We all know it, eCommerce is here to stay and it is growing like mad! I am sure many of you have thought about selling online. And the idea of setting up an ecommerce store can be a bit daunting. After all, eCommerce sounds like such a big thing! And if you are to get professional help, it will costs you a bomb. Well not exactly a bomb, but at least something out of your budget.

Then why not consider a blogshop? The number of people selling online via free blog platforms has been so overwhelming these few years. Reasons? They are so easy to do and everyone can do it! The only thing that puts me off though – customer have to fill in a form of what items they want, and then email to you and then you manually do the inventory and all that! Sounds tiring? Yes it is.

Now there’s another thing you can consider… which is a blog plus ecommerce! Now i should really call this post 8 reasons to set up a blogcommerce! Because now there’s many plugins that you can use which allows you to arrange your items exactly like a shopping cart.

So customers click and put the items to cart and logout and make payment. And you best of all, inventory are automatically deducted so it is not as manual as before.

What i really want to tell you is, you can set up a blog with WordPress and choose an eCommerce plugin… and set up your store that way! It is really not that difficult. Of course I have to tell you one thing, a blogshop is a blogshop, it has its limitations compared to a full blown ecommerce site.

But it is the next best thing and the limitations aren’t really that important unless your business is so big, the blog is unable to cater for it anymore.

Does installing WordPress and setting up a blogshop still sounds like the scariest thing to you? Well, i have got you covered with my Make Money BlogShop Guide. Yes i actually copied down each and every steps i took while setting up my own site. Plus, i’ve put in some extra information as well, like optimizing your blogshop for seo and how to drill down to choose your niche.

To be exact this is an upgrade of my previous ebook How to Set UP WordPress Ecommerce. So if you’ve bought that one, just send me your details and i shall send you this upgrade for free. Otherwise, you will not regret getting this new book and I am always online if you have any questions.

The other day i did something which really makes me feel bad. It was really one of the worst thing i’ve done in my internet marketing life.

Have you ever pay any attention to the rules and regulations about changing your Facebook fanpage name? I bet there are only a handful of people who know this… that you cannot change the name of your Fanpage once you reach 100 fans.

I was shock to learn this. I usually like to use my domain name as the fanpage name inlcuding a short description of the business nature or any current offers.  So my fanpage name goes like this…

“xxxxcraft.com – FREE shipping worldwide”

… as i was doing a free shipping promotion then to test on customers respond how and free shipping can increase sales. (Well, in my case , free shipping had not proved to be good for my business).

And so i ended the free shipping promo and attempted to change the name back to

“xxxxcraft.com – Crafts store online”

… and to my horror, the edit button is no longer there.  And so i learnt that

“To change the name of a Page with 100 or more likes, you’ll need to delete your Page and recreate it. The Facebook team isn’t able to change Page names for you” https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=271607792873806

I do not want to delete the fanpage or create a new one as the ranking was already pretty good.

And here was the most horrifying thing. I could not even sleep at night properly. My mind was constantly thinking about the fanpage name change and the only solution that came to me was delete the number of fans until 99 fans left and change the name.

And i did just that. As i decide who to delete and deleting them, i feel really miserable. Terrible. I have never did something like this for the life of internet marketing.

We did all the possible things to get people to like our fanpage and now i am deleting them. Can you imagine if you are doing this?

There are 3 lucky things in spite of all this though…

1. My fanpage just started about 3 months ago and i had only about 138 fans. So that means i only need to delete about 39.

2. Most of my fans are also my customers and already in subscribe to my autoresponder list. So that means i can email them back and ask them to be my fans again.

3. I learnt my lesson!

So can you imagine if I do not have an autoresponder? I will need to start the whole fanpage thing all over again.

You really, absolutely, cannot live without an autoresponder if you are doing business offline or online.

If you still do not have an autoresponder, i urge you to get one. The investment will be well worth it.

I’ve tried skipping autoresponder numerous times in my internet marketing journey and tried some free ones or cheaper ones out there.

It proved to be an expensive lesson as i’ve to spend time importing newsletter and subscribers, not to mention restarting the whole message cycle again. It was very frustrating to myself and the subscribers as well.

Start with the right one. and don’t mess up your list.

