From Small eBay Seller to Successful Entrepreneur

More than 10 years ago Jennifer Kirk discovered eBay and realized she could make money on eBay by selling her children’s used brand-name clothes. For Kirk it was an easy decision to use eBay – she realized she could make more money selling the clothes online than she could at a garage sale.  

As is the case with many successful eBay sellers, Kirk started out using eBay as a way to clean out items not being used in the home and earning a little extra spending money.  Also , like many part-time eBay sellers, Kirk realized the novelty of listing on eBay to earn a small income tends to wear off eventually.

“I spent a lot of time learning how to use eBay”, Kirk said. “But after four years of selling my children’s used clothing on eBay I really started to get bored with it. ”

After watching her four daughters play dress-up with the family’s two pet Chihuahuas for hours on end, Kirk said she saw an opportunity for a new online business.  With some initial market research and encouragement from her husband and family, she decided to start selling upscale dog clothing and accessories instead.

Outgrowing the Need for EBay

Kirk’s success story echoes the position of many eBay sellers.  While eBay produces sales, it also leaves sellers paying too many fees to different sources, for example eBay and PayPal. The online marketplace also imposes a slew of restrictions on vendors using eBay as a selling channel.  

She also said that running the eBay business on her own was time consuming and she felt that too much time was being spent in trying to get assistance through eBay support when she needed help.

In deciding to launch Posh Puppy Boutique, Kirk said that finding the right e-commerce platform and shopping cart was the most difficult task.

“I can’t recall how many hours I spent  online searching for a cart – or the number of carts I downloaded, tried, and didn’t like,” she said.  

The biggest issue Kirk stumbled upon while looking for an online shopping cart was that many cart providers, like eBay, wanted a percentage of every sale she made online.  To her this meant daily fees racking up when she had wanted to invest more profit in new inventory.

In 2007, Kirk switched Posh Puppy Boutique from eBay to Volusion’s e-commerce platform simply because the company offered more support than anyone else. Not having a lot of technical experience and knowledge, Kirk found that with Volusion support she could make the transition from eBay to her own online store in a short amount of time.

The Challenges of Going Off-eBay

Kirk says one of the biggest challenges she faced in launching the new online store was  doing market research.  Another was  learning how to run her own e-commerce website.  As she researched, however, she realized that some e-commerce platforms were robust enough to guide her in other areas of running an ecommerce website, such as inventory management, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, live chat and other functions that are a must-have for any online business today.

Kirk said that when she found Volusion’s offering, she watched a couple of tutorials the company offered on its website and realized that this was a solution that would fit her online business needs. A big selling point for Kirk was in realizing she would retain all revenue and not need to pay transaction fees to the vendor.

Other challenges Kirk initially faced were finding wholesalers and suppliers for Posh Puppy Boutique.“This isn’t a problem now as we have people submitting requests for us to carry product, but in the beginning it was difficult to get those sources and I was constantly being turned down,” Kirk explained.

A Bright Future for Posh Puppy Boutique

Currently Posh Puppy Boutique is working with a parent company – a separate entity – to launch an online doggie consignment venture in the very near future. According to Kirk this is an under-served market online and this new site will allow dog owners who love to accessorize the opportunity to sell their old items and take the cash or earn gift certificates for buying new clothing and accessories at Posh Puppy.

Also, Posh Puppy Boutique was recently  enlisted to help outfit characters for a major feature film due in 2011. While Kirk was unable to comment specifically on the film or the movie production company behind it, she did say this was something else that she wouldn’t have believed would ever happen to her when she first started out by selling on eBay as a hobby.

10 Tips for Writing an Ecommerce Website FAQ

Small business ecommerce website owners spend a lot of time tweaking the homepage or shopping cart, but one important ecommerce content page that also needs attention is the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.

An online FAQ is a basically a document that contains a collection of commonly asked questions and the answers to those questions. The layout is in a strict question and answer format. Your customers will use the FAQ to find an answer to a question they have about your ecommerce website or service.

Ecommerce website owners should create and post a frequently asked questions page as a customer service tool. Many customers would rather look for an answer to a question on your website instead of calling or emailing you. The benefit for the site owner is that a well-written FAQ can cut down on the amount of time you spend in email or on the phone answering those common questions.

