Sell It With Cartfly

Tip: Be A Green Small Business: Part 1

Photo by Pete Ashton

Branching out on your own and starting a small business can be an opportunity to establish some green business practices. Online info is endless and can be overwhelming to sort through but Cartfly is here to help! Part 1 is about your shipping resources and marketing materials.

Whether you work from your kitchen table on the weekends or have a dedicated office space with a staff, here are some tips to get you started.

1) Shipping Resources

Envelopes
By having an online shop, I've had to figure out how to package up and ship my product. I purchase eco-friendly envelopes from a company that also operates by eco-friendly standards, Action Envelope. From my research they look to be "the" online resource for eco-friendly envelopes.

Reusing Supplies
One very economic and green shipping practice is to enlist friends, neighbors and the local post office to collect previously used boxes and other supplies like bubble wrap. You can also get reused cardboard boxes from Usedcardboardboxes.com, a Co-op America approved company. While this is a great way to reuse and get free shipping materials, keep in mind that it is important to be mindful about not mixing boxes marked for particular delivery companies and services.

Packing peanuts come in two varieties: foam and cornstarch. Foam are not eco-friendly, but you can sign up to get reused foam peanuts for free through the Peanut Hotline and the Plastic Loose Fill Council. This keeps them out of landfills and re-used over and over. However, once they are out of your hands, you have no way to know what the person on the other end will do with them. If you depend on peanuts, the cornstarch variety are biodegradable.

2) Marketing

Green Printing
What I really want is soy or vegetable ink toner cartridges so I can continue to print my marketing materials, tags and inserts as I go. But that's not a reality yet. For those of you ready to print in large quantities you may want to consider a print shop that uses these friendly materials and operates in eco-responsible ways. Google 'green printing' and you find plenty of options including Greener Printer in Berkeley, CA. They are certified "green business" as an eco-friendly printer, using soy and vegetable based inks, and recycled paper.

Co-op America Business Network
"Co-op America's Green Business Network™ is dedicated to helping socially and environmentally responsible businesses emerge and thrive to form a global green economy." Benefits of membership include: listngs in the National Green Pages™, use of the Green Business Seal of Approval, invitation to participate in Green Festivals, special discounts, access to groups, media exposure, and more. Learn more here.

1% For The Planet
1% For The Planet is a growing global movement of 924 companies that donate 1% of their sales to a network of 1,601 environmental organizations worldwide. The company states that "membership creates opportunities for companies to network, conduct business and simply associate themselves with over 700 companies that have made the same noble commitment. From a consumer standpoint, member companies re-enforce a positive perception of their brand, adding value that can result in greater customer loyalty and an increased customer base, especially among the growing number of people who recognize and appreciate the importance of environmental responsibility." Learn more here.

I hope you found these tips helpful and interesting! Check back next Thursday for Part 2: Greening Your Office and Supplies.

Coming up Tuesday: Featured Cartfly Store

Featured Store: Dead Om

Selling Specialty Items With Cartfly
Specialty items need a specific, yet flexible platform to be shared with the world for optimal visibility and increased sales. Since there tends to be a demographic to target when it comes to specialty items, what better option than to use a Cartfly store! This way, you can copy and paste your store into all your existing sites (blogs, websites and social networks) and leave the guess work out!

Introducing: Dead Om



Dead Om is an Arizona based company that imports all of their eco-friendly items directly from India and Thailand. They carry unique, hand-made gifts ranging from Water Hyacinth boxes to cotton and silk sarongs and shirts. These specialty products need a dependable marketing strategy to get out into the viral world and be seen. Cartfly has enabled Dead Om to gain wider exposure and drive more traffic. Since they opened their Cartfly Store last month they've seen a 28% increase in sales and are quickly becoming one of our most active stores. Their quick strides really illustrate the power of an independent merchant when given some good tools to work with. Congrats to Dead Om!

Choosing Your Products
Choose products that are in demand or sought after. Something that people want or need is great but a products that people want and need, now that is ideal! Specialty items like the ones Dead Om sells are niche products. These are produced and marketed for specialized uses. Instead of throwing yourself into the surf with the sharks, why not find a product category without a huge amount of competition and stand out in the e-commerce crowd.

