Sell It With Cartfly

Tip: Blogging for E-Commerce Success

So you have your online store and are doing your best to turn a profit. Our question for you is: are you communicating with your customers without actually interacting with them? If you find you are having trouble reaching your customers, you might want to think about starting a blog.

If you have an online store, you already have a niche. Without a niche, you will simply get lost out there in the online jungle. Think about who you want to reach and where they play online; this is where you should be.  Once you know where you want to be and you have all you store elements ready, including Cartfly stores on the appropriate your social networks, you're ready to start your blog.

• Choose the home for your blog. Blogger, TypePad or WordPress seem to be the most popular these days.
• Register your blog with FeedBurner or Syndic8 to promote the content, build & measure your audience and allow content to be delivered and subscribed to.
• Start creating interesting content to drive traffic to your online store. Post hot deals, discount coupon, new products, announcements and industry news.
• Interact with your potential customer by asking for reviews on products and offering freebies for commenting on posts.
• Comment on your competitors blogs. Show you are making progress and why your products are superior and selling.
• Sell merchandise on your blog. Create a FREE Cartfly store by simply registering and adding your merchandise. Then add it to your blog by clicking the green 'Share' button, grab the embed code and you now have an instant store front in yet another location!
• Show your customer that your are serious about your business with frequent posts, answering their questions and talking about things they may be interested in...not always trying to sell them stuff.
• Strive to be the number one blog in your niche!

We hope this gives you a good idea of how to get your blog up and running. This plan will give you a leg up on the competition and hopefully drive more sales, increasing your revenue.

Coming Up Tues: Featured Cartfly

Featured Store: CheapWholesaleJewelry.com

Summer Guerrieri is the President of CheapWholesaleJewelry.com. After working in her fiance's warehouse and watching him hand-write invoices and describe jewelry via the telephone, she knew she needed to start a website. And thus, CheapWholesaleJewelry.com was born. The site launched in early 2007 and is the source for all of your wholesale jewelry needs.

For those of you thinking about getting into the online jewelry business, Summer says, "You must be willing to learn and be open to new ideas, be ready to put your time (blood, sweat and tears) in, and do not expect results over night."  That's good advice for any entrepreneur or merchant, not just those of you looking to get in to the online jewelry business. Every new business takes a dedication and a passion that's almost second to none.

A good reason to use CheapWholesaleJewelry.com for your inventory needs, "We carry an inventory of thousands of wholesale jewelry products, some that never even make it to our site. We work very hard for all of our customers and truly appreciate their choice to do business with us." Their best seller right now sells for $199.00 and is an amazing 488 pc. Wholesale Jewelry Lot. "We can’t make the lots fast enough!"

CheapWholesaleJewelry.com, a family run business, strives to maintain a high level of customer service for their buyers. Most orders are shipped out within 24 hours, and someone is always available to answer questions. Summer now has multiple sites, based on need, selling fashion and costume jewelry, all at wholesale prices. In addition to her many Cartfly stores, there are 4 total websites, all of which are female owned and operated.

www.summersjewels.com
Low priced fashion & celebrity inspired jewelry
www.wholesalevintagebeads.com
New & old stock of Swarovski beads, DS & Co. beads, Jewelry Component parts, and so much more!
www.jewelryclub925.com
The only FREE sterling silver jewelry of the month club. Includes great referral program!

Summer found out about Cartfly through an article in Fast Company and was quick to set up her free stores. "It makes it easy to promote your products and reach a customer that normally may not go to your website. By adding CartFly to our MySpace page, we have reached millions of potential customers all over the world."

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

Cartfly @ The SanFran MusicTech Summit

We had the pleasure of attending the SanFran MusicTech Summit on Monday to help further establish an ongoing, Northern California based music and music technology marketplace. This was a convergence of "the best and brightest minds in the music and technology industries" according to event producer Brian Zisk of BuzzMakers. Since we know a lot of you out there are musicians, we thought we would take this time to share a little of what we learned, who we met and where we see this industry going.

There were 15+ sessions to attend throughout the day with over 60 speakers. Sessions included Leveraging Data to Generate Revenue, Building Social Networks Around Music, Live Entertainment Services, Licensing, Funding, Open API and Innovative Companies. There was so much going on at the same time, the moto of the day for our group became "Divide and Conquer" (not to be confused with the moto of our company which is "never leave your wingman").