When you create a FAQ for your ecommerce website the goal is to provide customer support through an easy to understand series of specific questions and answers.

10 Tips to Create an Effective Ecommerce FAQ Page

As you create the document, remember the meaning of the term FAQ and what it encompasses. A FAQ really does need to consist of the most frequently asked questions to be useful -- not marketing statements and obscure questions and answers that no customer really asks. Approach this task with the goal of providing only customer support.

1. Use a Table of Contents: Offer subject headers at the top of the FAQ page with a hyperlink to that related section further down on the page. This allows a customer to quickly access the question they want answered.

2. Group Questions in a Logical Way: Don't create long list of questions and answers for customers to scroll through. Instead, choose a number of subjects (the main headers in your Table of Contents) and group separate specific questions related to that subject together. For shorter FAQs, grouping by "most popular" first also works well for reading.

3. Be Precise With the Question: Don't use open-ended questions that require lengthy answers. Instead, break it down in to several well-phrased and precise questions that have only one answer.

• Incorrect: How do I use your shopping cart?
• Correct: (1) Do I need to register before I can make a purchase? (2)Does the shopping cart auto-calculate shipping costs? (3) Is my wish list saved in the shopping cart?

4. Avoid Too Many Questions: The FAQ should not be used as a guide to "everything you could ever want to know" about the ecommerce website and services. By publishing only the popular questions and answers the FAQ will be more useful to your customers.

5. Answer the Question: Believe it or not, some FAQs pose a question and two paragraphs later the question remains unanswered. It is fine to use simple "Yes or No" answers. Your customers will appreciate a direct answer to their questions.

• Incorrect: Do you ship to Canada? Because our business in located in the United States and we are unable to secure a shipping service that is cost-efficient…
• Correct: Do you ship to Canada? No.

6. Link to Resources When Available: When possible, be sure to include additional information via hyperlinks so the customer can continue with self-service support. For example, common questions like "How do I change my billing address?" should always be hyperlinked to the online account information form so the customer can solve the problem immediately.

7. Use Bullet Points for Instructions: In cases where you need to provide instructions to answer a question, use bullet points to list the step-by-step instructions. Explanations of why the steps are required are not needed, and you should only provide the quickest and easiest set of steps to solve the problem and answer the customer's question.

8. Focus on Support, Not Marketing: Remember that this type of ecommerce website page is designed to provide customer service and support. All questions and answers should pertain to assisting customers and should not promote specific products. Marketing does not belong on an FAQ page.

9. Use Real Frequently Asked Questions: The frequently asked questions page should consist of real "frequently asked" questions that you get from customers. Track questions that are communicated to you via phone, email or Web-based technical support -- and publish the most commonly asked ones. Don't make up questions and answers just so you can offer a FAQ page. Doing so creates a page of useless information that is not relevant to the real questions and answers your customers expect to find on this page.

10. Update Your FAQ Page: As customers continue to communicate with you, update your FAQ. Delete irrelevant questions and add newer questions and answers that are the most common. Also, when you make changes to your ecommerce website or services, remember to check your FAQ to ensure the questions are relevant and the answers are accurate based on website changes.

Need an eBay Alternative? Try This List.

Social Network Marketing Meets Small Business

In mid-June, when computer maker Dell announced it had earned $3 million in revenue from using Twitter, a popular micro-blogging site, the Internet and blogosphere were all atwitter about the news. Finally, proof that social media had the potential to not only increase traffic but also sales. Though as Dell was quick to mention, it took 18 months to make that first million via Twitter, albeit only six to earn the last.

While Dell is a large corporation, with revenues of more than $61 billion in 2008 alone, smaller businesses – significantly smaller businesses – can also benefit from using Twitter as well as other forms of social media, such as Facebook andMySpace. It also includes blogs, particularly community blogs aimed at entrepreneurs, like The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, which features hundreds of small business owners every week and sites like Help a Reporter Out (HARO), which links businesses with journalists for free. (Think of it as PR 2.0.)

That’s because unlike traditional PR and advertising, which can be costly, the main cost associated with social media is time, not cash (though this may be changing, thanks in part to success stories like Dell’s). And any business willing to spend some time on social media/networking sites, building a community or fan base can benefit.