I am using Getresponse to create and send newsletters and manage my contact lists. If you create your account via this link, you will get $30 credit for start.

As you all know, ecommerce sites are those sites where you directly sell products to end consumers and affiliate sites are those sites where you as the affiliate marketers promote products which are not your own, and get a commission cut from it.

I personally prefer ecommerce sites to affiliate marketing because of some very obvious reasons. If you want to maximize your own profits, ecommerce is by far the better option as compared to affiliate marketing. Of course, affiliate marketing has it pros too and one of the biggest advantage is there is much less physical work to be done. This is also one of the main reasons why many many people opt for the affiliate marketing route to earn an income online.

All that said, i still very much like the perks when working with my ecommerce small business. Strangely, i don’t feel that kind of perk when i am working as an affiliate marketer.  That’s because i get full control on everything – from designing to inventory to marketing to dispatchig. I know, that’s hell lots of work to be done. But you can always outsource tasks and systemize your business as much as you can so that you focus on the more important things.

1. You reap all the profits in Ecommerce

One of the less significant reasons is that you need to forego a part of your earning to different affiliate marketers. If you would have promoted and sold the products or services yourself, the net profit could be yours rather than sharing it with a third party promoter. The profit from ecommerce can be 100-200% more and higher if you negotiate well with your supplier. Of course since there is not much physical work to be done, the commission cut from being an affiliate can be very attractive too.

2. More control over products

Just the other day i was checking one of my website which i have set up and forgotten over the years. I clicked on the product affiliate link and realized that the product that i’m promoting is no longer available.

As an affiliate marketer, you have no power over the products, you may have built a site for the product you were marketing, but once the product goes out of stock or discontinued, all your marketing efforts goes in vain and you would have a new product which might have nothing to do with the previous ones.

So, the effort you have put into for building the site is wasted. On the other hand, if you are into ecommerce, you can easily control the products that you sell. While setting up a website, you have a crystal clear idea regarding the products you would be dealing in.

You can make the right decision, put in the right investment and see the effort bring in huge revenue. So, definitely I would rank ecommerce to be higher in my priority list as compared to affiliate marketing.

3. Image and reputation

As an affiliate marketer, you are not responsible for the product you sell but this is more of a disadvantage as the feedbacks which you can get might not be given much importance by the manufacturers which mean that along with their loss, you would get bad reviews from your clients as well.

So, as an affiliate marketer you may get a bad image even when it is not your fault. That is also probably one of the reason many marketers prefer to use a pen name to protect their identity online.

On the other hand, if you are involved in ecommerce, you can channelize the opinion you get in the right constructive manner as you are the master of your own firm. You can make the best use of the information you gather. You’d try very hard to protect your reputation because most customers come back to you and they know you.

Although, you need to carry out more work, as an affiliate marketer you only perhaps need to carry out only marketing and promotion. As an owner of ecommerce site, no doubt you need to consider a lot of different activities; however the net profit that you reap from your effort is definitely more as well.

4. My two cents

I’ve been involved in ecommerce and affiliate marketing. I’m still into both. But ecommerce gives me more perk, that’s for sure. That said, both of the business have a lot of similarities, in that you need to build a list, have a team, outsource and all that sort of stuff.

I’d say being an affiliate marketer has make me a better seller in ecommerce. And that being in ecommerce has enabled me to experience more things compared to being an affiliate marketer.

If you have always the little voices in you telling you to open an ecommerce store, do go ahead with it. Do not be confused with people telling you it’s not worth it and too much work.

Afterall, tell me a business or income stream that doesn’t need much work to see the money. Every type of business has their pros and cons.

I am sure you have came across ads where people got a TV or kindle or iPad for pennies or dollars. Are these items fake or genuine? If they are genuine, how can anyone possibly get them for such a low price? Is it the real steal or fake deal?

A penny auction is a type of auction where a bidder is charged a nominal fee to place a bid. In penny auction a product is sold at a very low price compared to its retail price. The bidding starts from zero and with every subsequent bid the bidding price increases by a very small amount.

How Does Penny Auction Works

People can bid on a product till the clock stops and with every subsequent bid the time increases by 10-20 seconds. Winner is the last person to bid for a product when the clock stops. The winner is required to pay for both the bidding amount as well as the number of bids.