Things We Learned About:

The importance of a Community Manager

As a musician or a band, you need to give your fans the opportunity to gather and communicate with each other via forum or some other platform they feel comfortable with.  This may include many of the social networking platforms such as Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, etc.  In addition, it may include many blogging and microblogging utilities such as our very own TypePad, Twitter, Pownce, Blogger, and many more.  In order to manage all of this communication and really establish multiple avenues of communication with your fans, you need at least one person to handle this and speak with a consistent voice and message.  Thus, the importance of a community manager.

The importance of Marketing

Like it or not, a band is a business. Just as in any business, you need to market your product in as many ways possible to as large an audience possible within your particular demographic.  One of the ways available to you is to give your products away at a discount... if not free.  Give away some free MP3s or tickets to your shows.  Find ways to interact with your community and gain their trust.  Make your fans your evangelists and make them feel as if they're a part of the revolution.

The importance of Diversification

While MySpace and Facebook are the go-to social networks, make sure you are on other sites like iMeem, Buzznet, Friendster, and LastFM. This is something that your community manager will be managing, but the direction you give your community is important.  Understand that there are multiple ways to interact with your community outside of just the big two.  In fact, you may discover that your fanbase is more prevalent on Friendster than Facebook.  Don't be afraid to expand your horizons.  Or as our mother's always said: don't put all your eggs in one marketing basket.  Ok, so maybe mom didn't have the word "marketing" in there.

Who We Met and Had To Mention: 

• Charles Feinn, President & CEO of MixMatchMusic - The new music community created by musicians, for and about musicians.
• Jeff Roberto, Director of Marketing at Friendster - The grandaddy of social networks is making a comeback.  Don't count them out just yet. 
• Sean O'Connell, President of MusicAllies -  Marketing, promotion, design & strategy.
• Matthew Gonzales, Biz Dev Director for Zvents - Discover things to do.
• Jon Luini, CTO of VirtualVenuesNetwork - Artist to audience distribution platform bringing the show to a small town near you.
• Carnet Williams, CEO of Sprout - The quick & easy way for anyone to build, publish & manage widgets, mini-sites, mashups, banners and more.
• Deva Santiago, VP of Talent for SearchMe - See what you are searching for.
• Stephen Weisz, Founder & CEO of InTicketing - Premiere technology company providing ticketing & e-commerce solutions for bands, venues & festivals.
• Matt Goldberg from Volume11 - Music management trends & tools in the digital era.
• Theda Sandiford, Founder & CEO of ThedaDOTCOM - Blog about technology trends, the entertainment industry & how we consume media.
• Corey Denis, Co-Founder of ReapandSow - Planting music in your mind.
• Chuck Fishman, Manager of Media & Ent. at Cisco - Media solutions group.
• Greg Ruff, Founder of WhiteSpace - A market innovation strategy focused consulting firm.
• Rachel Masters, VP of Strategic Relationships from Ning - Create your own social network.

The day came to end with a great cocktail party sponsored by SeeqPod, Friendster and LyricFind with DJ KnowOne spinning for the crowd. It was a great day and we are very happy with all the new friends we made. See you all again next time!

Coming Up Tues: Featured Cartfly

Photo by: mona@monalong.com includes Katie Fox, Justin Brommel, KnowOne, Kurt Collins

Featured Store: Culture Shock Records

Culture Shock is a production house that cranks out fascinating, unexpected (culture shocking!) remixes of songs from artists ranging from Arrested Development to Depeche Mode. It was formed out of the need for "mix-friendly" versions of alternative radio songs that we all know and love so much, yet cannot or will not be played in nightclubs because they are, by definition, not "danceable" or "mixable." Culture Shock has solved this dilemma.

Founder and producer, Aaron Scofield, sells complex remixes of songs to distributors, DJs and radio producers looking for unconventional sounds. In an age of digital media, Aaron still makes a living pushing out individual tracks and volume collections of these tracks on actual CDs. His branding relied entirely on word of mouth and a MySpace page, and all of his revenue depended on relationships that Aaron himself had to foster and maintain. Until about a year ago, Aaron's business was entirely direct sales. Enter Cartfly.