That’s the beauty of social networking. “It levels the playing field and provides small business owners another platform or medium to leverage from a marketing perspective,” said Scott Bradley, a social media strategist who runs the blog Networking Effectively. “Social media also fosters closer and better company-customer/prospective customer interaction – call it Word-of-Mouth 2.0” – than do the more traditional print advertising and PR he said.

g social networking sites and tools to market themselves and to build better relationships with their customers, we spoke with three retail business owners. While their products and audience may differ from yours, their tips and advice regarding social media can be applied to any business.

The James Store is a 63-year-old clothing boutique located in Granville, Ohio. With its charming brick façade, big bay window and colorful awning, the store seems the product of another time. And in many ways it is – or was, until just a couple of years ago. That’s when the James Store set up shop online and shortly thereafter began using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to attract new customers and “build relationships and communicate with customers both locally and around the country and the world,” said Peter Morse, the James Store’s marketing director.

“So many people use Facebook every day that it seemed important for the James Store to have a presence there,” explained Morse. “It wasn’t exactly clear how we’d use it initially, but it seemed like only a matter of time before it was widely adopted and the value became apparent. In the meantime we began building a fan base. And our customers (who love our store and are very loyal) happily become fans.”

The James Store rewards its fans by offering store coupons that are only available via the company’s Facebook fan page. “It drove new fans to our Facebook page – which in turn drove foot traffic to the store,” said Morse.

“Recently we tweeted about a sale on Vera Bradley handbags. When Vera Bradley retires a handbag style, they discount the price – and many people wait for the day this occurs to get a deal,” explained Morse. “When we tweeted about the sale, we received phone calls from customers from all over the U.S.”As for Twitter, the capability to instant message store updates to customers and followers in real time appealed to Morse, and he’s been using the service to alert customers to sales and specials.

Moreover, every time the James Store posts a new tweet, it automatically becomes an update on the store’s Facebook fan page, driving even more traffic to both the physical and virtual stores.

“The reaction has been great,” said Morse. “Facebook keeps the store feeling up-to-date. And we have found these social media tools to be more effective than e-mail in getting out the word about sales and events – and much cheaper as well.”

How to Use Social Networks to Engage Consumers

E-tailers have long known the benefits of acquiring their best customer's best friends, and they also know that nothing makes virtual cash registers ring better than word-of-mouth marketing. For these reasons, social media and online social networks can drive online shopping and spending. 

Charles Nicholls, founder of SeeWhy, a re-marketing services company, believes that one issue hindering the e-commerce industry is marketers’ inability to use social networks in an engaging way.

While many e-tailers take advantage of Facebook Connect and tweet their latest deals, Nicholls says the danger this season is that social networks will be used as little more than cheap broadcast channels, and not as communication channels to truly engage customers.

"Once a customer has shared their passion about an e-commerce brand with their social network, it’s important to identify and recognize the customer’s value specifically," he said.

Find the Sneezer This Christmas

According to recent SeeWhy research, 50 percent of e-commerce marketers plan to use social networks this holiday season to distribute promotions and discounts. In a report authored by Nicholls, he suggests that to be successful this holiday season, you need to focus on finding the “sneezer” — that is, the customer that spreads your offers and promotions through social networks.

Social networking sites make it incredibly easy for your “sneezer” customer to share promotions and positive word-of-mouth marketing about your business in a single click with his or her network of friends. The problem, however, is that when your customer spreads that message — if you take no other steps —then you are simply using these valuable tools as a broadcast channel.

Nicholls believes that in order to correct this problem, you have to identify and recognize the value in your socially connected customers.  "You’ve just found an advocate that can potentially be very valuable,” he said. “In 2010, retaining and rewarding sneezers will be increasingly important, but many companies fail to capture their identity or do anything with it."

Why You Should Integrate Social Media into Your Site

Unless a customer specifically provides you with personally identifiable information, then you won’t get those detailed social analytics, but according to Nicholls, if you allow customers to log in to social networks via your own Web site, then you can track your biggest word-of-mouth customers — the sneezers.

For example, if an e-commerce site owner uses Facebook Connect, it will let members log in to their Facebook accounts without leaving the e-commerce site. This is important because when they log in, the site has access to profile information about the member that can be used for personalization.  E-commerce Web sites can make it easy for their customers who use Facebook to post the things they find and like on their Facebook Wall — where their network of friends will see it.

