Setting up an Online E-Commerce Store using ShopSite

While there have been many successful ventures of online store that sell products purely via their web sites, many businesses are also beginning to setup online stores to compliment their brick and mortar business. Setup an online store and sell online has the following advantages:-

  • The online store will serve as your showroom that opens 24 hours a day.
    Even if the visitors to your site do not buy online, it serve well as an
    online catalogue for them to browse.
  • If your site enjoy good position and ranking in popular search engines,
    your sites will surely receive tons of quality hits that can be converted to
    sales if the products that you are selling are attractive and competitive.
  • You will be able to sell products online even when you are sleeping.
  • The online store has indefinite shelf space and you will be able to sell
    as many products as you wish.
  • The online store is convenience to shopper. They can shop online 24 hours
    a day with having to spend time traveling out of  their home.
  • The shopper will also be able to browse  and compare prices more
    easily.

One of the E-Commerce Software that I find it easy and useful to build online store is ShopSite that allow you to build an online store and full function shopping cart system. It adopt a very simple concept of your building pages and it is easy to learn and it go through some simple steps that are described below:-

  • Upload your product images to ShopSite. Your images can be of any filename
    and you will be able to assign a name that is easy to remember to every
    image that you upload. For example, your image file name may be 13925.jpg
    and once uploaded, you can assign a friendly name such as "cameramodelxyz"
    to it. In that way, you will have no problem tracing the images that you
    have uploaded. For easy management, you can also upload those images in
    separate folders.
     
  • Once images has been uploaded., the next step is to add your products to
    ShopSite. For each and every products that you have added, you will be able
    to specify the image to use for each of them. ShopSite Pro 8.2 onwards will
    help you to create thumbnail automatically. For each and every
    products,  there is checkbox allow you to select whether you wish to
    have a more information page that will show larger images and more details.
     
  • One products has been added, you can then commence to add your product
    pages. When adding a page, you will be able to select the products that you
    want to appear on that pages. You will also be able to specify the
    navigational links to appear on the same page and add the necessary contents
    as well. The addition of links will allow you to link all those product
    pages together so that shopper will be able to browse easily.
     
  • Once product pages has been added, you can then proceed to add content
    pages such as FAQ, Terms and Conditions, Contact Information,….., all
    following the simple step of Adding Pages. In that process, you will be able
    to add contents as well as links that you want to appear on those pages.
     
  • The final thing to do is to activate your payment gateway setting.
    ShopSite support WorldPay , PayPal and many other methods. Just key in the
    account information and enable the payment system that you wish to use
    accordingly.
     
  • ShopSite support all type of curreny and in the event that the currency
    that you wish to use is not in the list, just upload a txt file on currency
    on ShopSite folder on your server and add that currency in the file
    accordingly.
     
  • For the look and feel of the site, you will be able to select from a wide
    selection of theme to use. There is also a place where you can customize the
    header and footer of the site.
     
  • Once the above are all done, just click the Publish Button to have Shopsite build all your pages in HTML
     
  • That is about all and you can start selling online 🙂

One of the plus points of ShopSite is all the site pages will be built as HTML pages which is search engine friendly. In addition, for each and every pages that you add to ShopSite, you can specify the Page Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords. Put in some effort to optimize your site for search engine by choosing the right keywords will surely serve to improve your site ranking among major search engines.

To use ShopSite either purchase the full license from ShopSite Main Site or purchase a Server Hosting Plan with ShopSite pre-installed for you.

Shopsite pro
ShopSite Main Menu

Shopsite pro

ShopSite Payment System Setup

Shopsite pro

Upload and Management of Products’ Images

Shopsite pro

Adding Products to ShopSite

Shopsite pro

Addition and Management of Pages

Shopsite pro

Theme and Color Layout Selection

Shopsite pro

Management of Header and Footer

It is important to renew your domain name, even if you do not intend to host web and email anymore

Yes it is important to renew your domain name even if you do not intend to continue to host your web and email any longer. Web site that has gone live for years likely to be spidered by search engines and may enjoy some listing on major search engines. More often than not, expired domain will be picked up and have it pointed to pages with ADs or others.

