Tips for Creating an Online Store

• Cool ring:
  http://tinyurl.com/aaegce (#)
• Check out the Newly Designed Flying Cart Blog – http://flyingcart.com/blog/ (#)
• Keep selling even if you are Richard Branson
  http://tinyurl.com/6qu5ko (#)
• @Rockinrobbinrae Hey Robin! You are doing great. I would use a pre selected color theme for your store – try out the primaries theme in reply to Rockinrobbinrae (#)
• Orange buttons make you want to buy
  http://tinyurl.com/d26xad (#)
• I just joined the Entrepreneurs Twitter Group http://tgr.me/g/entrepreneurs so stop by and see us. #entrepreneurs (#)
• Helene Farrar has new art! my fav:
  http://tinyurl.com/d5semq (#)
• I need a Dirty Blonde Cocktail
  http://tinyurl.com/d3rrqc (#)
• We are now part of the Local First Chicago Program
  http://tinyurl.com/b2q5gg (#)
• Check out http://www.Tag-its.com custom sneaker kit video
  http://tinyurl.com/cqk72h very cool (#)
• Michael Jackson is selling all his cool stuff
  http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/entertainment/NATL... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/cyt8k6 (#)
• Michael Jackson is selling all his cool stuff
  http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/entertainment/NATL... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/crl2fv (#)
• Michael Jackson needs a Flying Cart store http://tinyurl.com/bpu4dp (#)
• We just featured http://jacquelinetalbot.flyingcart.com/ – very cool store
  out in SF (#)
• The Sweet-Heart Sweet-Shirt http://www.pantalaine.com (#)

Facebook is a great place to gain more awareness about your brand.  You can create a Fan Page for your product or company and have facebook users become fans of it.  Everytime a new fan joins your fan club all their friends are alerted giving more exposure to your product.

Nutella has over 2.7 MILLION fans on facebook.  That is a lot of people that said they love Nutella (disclosure: Nutella is soooo good and I have it with my toast every morning).  Do you think Nutella saw a rise in business?  I think so.  Even getting 25-50 Facebook fans is a HUGE acheivement in mind.

Here is how you can create your Facebook Fan Page:

1. Go here http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages

2. Click on “Create A Page”

3. Pick a category.  For our customers I would suggest the “Brand or Product” category.

4. Pick a specific category in the drop down

5. Enter in the name of your product or online store (For example in our case we put Flying Cart, if you sell resistance bands I would put in “Resistance Bands” this way you can attract a wider audience of people into fitness).

6. Click on “Create Page”

7. Login to Facebook.  (You don’t have an account?  OMG … ARE YOU SERIOUS? just kidding… you can create one easily for free)

8. Upload pictures of your products

9. Add videos of your products and you!

10. Invite all your facebook buddies to your fan club

Also note that Facebook Fan Pages are indexed by Google so its another great SEO trick.

Check out the Flying Cart fan page. Become a fan of us too!

Feel free to invite me to your fan page, I’d love to join.

You uploaded an image and now you want to remove it.  Follow these steps to delete it.

1. Login to your store HQ.

2. Go to Products -> Browse

3. Click on the product with the image you want to delete

4. Scroll down to the image section and click on the Red “X” underneath the image you want to delete.

Want more of us? Follow Flying Cart on Twitter.

All of us at Flying Cart jumped on the highly addictive Twitter bandwagon as well (Brian was the first one to jump).  Feel free to follow us personally:  Margo’s Twitter, My Twitter, and Brian’s Twitter.

If you have a twitter account please leave it in the comments so we can all follow each other.

What is Twitter:

The blog has a new updated design with new features to make it more interactive. You can now browse the content by category, keyword, date, or search all posts. You can see what other readers are saying with the recent comments are listed on the right side of the page. If you like something you read, you can share the post on Digg, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, StumbleUpon, or Google by clicking on the bookmarking buttons at the bottom of the post.

Flying Cart is on several social networking sites including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. You can click to follow us on those sites and you can see our latest tweets are at the top of the blog. You can also subscribe to the blog with RSS or by email to get all the latest content delivered to you.

Last week I went to the Threadless HQ, a crowd sourced t-shirt company.  Designers submit t-shirt entries, winning designers get some money and a cut on the t-shirts sold.  It is an 8 year old company that sells thousands of t-shirts a day.  Threadless being a pretty innovative company has surrounded their office with tons of random cool stuff like graffiti art on the walls, old car seats, gutted vans, and lots more.  Their CTO Harper Reed gave us a tour and I took some pictures.

The point of this post is if you want to make interesting unique stuff – think about surrounding yourself in interesting unique stuff.  I’m going to start by making a colage out of my old business week magazines.

We will be picking a winner on Sunday night.  You can still apply by leaving a comment on this blog post.

Enough said.  Find more of these at http://thisisindexed.com.

Everyone wants to know how to make more sales. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of most successful stores and figure out what they have in common.  All of these stores are doing very well.