Nicholls says that e-tailers can capture the customers’ 15-digit Facebook ID number — not their e-mail address. "While this may not be directly actionable, it’s worth capturing and storing this data for future use.  Analyzing the data can help you identify your most prolific sneezers.”

MySpace and Twitter have similar functionality, so it’s important for e-commerce marketers to become familiar with the different social media sites and integrate access to them from your own site. Also, you should learn how to take advantage of the best marketing options on each.  Simply using Facebook Connect is not enough.

Tips for Better Social Media Contact

For e-tailers just getting started with social media integration, Nicholls suggests they simply stop being nervous about spreading awareness through social channels, and start by using sites like Twitter and Facebook to offer discounts and discuss promotions. This will help you build your network — and of course you should integrate one-click access to these networks from your own site.

Other ways you can start using social media is to take the customer service approach. Use these networks to make immediate and meaningful interactions with your customer. An e-commerce business can connect with customers much faster when using social media networks than it can with more traditional contact methods, like phone or e-mail.

On a cautionary note, e-commerce businesses may need to review their site policy to ensure customers have the opportunity to agree to receive communications from you on these networks.  The last thing you want to do is disconnect a customer and have your social media tactics seen as a spam.

Also, Nicholls believes that you should reward customers who spread positive word about your e-commerce business. He recommends that when customers share your promotion or message in their activity feed, you should reward them (through the social networking site) with a special offer or discount.

Social Media: Tips for Small Business Marketing

ComScore, a provider of Internet audience measurement services, noted that for the first time Facebook entered into the top 10 Web property rankings for January 2009. According to ComScore and industry followers, this is a sure sign that that this year we will likely see continued growth in usage of social mediaplatforms. Social media is the new (buzzword) that is used to describe a variety of Web-based platforms, applications and technologies that enable people to socially interact with one another via the Web or Web 2.0 as these services are normally labeled. Some examples of social media sites and applications include Facebook,YouTube, Del.icio.us, Twitter, Digg, blogs and other sites that have content largely contributed based on user participation — that is, sites that organize and deliveruser-generated content (UGC). Many businesses have primarily focused on getting listed in Google for no reason other than to drive Google's search traffic to their own Web space. Social media is no different — businesses are looking to leverage social media traffic to help their own sites and brands. In November traffic to Blogger, according to comScore, was 222 million. It is easy to see why businesses want to attract some of that traffic. Not all businesses need a Facebook page or a blog to promote and advertise on the popular social media sites. In fact, you might do better simply by making your own online presence social media-friendly and let your users carry your product through to these places instead. Welcome Social Media in Your Organization Sponsored Intel Atom Developer Program:  Earn App Revenue Faster with Intel Atom Developer Program Dollars for Downloads. If you think about it, social media is like an online version of word-of-mouth advertising. One user on a social site may favorite, follow, or Digg something about you, and suddenly your brand and name is now being shown to all of their friends, and if they repost the mention, they open your brand up to all of their friends, and so on down the line.

Businesses can start with a company presence or profile on different, but appropriate, social media sites. You can create a Fanpage on Facebook, get your employees on LinkedIn, sign up for Twitter, or start submitting relevant articles and content to social bookmarking sites, like Digg and StumbleUpon. You can also use free blogs like Blogger to open a dialogue between your business and consumers.

When creating profiles on these sites, remember to link them up. For example, on your Twitter profile you can include a link to your blog or Web site. On Facebook you can install a Digg application so others can see what you favorite, and a Facebook Twitter application lets your Tweets become your Facebook status update. Twitter feeds can be added to your blog, and so on. By linking up your profiles, with one update you can blast your message to multiple social sites.

Recommended Reading: Use the Webopedia Social Media Glossary for help deciphering social media lingo.

Be Open, Honest, and a Little Social, Too

To successfully market in social media spaces, a business needs to create honest and open profiles that will appeal to consumers — don't pretend you are "just another user" on the site. Be honest in letting users know that you represent a business, versus being a single person who always tweets and links to one business. People will see right through this.