A friend of mine has registered a .com domain and host his web site for many years before deciding to stop hosting his site two years ago, not sure for what reason and did not renew his domain. Over those years, he has distributed a great number of business cards to his bussiness friends and asoociates bearing his company’s web address. On one fine day, one of his business associates called and asked him a question that really shocked him : “When did you change your company business from being a renovation specialist to a company offering XXX services ?”. Yes, someone has picked up his domain and have it pointed to a XXX site.

It is pretty cheap to maintain a domain name these days and so do remember to renew your domains :-).

Yahoo Mail to offer unlimited storage

Glad to know that Yahoo is going to offer unlimited storage for its email services. With Yahoo the first to take this giant step, I do hope that Google will counter with the same offer. The 2.8GB space offer by Gmail these days is no longer sufficient. Having said that, the Gmail interface is still by far the best interface that is quick to load and fast when it come to message search.

Yahoo will begin offering unlimited storage for its free Web-based e-mail in May, the company announced late Tuesday. The move makes Yahoo the first of the major free e-mail providers to offer unlimited storage, but it likely will not be the last.

Yahoo currently offers 1 gigabyte for its free mail service and 2GB for its premium fee-based service. Google’s free Gmail service offers more than 2.5GB of storage, and Windows Live Hotmail offers 2GB for free.

“We are watching the trend lines of how people are using e-mail…and they are sending more photos and videos and rich media,” said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail.

Full Story

412 Precondition Failed – WordPress

Recently, this blog has encountered 412 Precondition Failed error that made it not possible for some users to access the site as some visitors are considered as spammer. After several check, the issue was solved by disable Bad Behavior plug-in. After the removal of the plug-in, the blog pages also served much faster.

Precondition Failed

We’re sorry, but we could not fulfill your request for / on this server.

We have established rules for access to this server, and any person or robot that violates these rules will be unable to access this site.
To resolve this problem, please try the following steps:

1) Ensure that your computer is free of viruses, Trojan horses, spyware or any other sort of malicious software.
2) If you are using any sort of personal firewall or browser privacy software, check to ensure that its settings do not cause your web browser to inadvertently violate any of the rules listed below.
3) Disable any download accelerators you may be using. They don’t speed up your downloads anyway; in most cases, they actually run slower!
4) If all else fails, try using a different Web browser, such as Firefox.

More Information

For your reference, the conditions for access to this server are:

Robots:
MUST read and obey robots.txt.
MUST identify themselves properly; for example MUST NOT identify as Mozilla.
MUST NOT pretend to be a human.

Humans:
MUST NOT pretend to be a robot.
MUST NOT use a computer infected with viruses, Trojan horses or other malicious software.

Both:
MUST NOT harvest email addresses.
MUST NOT attempt to send spam.
MUST NOT attempt to compromise server security.
MUST NOT use excessive amounts of bandwidth or other server resources.

The precondition on the request for the URL / evaluated to false.

Mt. Perry, Australia

We visited Mt. Perry again for the 2nd time to meet Margaret and her pugs. Mt. Perry is about 50KM from Gin Gin, Queenlands and about 470KM from Gold Coast. Our trip to Mt. Perry took us almost 6 hours as we stopped here and there along the way. Mt. Perry is a small community of about 300 people. It has a now a small motel with 6 rooms where we put up for one night. The only restaurant in the motel that office nice dining keep us entertained for the night. We had a nice dinner with Margaret and her family. We took off from Mount Perry the next morning at 5:45am and head for Sunshine Coast. The sun rised at early as 5:30am at Mt Perry. We reached The Australian Zoo sharp at 10am. After the visit to the Australian Zoo, we dropped off at Super Bee for a short while before heading back to Gold Coast for dinner and then shop again. We left Gold Coast for Kuala Lumpur the next day.