Aaron heard about Cartfly from a friend who was part of the small private beta and the value for Culture Shock was immediately clear: "Until I saw Cartfly, I had not seen an easy way to get to my customers directly. As a result, I mostly dealt with distributors." By creating a widget storefront that he could place on his MySpace page, this instantly changed. "The whole process was incredibly simple," he says, "[Cartfly] takes out all the guess work. I only had to think about the store in broad strokes."

At first, it was an experiment, "I thought 'Do we really make this our front end?' But the deals started coming within a matter of days." Cartfly expanded Aaron's reach in a matter of clicks. Culture Shock and Cartfly have, in effect, given these many talented artists another way to promote their songs. Mix show and club DJs are now playing songs by these artists that they probably wouldn't have normally.

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: Join The Social Media Party with Cartfly

photo by dogseat

The phenomenon of huge groups of like minded people hungry for information and gathering together on Social Networks is the perfect place for the indie merchant to get the word out. Today’s savvy consumers want products from businesses they can trust, learn from, relate to and “be friends” with. Online shopping over the past few years has drawn many small businesses to the online arena. As online stores and their revenue grow, the amount of revenue potential that social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook provide continues to grow as well.

Thanks to social networking sites, several niche markets have been able to expand the visibility of their product line. Bands have huge opportunities within this new channel. It is estimated that more than five million bands are now using Myspace as a tool for exposure. If these bands decide to take the next step and integrate a Cartfly store into their social networks, they should see significant retail gains. Fashion sites are beginning to utilize this platform to market to targeted social groups as well. All it takes is a single bulletin post to inform their huge customer base of a new product or monthly special.

Benefits of Social Media Sites

• Place your products in front of thousands of potential customers
• Gain exposure in new arenas where your customers "hang out"
• Free advertising option vs expensive traditional advertising
• Reach large yet targeted audiences
• Opportunities for additional sales

How To Get The Show On The Road

• Get a free Cartfly store
• Post your free Cartfly ShopBOT around the web anywhere you can post a YouTube video
• Ask your friends and fans to post your store too
• For events, sales or announcements...send one blast to everyone with bulletins!
• Update your status (social networks, Twitter, FriendFeed) to reflect your message

One thing is for certain, there isn’t a single magic trick for being successful online. It is important for online merchants to be creative and open to new opportunities, like Cartfly, when introducing your products to customers. When entering the social networking world, be honest, be personal, be a friend and in return, your new friends may become your lifelong customers.

Coming Up Tues: Featured Cartfly

Featured Store: Sexy Halloween Costumes

The creation of Sexy Halloween Costumes started merely as a brainstorming session but became the reality of two friends in 2004. They kept running into each other during their freshmen year in college in business classes and are getting ready to graduate in Spring '09 from California State University, Long Beach with majors in business. As partners, Marisol's emphasis in marketing and Mary's specialty in management, are like a match made in heaven (or hell, muahaha ;)

During their years in college they learned many valuable lessons, but the one they just couldn't shake was how important it was to look cute and sexy on Halloween. Being college students themselves, they realized the “starving” student shouldn’t have to forego a week’s pay to look fabulous on that one special night. They decided to find a way for everyone to be able to purchase affordable, yet trendy costumes.

Although some people see Halloween as a child's event, Mary and Marisol realized this was a huge marketing opportunity for the "older children" out there. After putting together a solid marketing strategy, they learned about Cartfly and how inexpensive it would be to have their very own online store. "Our friends explained how easy it was to open your own store and start selling right away" explains Mary. They also learned that by using other online resources, they were quickly able to spread the word.  They use their MySpace page as their main site and offer wholesale costume prices to the world. "We found [Cartfly] to be very useful as both of these sites compliments each other so well."

"Marisol and I continue to spread the word the old fashion way – printing flyers and word-of-mouth; however, sites such as Cartfly and MySpace have made our jobs a lot easier! Our goal is to have our own website up and running by the time we graduate college, continue to grow, and hope for a bright future."

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: Pricing Your Items To Sell

Determining the prices for your Cartfly store products should be based on a strategic, yet thoughtful platform. Assuming you have a reasonable understanding of perceived value, you still have to set a price. Take a look at your merchandise and decide if the items are loss leaders, staples, novelties, fashionable goods or fast-selling items, and price accordingly.

Things to Consider When Pricing Your Merchandise

• Check the market value. See what retailers are selling your item for in stores and on other Web sites.
• See how other sellers are pricing items that are similar or identical to yours and set your price close to their prices to be competitive.
• Make sure you are your products have good descriptions with a high enough price.
• See what has been "on the shelf" for a long time and consider marking it down.