When you use these sites, you're opening your business up to direct dialog and comments from users. One of the biggest mistakes a business can make is not responding. When comments are left on your blog, a message is posted to your Facebook Fanpage wall or someone tweets a reply to your status on Twitter, make sure this person gets a message back from you. It doesn't have to be a long-winded dialog, but show that you have an interest in what they are saying. If you never respond, the user does not have a reason to come back to your profile.  Make sure you have staff members who will continue to update these pages with fresh posts and comments to users. Daily updates are best.

One thing to remember is that as a business engaged in social media, you might get comments and posts that are not positive — comments that you might feel hurt your business reputation. A business has to always be courteous and address the concerns appropriately, no matter how rough the comment you are dealing with is. Social media links can travel fast —- and a single negative comment left by your staff on a public social profile will infiltrate the faceosphere, blogosphere and diggosphere (you get the idea) faster than you can imagine.

Merge Social Media With Existing Advertising

If you're considering abandoning any of your current advertising practices in favor of going with social media, think again. Businesses need to look at incorporating current marketing channels with new social media opportunities. For example, Google search engine rankings (SEO) is on everyone's priority list. Blogging is an excellent way to optimize your content for Google. You can design content that works well on your blog, but don't stop there. Use portions of the content, not only on your Web site and blog, but also for Twitter updates, Facebook Notes, in more traditional print ads and also in your e-mail marketing campaigns or newsletters.

Social media also provides a way for you to promote new launches and products. You can Twitter company news and announcements (via links), you can add product unique and fun demos in video format to YouTube, or upload hot product shots to Flickr or your Facebook Fanpage. When an online publication covers your business or products those news stories can also be added to your various online social media profiles.

Optimize Your Business for Social Media

It is important to realize that not every business really needs a Facebook Fanpage or a Twitter profile. In some cases, it just might be that right now your small business doesn't have time or resources to invest in social media. Still, a business can still leverage social media traffic without joining each of these sites just by making sure you have the basics in place. An RSS feed is crucial to success. With an RSS feed you can distribute your content to other sites and users.

How to Add Facebook Like to Your Ecommerce Site

As of April 2010, ComScore stats indicated that Facebook is closing in on 500 million monthly unique visitors. For anyone doing business online, Facebook traffic numbers is a very big deal.

Often, small business ecommerce site owners get trapped in the endless quest to reach Google's search audience that they overlook the importance of tapping in to other online audiences -- including Facebook.

Earlier this year Facebook launched new tools, called Social Plugins that website publishers could easily add to bring the Facebook social experience to any website. These social plugins are part of a larger Facebook goal to make every website on the Internet sharable across its network; something the company calls the Open Graph.

Facebook Like: Why Ecommerce Sites Should Have It

Facebook Like is one of the social plugins offered by Facebook that lets people share your content with their friends.  When you add the Facebook Likebutton to your own small business ecommerce website anyone who clicks it will have a story appear in their News Feed with a link back to your website.

“Facebook is building another index of the Web,” said Charles Nicholls, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of SeeWhy. “Only this index it isn’t based on Google’s arbitrary algorithms, it is built based upon people’s likes and preferences.”

Facebook Like for your small business ecommerce website is a no-brainer. Use the configuration tool to select options and simply copy and paste the resulting code to your website.

When it comes to having Facebook Like on your ecommerce website, Nicholls says this is really a bit of a no brainer because it is a single line of code that you add to point Facebook users to your ecommerce site. By adding Facebook like to your own website, you encourage Facebook visitors to share your site and link back to you in their social network profile, in turn exposing your site to their friends.

Add Facebook Like to Your Ecommerce Site

Understanding how the Like Button works on the Web is pretty easy. Once you have the social plugin added to your website, Facebook users can click that Like Button your page and news of this activity and is added to their own public activity stream.  All of their Facebook friends will see their friend has "Liked" your page, and they can also click the activity and be taken directly to your page.

The good news for ecommerce site owners is that Facebook Like is easy to put on your website.  It's a simple matter of getting a line of code and deciding where on your webpage you want to display the Like button.  Nicholls recommends that you should include Facebook Like on your homepage and also on your individual product pages.

To get started you'll want to visit the Like Button Social Plugin Page on the Facebook Developers website.

Facebook offers two Like Button implementations:  XFBML and Iframe. The XFBML version is more versatile, but requires the JavaScript SDK.  For people with less technical and website design know-how, the Iframe version is much simpler to add to your own ecommerce website.