Though a winner saves lot of money and gets the product for a very cheap price, it is always a win-win situation for the auctioneer as they collect more than 5-10 times of the product cost through bidding fees.

It works on a very simple principle and a person who wants to bid should enroll as a member. A small membership fee is charged for example $100 and they get 100 bids. If a person uses all their bids then, they need to buy more and in this way the money is pooled in.

For example, if a product whose retail price is $1000 and is sold for $50 and every subsequent bid increases bidding amount by $0.01. This means 5000 bids were placed on the product and the total amount pooled in is $5050.

Are You Really Getting A Bargain?

Even though the buyer gets goods at a very low price but many other people end up losing their money. As there is only one winner in these auctions the probability of losing is much more than winning. Please do not be tempted by the low price. In case you really cannot stop the temptation bidding your luck, following are the steps that should be adopted when bidding on penny auction sites:

Tips #1.

You should, absolutely, must do proper homework regarding the company, its rules, regulations and its credibility. Do not skip reading about the policies related to winning, shipping, bidding etc.

Tips #2.

You should not just rely only on the testimonials of the winners because many websites use fake testimonials. Carefully read and read and read and study reviews of people and then make their decision.

Tips #3.

Bid at a right time as these sites are open 24 hours a day. You can try placing more bids during the off hours when the competition is less.

Tips #4.

Carefully observe the competition they are facing during bidding. Make it a point to keep a track of the bids made to note your investment.

Tips #5.

Never bid too much on any product because many a times people end up paying more than the product is actually worth. It is always good to set your limits for a particular bid.

Even though penny auction is a recent phenomenon, still hundreds of such sites are introduced every year. Ibidforpenny.com, Pennypurses.com, for10cents.com etc are some of penny Auction websites.

You must always beware of penny auction sites which resort to malpractices such as using fake testimonials. Some sites do collect the bidding amount but they don’t ship the product to the winner.

WORD OF CAUTION… do bid carefully on such penny auction sites!

QR code or Quick response code is a two dimensional code which was first designed by a subsidiary company of Toyota Motors in 1994. I’m sure code or picture like the bottom are a familiar sign these days. I see them almost everywhere.

The code is comprised of black modules in square pattern on a white background. The QR code was first limited to its usage in automobile industry but later it became popular and was widely used. The QR code contains information encoded in four different forms namely numeric, alphanumeric, and binary and kanji.

Better than barcode

The merit of this code that makes it different from other barcodes is its fast readability and capacity to store large information. The amount of data which can be stored in a QR code varies with the form of data. That is way it is better than barcode.

If the data is numeric, one can store as much as 7089 characters; if the data is Alphanumeric i.e. A-Z and 0-9 then maximum of 4296 characters can be stored. In binary characters i.e. fractions, square and square root approximately 2953 characters can be stored and finally in Kanji maximum of 1817 characters can be stored. Kanji is a blend of Chinese characters ‘hanzi’ with modern Japanese katakana.

QR code as business cards

Initially, it was used just by Automobile industry to track parts during the manufacturing process. However, nowadays due to its growing importance it is being used in other processes such as marketing, networking and advertising.

Following are some of important uses of QR codes for your online presence:-

1. Create a business card in QR code format and encode all you contact information and your website details. As soon as one scans your QR code through their cell phone you will be automatically added as a contact.

2. Encode all the necessary details of a particular product as to features, price, availability etc into a QR code. It will save you space and as soon as a person scans that QR code he will come to know about all the details of the product.

3. Increase your sales by printing a discount coupon in any advertising media and any Iphone or android phone users can scan the discount coupon and available discount offer.

QR Code Generators

To make a QR code is not a difficult job. I made the above QR code which contains the url of this blog via http://goqr.me/ You can generate you own QR code by following few simple steps:-

1. Select from a variety of QR code generators that are freely available but be sure to select the generator which is compatible with most of the QR code readers.

2. After selecting the QR code generator you should create or customize the code to suit your needs. Attach all the required information related to your work details, contact details and product details and link them to URL.

3. The last and the most important step is to check your own QR code to see that whether it works or not.

QR codes can be decoded using different QR code readers namely kawya, quickmark for PCs, both windows and Mac. Nowadays, Apple iphone, Blackberry smart phones and many android phones with a camera also enables you to decode QR codes.