge difference in the professional look of your store.

Kristen Cast of Organic Faith Photography asked me how she can add an animoto widget to her homepage.  I get this question a lot so I though it was time to do a blog post.

You can use this guide to add a widget from slide, animoto, photobucket, myspace, etc.

1. Copy the embed code from the site with widget (it will look like a bunch of code)

2. Login to the Flying Cart headquarters navigate to Store -> Homepage

3. Scroll down the click on the HTML button in the “Welcome Text” section (The HTML button is located in all sections where you can add text, not just the Welcome Text section… so feel free to embed widgets on your about us page as well)

4. Paste the embed code you copied in step #1 and click on the “update”

5. Click the “Update Homepage” button on the Flying Cart Homepage Setting.

6. Enjoy the widget on your site

Follow these detailed instructions for embeding a YouTube Video.