The Facebook Developer’s Page offers a Web-based configuration tool to help you get the code required to add to your website.  When you use the configuration tool you simply choose your options for the following design attributes:

• URL:  Enter the URL you want the Like action to be connected to (e.g. your website URL). If you use the XFBML version, the code will default to the current page
• Layout Style: Choose Standard or Button Count.  Standard will display text to the right of the Like Button and profile pictures below the button. Button Count will display how many people clicked the Like button in small text beside the button
• Show Faces: If you choose the Standard layout, you can also check Show faces to display profile photos below the Like Button
• Width: The width, in pixels, you want the plugin to display on your website
• Verb:  Choose "Like" or "Recommend". This is the text that appears with the button
• Font: The font used in the plugin for text display
• Color Scheme: Choose a light or dark scheme. This is the color of the button displayed on your website

Then, you will click the "Get Code" button on the configuration tool and a pop-up window will display the XFBML and Iframe code you will choose to copy and paste to your own website.

Using Open Graph Metatags

As mentioned earlier, the Facebook Like Button is a part of Facebook’s Open Graph initiative. While this next step is completely optional, if you are going to implement the Facebook Like feature on your website, you should add Open Graph metatags to your webpage. 

Adding the Facebook Open Graph meta tags to your webpage, tells Facebook who you are so that your link will show up in the correct places on a users' Facebook profile, outside of their activity stream.  If for example, a person likes a movie in your Web shop that has been tagged for Open Graph, your public website will be listed in that user’s favorite movies link in their Facebook profile.  It is a little code for a lot of exposure and links on Facebook.

Depending on the data you provide using the Open Graph protocol, your pages show up in different places in Facebook, such as in user profiles, in search results and in people’s News Feed. The Open Graph protocol specifies four tags that are required with additional optional optional tags you can also use:

• og:title -- The title of your object as it should appear within the graph, e.g., "The Rock"
• og:type -- The type of your object, e.g., "movie." See the complete list of supported types
• og:image -- An image URL which should represent your object within the graph. The image must be at least 50 pixels by 50 pixels and have a maximum aspect ratio of 3:1
• og:url -- The canonical URL of your object that will be used as its permanent ID in the graph

These four tags, along with examples and an explanation of additional tags you can use are listed on the Open Graph Protocol pageon the Facebook Developers site. 

There is More to Like than Just Facebook Like

The biggest problem for most small ecommerce site owners is not getting plugins such as Facebook Like on their website, but managing the social plugins. At times it may feel like you are managing two websites: your ecommerce site and Facebook.

When you look at what Facebook is becoming in terms of a referrer, most everyone sees it climbing their Web analytics, gradually and becoming more and more important. For this reason, ecommerce websites especially should look at adding the Facebook Social Plugins to their website.

In addition to Facebook Like, which Nicholls recommends ecommerce site owners add first, there are two more social plugins that should be considered. One is Facebook Recommendations and the other is Facebook Login.

Facebook Recommendations  is a simple iframe you can drop into your page, or as with using Facebook Like, when you use the XFBML version you can have more control and options. The XFBML version of Facebook Recommendations basically pulls together the top recommendations from your site that Facebook has found.

This social plugin lets you show personalized recommendations to users. In generating the recommendations the plugin considers all the social interactions with URLs from your site. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the plugin can display personalized recommendations even if the user has not logged into your ecommerce website but is logged in to Facebook. It also provides you with a personal mini-index of what people like on your site.

The other social plugin that Nicholls recommends small business ecommerce site owners use is Facebook Login.  With login enabled, anyone can login in on your ecommerce website with his Facebook credentials -- allowing you to capture his information from Facebook.

With that captured information you can later market to this Facebook user with email and social media marketing -- and ecommerce remarketing-- tactics to help drive conversions and ultimately acquire new customers and increase sales.

While Login is also important, it takes more time to implement and requires use of the Facebook API.  Instructions on how to use this Social Plugin can be found on the Facebook for Websites Developer Page.

Nicholls recommends that ecommerce site owners start by adding the Facebook Like Button first, and then integrate Facebook Recommendations followed by Facebook Login.  He said that while Recommendations requires more of your website real estate and Login requires some development knowledge for using the API, he believes the benefits to small business ecommerce site owners are worth the effort to go beyond Facebook Like.