Cartfly has no set up fees, no annual fees and no listing fees...so you're able to invest your money where it matters, into products and your business!

We’d love to hear about your Cartfly Store success. Email us at info[at]cartfly[dot]com to be a featured Cartfly merchant and we’ll do a story about you!

Coming Up Thursday: Cartfly Tip of The Day

Tip: Learn Before you Earn

So you would like to have an online store, but you don't know the first thing about it? Here are some things you might want to consider.

All business involves risk. Good business people don't ignore risks, they mitigate them. That means they do as much research as they can in advance and try to learn what might trip them up. Then they take steps to avoid the common mistakes.

One way to start slowly is to build a part-time business. Start your store without quitting your day job, and read a few books to give you some background.

Small Business for Dummies is a good one to start with, because it's written like all the Dummies series, in simple English by real experts. It covers the basics of business, including how to start part-time. It also points out that business isn't for everyone. And it gives you tips on managing inventory and acquiring customers. Yes, it's an overview, but it's a good place to start.

Guerilla Marketing has been around since 1983, but it has been updated, and it's the small business marketing Bible. It is especially good on strategies for marketing on the Internet and using new technology, such as podcasting and automated marketing. There are also programs in it for cultivating repeat and referral business.

And then there are the awesome books of Seth Godin, author of The Purple Cow. Seth also wrote Permission Marketing and Small is the New Big. You shouldn't have an online store without reading Seth Godin, and the good news is that his books are short, snappy, and fun to read. They won't teach you the same things about inventory that the others will, but they'll teach you everything about marketing.

If you spend a few hours with these books, you will avoid a lot of the frustrations that face online sellers. You will have some tools, and some ideas, in addition to your enthusiasm.

Featured Store: Stephan Canthal Art

LA Artist Sets New Record On Cartfly
As an artist you only have a couple options on sharing your art with the world. You have a studio or gallery where people can see your work in person or you have a website. Either way, you are probably looking for other avenues to increase your visibility and profits.

Introducing: Stephan Canthal Art

(sold on cartfly.com)

A local LA artist and photographer named Stephan Canthal set up his Cartfly store in May and had a piece sell for $1500 within one month. That price point has set a record on the Cartfly books and prompted us to highlight him. Canthal's work merges traditional photography and modern art, producing sleek and dreamy nearly three-dimensional images.

Canthal told us he'll be adding custom screen printed tshirts of his photography soon so please be sure to visit his growing Cartfly store. We're also happy to spread the word that he'll be featured at Art4aCure in Santa Monica on July 18th and the Malibu Art Festival on July 26 and 27th.

Networking
Artists like Canthal are using their existing online networks to help them gain exposure on the web to become part of the e-commerce world. Websites, blogs and social networks are great places to post your stores. Check out Canthal's MySpace page. You can insert your Cartfly store in any of these places and all of a sudden have 5-10 cyber-galleries working for you 24/7. Don't forget to hit up your friends, family and fans to copy and paste your store to their sites as well.

What Cartfly Can Offer To Artists

• Affordable and easy way to accept credit card purchases online
  
• A place to sell your art work and avoid gallery commissions
• Have all your work online, even past show pieces that are still available

Cartfly.com gives any artist the platform they need to show off and sell their art while cutting out the middle man!

We’d love to hear about your Cartfly Store success. Email us at info[at]cartfly[dot]com to be a featured Cartfly merchant and we’ll do a story about you!

Coming Up Thursday: Cartfly Tip of The Day

Tip: Sharing is Caring

As we mentioned in a previous blog, Cartfly Gets Bands Selling on Social Networks, in the blink of an eye, you can have hundreds of stores all over the web. The trick is sharing!!

It's really easy for you or anyone to put a copy of your store on another web site:

A) For merchants only: Log in to your account
• click the "share" button
• follow the steps to select your store destination

B) From your Cartfly Store
• click the "share" button
• follow the steps to select your destination

C) Sharing via your multiplied Cartfly Store on websites, social networks and blogs
• click the "share" button
• follow the steps to select your destination

This Share button enables you (and literally anyone) to easily place your store where you want with predetermined social networking sites or copy/paste code for other web sites. You simply select where you want to share your store, follow the steps and voila, your store has multiplied.