Mount Perry, Australia

Mount Perry, Australia

Mount Perry, Australia

Mount Perry, Australia

Mount Perry, Australia

Mount Perry, Australia

Mount Perry, Australia

Mount Perry, Australia

Mount Perry, Australia

Boofie, Bula and Jasmine

While in Australia, we travelled to Mt. Perry again, our second trip to meet Margaret and get to visit Mum and Dad of our pug Boofie, Bula and Jasmine. Boofie is currently 8 years old, Bula is 12 and Jasmine 11.

Bula and Jasmine
Bula and Jasmine, taken in Feb 2007 (30D)

Boofie at 8 years old
Boofie at 8 Year Old, taken in March 2007 (30D)

Bula in 2003
Bula, taken in Nov 2003 (G2)

Catch a Crab Cruise and Tour, Brisbane, Australia

One of the activities that we participated in Brisbane is the Catch a Crab Cruise along rhe Tweed River. The highlight include feeding pelicans, yabbie pumping, fishing and trapping for crabs. The cruise last for about three hours. Combining the natural scenic beauty of the Tweed River with Aussie style family fun and a great crab lunch. All equipment for activities, fishing rods and bait supplied.

Some of the pictures taken:-

cac11.jpg

Auction ADs

Signed up at the Auction ADs recently after receiving an invitation and have since planted the code in two of my sites and have registered more than 10 thousand impressions and more than one hundred clicks but still with zero revenue.

Most Auction ADs are linked to item listed in Ebay main site ebay.com and since bulk of my site visitors are from Malaysia and with only 25% currently from USA, I think Auction ADs is not likely to generate much revenue for my sites and other local sites. Nevertheless, I will continue to run those ADs and see how Auction ADs will perform in the next several weeks. The result will help me to decide whether to implement Auction ADs

Do post and share your views on Auction ADs here.

Mass recall of dog and cat food by Menu Food, Canada

There has been a mass recall of dog and cat food manufactured by Menu Foods, Canada which is sold under 51 brands of dog food and 40 brands of cat food. The food concern was reported to have caused kidney failure among cats and dogs. Read more on Menu Food Recall.

The recall is however only limited to the wet food type, the so called “Cut and Gravy Type”. In Malaysia, major distributors of dog foods manufactured in US has announced that the dog and cat food distributed locally are not affected by the recall. Read more on “Pet food sold locally safe for animals to eat” as reported.

PETALING JAYA: Dog and cat owners can heave a sigh of relief while feeding their pets.

None of the pet food distributed locally is affected by the United States and Canada recall.

According to a statement released by Eukanuba and Iams pet food distributor Procter & Gamble (P&G) (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Asia is not affected by the recall, as the specific wet food products are not being sold here.

“All products acquired from local authorised distributors are safe,” said P&G associate public affairs manager Edwin Lam Choong Wai.

The recall in North America is part of a larger product recall by Menu Foods Inc, a contract manufacturer that makes a small portion of canned and foil pouch wet pet food for various brands, including Eukanuba and Iams.

Meanwhile, Shrilan Sivaguranathan, managing director of Hill’s Pet Nutripet pet food distributor Pet’s Corner Sdn Bhd, and Nestle Purina country business manager Ernest Yong said there was no cause for worry as none of the products being recalled were sold in Malaysia.

Related Article : Pet Food Co. Knew Of Problem Last Month

Visit to Australia Zoo

While in Gold Coast this time, we decided to travel north to Mt. Perry again to meet Margaret from whom we purchased our pug Boofie five years ago. This time, we took a different route from Gold Coast to Bundaberg via Pacific Motorway (M1), Gateway Motorway and then Bruce Highway all the way to Bundaberg. On the way back from Bundaberg, we exited at Beewah exit to Doreen to visit The Australia Zoo, the home of the (former) Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. Spent the morning there and was at the Animal Planet Crocoseum to watch the Wildlife Action.

Australia Zoo -  Animal Planet Crocosuem

Australia Zoo -  Animal Planet Crocosuem

Australia Zoo -  Animal Planet Crocosuem

Australia Zoo -  Animal Planet Crocosuem

Australia Zoo -  Animal Planet Crocosuem

Australia Zoo -  Animal Planet Crocosuem

Australia Zoo -  Animal Planet Crocosuem

Australia Zoo -  Animal Planet Crocosuem