Tips for Creating an Online Store

Freshly launched Fan Feedback as a super easy way for you to create a conversation with your customers.  We really want you to generate a community around your products.  Let me know what you think.

START GETTING CUSTOMERS PUMPED!

Anyone watching the Democratic National Convention? Obama will be giving his nomination acceptance speech tonight. We’ve got you covered for your Obama t-shirts.

The Dream Obama Tee at Tees 2 Please

I Love That Brotha Tee at Fievel Graphics

Bumper Stickers available at Obama for President 2008

Running a non profit is hard.  You are trying to make the world better and you pretty much have no money to do it!

That is why we want to do our part.  We give pretty big discounts to non profits.  Having an online store is a great way to make a little extra cash for your non profit.  Here is one of our favorite non profit stores: SIA.  Check it out.

So if you know a good cause and think they need an online store.  Tell them to contact us.

Check out the Stripe Generator and Tartan Designer.  You can create a pretty cool background image, save it, and upload it as your store’s background.  Have fun!

I wish I had cool toys like this growing up.  Check out Immortal Beloved Toys.  I’m going to start saving some cash up to buy this.

Here are some of my favorite toys:

Being the founder and developer of Flying Cart is the best job ever. No wait… being a semi-professional triathlete while being the founder and developer of Flying Cart is the best job ever.

For the past year I have been training intensely for Ironman Wisconsin which is coming up on September 7, 2008. For those of you who don’t know about Ironman, it is a race that consists of swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles in that order in one day. Slightly nuts, yes. I am having an awesome season and am ready to completely dominate on race day. If things go well, I will be qualifying for Ironman Hawaii World Championship.

My training routinely consists of 6 hour bike rides, 3 hour runs, and 90 minute swims all of which add up to about 20 hours each week.  I work on Flying Cart between workouts. Those long workouts give me a lot of time to think and I find that that’s when many of my best ideas for Flying Cart features come into my head. Sometimes I will plan out the complete technical details of a feature in my head during a workout and then all I have to do when I come home is type it up. For example… fan clubs… conceived while riding in the hills west of Austin Texas. New About Us page…. planned while running 22 miles in the Arboretum in Madison Wisconsin.

Have you noticed how many new features we have been adding lately? You can thank the peak of my Ironman training for that   If any of you are in Madison Wisconsin on September 7, come check out the Ironman for an inspiring spectator experience.

Your store just got 5 times faster.  Thanks to a bunch of behind the scenes optimization.  Enjoy!

I am one of those people that likes to stalk web companies.  I want to know everything about them before I buy.  That is why we spiced up our about us pages so your customers can get to know you a lot better.

Now you can add a picture, talk about yourself a little more, AND even add a video of yourself talking about your store.  All fields are HTML friendly so you can pretty much go nuts!

Below is a sample screen shot of what Andre Agassi’s About US page would look like.

A great about us page (to me) has three things:

1. An awesome picture of you, your store, or your team

2. A super cool description of you, why you started your store, some things you like to do, and some personal information that most people won’t know about you (like how you like jokes, or how you can juggle swords, or how you were Miss America)

3. A video of you talking about your products

Leave a link to your about us page in the comments.

I love Fans.  People that love you for what you do.  They are the best marketing tool you have.  Someone that tells all their friends about your products.  It is priceless!

Now you can invite customers, friends, and family members to join your store fan club.  Each fan can easily create a profile, upload a picture, bookmark products, and invite their friends.

We also added a way for you to stay in touch with all your fans via HTML newsletter to announce sales, events, new product additions, or just to say hi.

Why we launched this feature:

A big part of creating a successful online store is keeping old customers.  If you can create a community around your products, get people excited, and generate repeat customers you no longer have to rely on external factors like search engine rankings.  We have a lot more in store regarding the fan club (we have only launched a very basic version today) so stay tuned and PLEASE let us know if you have any ideas on what to add.

HOW TO START?

You can easily turn your Fan Club on or off at the bottom of your store settings page of your headquarters.  Can’t wait to see how people use this!

To unfeature an item follow these steps:

1. Login to your store headquarters

2. Click on the Products tab

3. Click on the product you wish to remove from the homepage

4. Scroll down the to varaiations section on the edit product page

5. Click on the “Yes” or “No” next to “Featured”.  If it is marked as “Yes” the item will be featured on your homepage.