Markup Guidelines
Small business owners make the mistake of offering merchandise at low prices and enjoying a large sales volume. The problem with that is not receiving sufficient revenue to cover the costs of selling the merchandise. The other problem is if you set prices high, your sales volume may be so low you can't cover your operating expenses.

• Make sure your markup is large enough to cover your operating expenses.
• Set prices that yield the most dollars after meeting all your costs.
• Don't use the same markup percentage for all items of merchandise.
• Each item should cover the costs associated with it, its contribution to the general overhead and net profit.

In the end, experience is the best teacher for analyzing the marketplace. Tour your competitors and see what prices they charge. Don’t be afraid to change prices for a few items and see what effect this has on your business.

Coming Up Tues: Featured Cartfly Store

Featured Store: Paul Moschell

Denver artist Paul Moschell has been producing his signature small and imaginative works on paper for over a decade now. Moschell continues to be represented by various galleries across the United States, Europe and Shanghai. "You look at the faces, the large eyes, the careful details in his backgrounds, and at first they may appear whimsical. But then you look closer. You see impossibly fine lines and realize that you are viewing fine artistry, as if you were looking at the intricacies of a Faberge egg." said Marilyn Campiz of Chic Today.

His watercolor paintings are a delightful combination of pathos and humor and the eyes of his creations seem to hold the kind of stories you're both intrigued and nervous to hear. When asked, why watercolor? Moschell answered, "Why not? I love the way it can be layered and manipulated. And I love using water…it is my favorite element. Besides, I do not use watercolors in a traditional fashion…most watercolor paintings usually consists of sky blue washes and lakes and trees and such. I like to lay it on heavy and in many layers…as I do with many things in life."

Moschell also explained the origin of his intriguing matchbox series. "Ahhhh…it started in my late twenties, when I was chain smoking cigarettes and surrounded with matches. I found most of the match box covers to be quite dull…so I decided to paint on them. I still paint them from time to time when I need to keep things light hearted…or when I am smoking again. I really don't care for lighters."

Moschell currently uses his MySpace page as his main website to capatilize on the visibility and to increase his fan base. He proudly uses CartFly to sell his paintings and tiny delicate hand painted matchbox portraits. You can also see Moschell's store on the home page of Cartfly.com.

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: Preparing for the Holiday Season Now

photo by Doviende

So October just started and you can't believe you are reading about Holiday shopping. Get your Cartfly Store's Holiday plan together now because in a blink of an eye, you'll be too late! These are preliminary steps you can take in order to have a successful holiday season for your fleet of Cartfly stores.

Shopping Trends to Consider From Google

• Consumers are skimping on certain items in order to spluge on a few pricier favorites - be sure to tout what you have that's unique or affordable.
• They’re planning more in advance to save on gas money - get the word out about your store.
• People are researching online and purchasing offline - make sure your prices are competitive and maybe offer free shipping.
• E-tailers are offering guaranteed delivery dates during the holiday season - add information in your "about" section on your Holiday ordering deadlines.

What's The Plan?

• Take advantage of your social networks and post reminders about Holiday shopping at your store
• Ask your friends and fans to post your store on their website and profiles to help spread the word
• Spruce up your store with a festive banner, holiday colors, cheerful descriptions
• Consider announcing specials and sales the day before strategic dates (see below)
• To help your shoppers find things easily create gift bundles or gift categories (for him, for her, by price, stocking stuffers, etc.)

Mark Your Calendars!
These are said to be the busiest shopping days for 2008. Structure your holiday plan around these days by including specials and discounts with deadlines to capitalize on the feeding frenzy.   

• November 28 is Black Friday
• December 1 is Cyber Monday
• December 8 is Green Monday...last year this was the biggest shopping day on record with $881 million in sales.

Final Thoughts

• Get the word out about your shop now.
• Make it easy for your customers to shop.
• Enhance your site design with holiday flair.
• Make potential buyers comfortable about your business.
• Provide specific delivery lead times and shipping discounts.
• Use holiday specials to convert shoppers to buyers.

Strategy is everything during this super competitive time of the year. Take this extra time to get organized and make this your most lucrative holiday season ever.

Coming Up Tues: Featured Cartfly Store