Sharing is taken to new heights here at Cartfly due to the "Share" button located on each and every one of your personalized store fronts. Tell your fans and customers they can share your store on their sites and begin selling for you. Get creative with where you can share. Do you belong to a professional organization that has a blog and would want to feature you and your store? Are you involved in any events that have web sites or blogs? Are you friends with other merchants who would show yours, if you show theirs? Every sale made at any location comes directly back to you and all your stores are an exact copy of your main store, so any changes you make automatically update. No fuss. Easy as pie. Done.

A quick message about this blog
We hope today's Cartfly Store Tip blog post was helpful! Every Thursday we'll be posting Cartfly Store Tips. So be sure to check back in, or subscribe to this blog.

Featured Store: Bunky Boutique

Boutiques Spread Their Wings With Cartfly!!
As a boutique clothing retailer, wouldn't you like to attract a wider clientele and have your store make money round the clock? Cartfly gives you the power of a chain store with the peace of mind of no extra costs!  A common challenge for the "off the beaten path" boutique is the cost of increasing visibility.  If you already have a MySpace or Facebook page set up for your shop, a Cartfly Store is the natural choice for virally spreading your goods online and getting your store name out there, for free.

Introducing Bunky Boutique

We chose to highlight Bunky Boutique and their new Cartfly Store on Myspace. Bunky is a fashion staple in the arts district of downtown Phoenix known for carrying eclectic, contemporary digs, who opened a brand new location this summer.  They figured out that in order to reach a wider audience they definitely needed more of a web presence than just their website.  A Cartfly store gave them just what they were looking for... the power of multiple online stores with the convenience of managing everything in one place.

Bunky's Network Effect
Boutique owners can now harness the power of multiplication to increase sales. Bunky stocks local designers and exclusive national labels like Kidrobot, Brown Sound, Fluxus, Mishka, Brixton, Armour Sans Anguish, Elwood and XCVI.  By partnering with their designers and loyal customers, Bunky has a built in fan base within Social Networks that can help them to increase their bottom line.

Grassroots Marketing Tips for Boutiques
The unique networks that boutiques build with their loyal customers and vendors sets our minds racing with new ideas about store marketing opportunities.
• Set up a customer reward program with discounts or in-store credit for customers who post your store on their social network pages. 
• Improve your relationship with your vendors with partnership and co-marketing opportunities. 
• Invite your in-store and online shoppers to join your social networks as the hub for your store news, early notification of sales and even special online perks.

Cartfly.com will give your boutique the buzz it needs to spread the word and grow without you having to spend money or work longer hours!!

We’d love to hear about your Cartfly Store success. Email us at info[at]cartfly[dot]com to be a featured Cartfly merchant and we’ll do a story about you!

Coming Up Thursday: Cartfly Tip of The Day

What's Buzzin' at Cartfly

It has been an exciting year for us here at Cartfly. We are proud to announce the development of a Quarterly Newsletter & weekly Blog Schedule to increase our communication with you.

Our quarterly Cartfly Newsletter will be hand crafted with selling tips, how-to's, featured stores and product announcements that will come directly to your inbox. Register to get your Cartfly Store and receive the newsletter. Don't worry, it'll only be valuable tips sent once a quarter. We won't inundate you with junk.

We also have a new schedule for this blog:

Tuesdays: Cartfly Store Spotlight. Learn more about selling online through our reviews and critiques of featured merchants. And see some great stuff for sale!

Thursdays: Tip Day. We'll keep you up to speed on how to optimize your Cartfly Store's selling potential.

Fridays: Ask The Fly Advice Column. Carftly staff will take turns offering advice. More about this soon...

We hope you become part of the Cartfly family by subscribing to our blog and help spread the "buzz" to all your friends in the online retail world. See you on Tuesday!

Featured Store: BLVD

Cartfly Gets Bands Selling On Social Networks
Selling your unique band merchandise and CDs online can be a huge opportunity to make money and increase your band's visibility. Using Cartfly.com as your store gives you mobility and the beauty of replication because we all know you can only sell so much at your live shows. 

Let's look at the Livetronica band BLVD from San Francisco. They have a website, a blog, a MySpace, a Facebook page and an Imeem page. So right off the bat, BLVD has the ability to have 5 copies of their store in 5 different web locations. Their Cartfly store enables them to sell to 15,000 fans right away. 