• Splashy Art – abstract art
• Bargains Plus More – work boots
• Aylio – elastic exercise bands
• Modular CNC Technology – CNC routers and components
• Shoes Ever – fashion shoes
• Sassy Couture – animal print accessories
• TJ’s Kreations – bottlecaps for scrapbooking
• Catch the Bouquet – wedding dresses
• Retro Beer Items – beer-themed accessories
• Cutler Athletics – items by Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler

Browse through these sites. What lessons can be learned? Here are my thoughts.

Lesson 1: Pick a very specific field and be the BEST in the world at it.

The first thing I notice about all these stores is that they sell products with very specific audiences. They each sell in their own niche market and can therefore focus on being the best in their area. Many of these stores have a link to their own website with more information, or they have a blog. Customers know that they have come to a store where the owner has expertise and that creates a sense of trust. I think this the most important lesson to learn here.

Lesson 2: It takes time and patience.  If you are ready to give up, give it more time.

The majority of these stores have been around for over a year. While a few of them brought existing customers when they started and were able to average $3000-$5000 in sales for their first six months in business, several in this list did not bring in any sales at all until they had been around for at least three months. One of these store owners got so frustrated by lack of sales that she was ready to close down, but then all of a sudden, sales started trickling in and she decided to give it more time. Good thing she did.

Lesson 3: A simple store design does the trick

Each of these stores has made simple but effective design customizations. They all use their own logo, and they have all modified their color scheme to match their products and the theme of the store. None of them have spent a big budget to hire a professional designer. If you think you need to spend a lot of time and money on your design, use that time to focus on lesson 1 instead.

We are excited to announce that our Store of the Month for February 2009 is Haystack, a Chicago-based boutique specializing in vintage household items. Haystack is primarily a real-life brick and mortar storefront, but recently created an online version of the store using Flying Cart as a way to expand sales and keep customers informed about their new items. The store is owned by Erin Liston, John Mokate, and Phil Tadros. The online store design was done by Darren of Doejo.com. I caught up with Erin to ask her about the business.

haystack.flyingcart.com

Flying Cart: What was the hardest part of getting the store started?

Erin: The biggest hurdle we faced from idea stage to opening was staying on time and in budget. Everything cost more and took more time than we originally allowed for. The end result was wonderful, but the build out and renovation was a lot of work. For example, we walked in thinking we had one ceiling, but three ceiling demolitions later, we have our end result. In the end it was totally worth it, but it was something we hadn’t counted on at the beginning.

FC: That sounds a lot like the early beginnings of Flying Cart. How did you come up with the concept for the store?

E: The concept began with two old friends of Phil’s who had a large inventory of things they wanted to consign and approached him with the idea of opening a consignment shop. When I got involved shortly after that, I wanted to broaden that idea to local art consignment. When we started rolling with ideas, we realized that we wanted to sell things that we love, that were previously loved, at an affordable price. We strive to be a positive force in the community, where people can pass on their loved objects to those who will appreciate them. Nostalgia was another idea we talked about.

FC: I think you have to love what you sell because then all the hard work doesn’t seem so much like work. What are some of your favorite things that you have in the store?

E: We had a set of Russian nesting dolls that I loved. We currently have a beautiful 1930′s armoire that I think is just so unique. Sometimes it’s hard to part with things, I grow so attached! I am also in love with our collection of salt and pepper shakers. Of course, if there is something that I just can’t live without, it doesn’t always make it out to the floor. I certainly have increased my personal collection of vintage wears after opening Haystack.

FC: You must always be on the lookout for more stuff. Where do you find the vintage items?

E: You name it! We are always on the look out for new items. We find them everywhere. Consignors, estates, thrift stores, yard sales, auction, back alleys, great aunts, everywhere. Its amazing how quickly things started coming our way once we opened ourselves to the possibility.

FC: What is are your favorite and least favorite things about running the store?

E: My favorite thing about running the store is getting to know the people who come in. I love when they are inspired by what we are doing, and find things that bring a wide smile to their face. I like when people are inspired to be creative. My least favorite thing is keeping track of the inventory, which is very important, but also very tedious. Even that’s not so bad, though.

FC: Yeah, seeing happy customers is very rewarding and then there is always the business stuff that still needs to get done at the end of the day. You are doing well …. how do people hear about you?

E: Because we are a resale shop starting in a recession, we received some great press right off the bat. We mostly function on word of mouth. Initially we ran for months with loads of customers just based on our wonderful location in Lakeview Chicago.

FC: You know you are doing something right when people tell their friends about you and when people want to write articles about you  So, why did you decide to create an online store and how did you choose Flying Cart?

E: At this day in age, it just makes sense to have an online presence in order to reach a wide range of people all over the world. By going online, we no longer have geographical limitations when reaching customers, especially since all of our items are so unique. People can shop from the convenience of their couch instead of hoofing it around town. It saves them time and money. Our regular customers can also check up on us and see what’s new in the shop. We chose Flying Cart due to it’s ease of use coupled with it’s lack of fees. It is very user friendly. It’s as easy to understand as Myspace or Facebook, and doesn’t have all of the fees and limitations of Ebay.

FC: I totally agree with you. Thanks Erin and best of luck for your continued success!

 

Haystack Vintage
2934 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL 60657
www.haystackvintage.com
haystack.flyingcart.com
Email: [email protected]