New Lessons in eCommerce

The feverish stage of my cold cleared up about mid-week, and I was able to sit at the computer and try to get some work done. Even with the coughing interruptions.

I was to the point where I had to made decisions about connecting payment gateways, and shipping options. So I researched a number of them and found it hard to decide, even among the ones I do want to use, (ie. Stripe for payments, and Canada Post for shipping). Some of them cost! So I didn't want to start with the wrong plugin systems, even with those companies.

A couple of sales came through on the ebooks on my genealogy website, but I wasn't notified of them by Stripe until 7 days later. Which bothered me as these were downloadable ebooks. The customers would think I wasn't honouring their purchase and get upset. Turns out Stripe still considers me a new seller, and so they were allowing the 7 days in case the buyer wanted to cancel the charge their credit card charge. Hmm!!?

So I've spent considerable hours checking out a system called Ecwid, which provides a shopping cart for people to sell via their system, but it includes free support. They also have excellent videos on their site, showing every step for everything you need to do there. There is a free level, but you are only allowed to sell up to 10 items with it.

Since my genealogy site is only selling 5 ebooks and one laminated sheet (which I have to mail) - it seems wise to try out Ecwid's free plan with these items, and hopefully I will be notified immediately when there is a sale so I can quickly send the customer the download link for the ebook(s) they bought.

If that works out well, I am seriously considering moving the larger site with all of Tom's diecast models (possibly up to 2000 items) over to Ecwid. I will have to pay for a larger account that allows for many more products, but at least it won't take so long to solve every little problem I come to. I can just ask Support to either show me, or do it for me.

So, I'm hoping to set up the online shop for the genealogy books tonight, and try this out for a few weeks before I commit to a move for the bigger eCommerce site.

Yes, getting into eCommerce has a steep learning curve, but if we persist, we can climb this mountain!

<*> TIPS & SOLUTIONS: <*>

Want to Know How to Do Percussion?

A mother shows how she does this for her child. This is a shorter video.

Here a young couple does this with much more detail that is helpful for understanding the whole process. Especially for patients who need this on a daily basis. Mary, the wife has CF, and her husband has learned to do this throughout their marriage of 5 years so far.

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