In particular, BLVD’s MySpace page is a great place to hear their latest tracks. And now, with a Cartfly store posted on that page, we can buy their CDs right there directly from the band themselves. Cartfly only takes a 3% transaction fee, so this is really affordable and the band sees real profit.

To take it a step further, BLVD is made up of 4 musicians, a manager, a booking agent, a road manager, a graphic design artist and a marketing director. If every one of those team members copies the BLVD store to their networks, they are up to 15-30 more copies of their Cartfly store with another 5000 to 10,000 friends in the blink of an eye.

Add to this mix the venues, festivals, events, and any industry organizations who could also post BLVD’s Cartfly store to their websites and blogs to help support the band during that relevant calendar cycle.

Of course if you already have a lot of fans and you are communicating with them by email, you can start your own social network, like 50Cent did. Fitty uses Ning, a free tool that lets anyone create a social network. Pop your Cartfly store in there. And there is Linked Musicians, a social network expressly for live music. It has 874 bands on it, and over 5000 members.

It is easy to see the power behind the combination of Cartfly and your already existing social networks. It is a numbers game that is easy to solve. The way to get your store to multiply fast is to enlist your friends and fans to post your store and before you know it, there are hundreds of copies of your store out there making you money daily.

We’d love to hear about your Cartfly store success. Email us at info[at]cartfly[dot]com to be a featured Cartfly merchant and we’ll do a story about you!

Tip: Multiply Your Store Locations With The Help of Social Networks

The advantage of a Cartfly store is its portability. You can copy and paste your Cartfly store into your own web site, or anyone else's for that matter. If you don't have a lot of friends with web sites who will allow you to put your store on their sites, or if you want to develop followers quickly, there are populated social networks that already have traffic; MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Friendster and Perfspot. If you join one or all of these, you will automatically get increased visibility for your products and your store.

Social networks are places on the Internet where like-minded people go to meet each other. You can copy and paste your Cartfly store into your profile page on all these networks, and you will make it much easier for people to find you and your merchandise.  Your friends and fans can also copy and paste your store onto their profile pages, and so on!

Watch this video for a great overview on Social Networks:

If you are not using Cartfly to get your store out to the social networks, you are missing out on possible sales.  Remember, multiple stores, means increased visibility, which equates to more sales! Get started by opening your Cartfly Store here.

FYI...If you are musician or band with a profile on Myspace, Cartfly is the perfect place for you. Our next blog post will be about how Musicians and Bands can use Cartfly on Myspace and other social networks to promote their music and sell their merchandise. Stay tuned!

Small Business Advice Regarding Sales Tax

Sales tax for online transactions is confusing. This post is to help point you in the right direction. This information is for educational and informational purposes only. The content should not be construed as legal advice. The author and Cartfly.com disclaim all responsibility for any and all losses, damages, or causes of action that may arise or be connected with the use of these materials. Please consult a licensed attorney in your area with specific legal questions or concerns.

At first, no one charged sales tax on the Internet. However, governmental entities that depended on it soon caught on, and now the the issue is not IF sales tax should be collected, but WHEN it should be collected.

WHEN
Nolo.com is a good reference for this issue. Read up here. Nolo says, if you are selling a tangible product from a state that collects sales tax then you are required to collect that sales tax. It doesn't matter if it only happens online, you are still doing business in that state. The only situation that doesn't require sales tax is when you are doing business IN one state and you sell INTO another state where your business doesn't reside. You don't have to collect sales tax for transactions outside of your business state. But to be clear, if your state requires sales tax then you must collect sales tax for transactions that happen inside your state.  Keep in mind that sales tax laws vary state by state and even city by city so, below are some key resources to best educate yourself.

HOW
1) Sales tax varies state by state.
Use the IRS website to determine your state's sales tax laws.

2) Seller's Permits
Refer to your state's specific laws regarding seller's permits.

We at Cartfly want you to succeeed in your business. This information is for educational and informational purposes only. The content should not be construed as legal advice. The author and Cartfly.com disclaim all responsibility for any and all losses, damages, or causes of action that may arise or be connected with the use of these materials. Please consult a licensed attorney in your area with specific legal questions or concerns.