MYSHOPKART Help FAQ

you can do this by switching your site to a table rate ship method which bills shipping based on order totals. So to create order with a minimum shipping of 4.95 and then 10% of total but with free shipping over $100, you could use this:

49.95:4.95,99.99:10%,10000:0

which means up to 49.95 charge 4.95 then up to 99.99 charge 10% of order total then 100 and above charge 0...

We will soon be adding a free shipping option to the coupons admin area also.

I cannot find my site when I search on the Net?

Websites are found in 2 ways, by typing in the address directly in the browser address bar and then clicking go (direct method when you know the website address)

AND

by using search engines (SE) like Google.

You will not see your site show up in SEs until you market your site and request that the engines add you. You can do this using the sitemap, gglfeed and yahoo feed tools in your admin. See how to get indexed into Google

See: http://www.mediacollege.com/internet/browsers/address-bar.html for the difference on address bar and search box.

How Do I add scripts or html to my site?

This is easy via the page editor in your site admin - go to your site admin then page editor then pick page footer (if you want to add code that goes on all pages of you site). Then in the editor, click the button that says 'html' (2nd row to the right). A new window will popup with the html for that page. Add whatever code you need to add then click update then save. That's it. Of course you have to add code that works and that has no syntax errors but if you are getting the code from a 3rd party or you have tested the code, you should OK. If you have problems with the code once you insert it - your site doesn't function right or behaves unexpectedly, make sure the code you added is correct.

You can do this by adding the code to a standalone web page on your computer then opening that page with your web browser. If the page does not work in a standalone page, it will not work in your website. One guaranteed way to test this is to open a text file in a text editor like notepad. Add the following lines:

</body>
</html>

Then paste your code on the line after the <body> tag then save the file as test.htm . Then double click the file. That will run the code as a standalone web page on your local PC and you can see if it works as expected. If ever you have a problem with a script or your html, that is a good way to check if the problem is in the code.

How can I sell my store items on ebay?

There is no direct connection between ebay and myshopkart - they are completely separate sites and systems. So you would keep using the regular ebay listing tools to sell your store items. You can copy and paste item pics, descriptions, & details into your ebay listings. You can also use the gglfeed and yahoo feed links in your admin to create bulk exports of your site which can be used to populate an ebay store or ebay listings. Consult your ebay account for the various ways to list items there.

What are Meta Tags and how do I use them in my store?

Meta Tags are special words you embed in your site - search engines used to use them to determine what would be shown in SE listings, but now SEs index page content and meta tags are of little or no importance. See:

http://www.searchengineguide.com/ball/006037.html

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2165061

But you can still enter something in for the keywords and description tags via your store admin. If you had a stamp collecting website, you might use something like this:

description: Everything you ever wanted to know about stamps and stamp collecting.

keywords: stamps, stamp collecting, rare stamps

The description is a sentence that describes what your site is about and the keywords are a comma separated list of relevant keywords.

In the meta tags area of your site admin there is also an option to have dynamic autotags for the title of the product and category pages - this will pull in the category and product names as the title tag for those pages...

I plan on selling products from multiple suppliers. How will the shipping calculations work?

There is provision for only one shipping origin in the Packaging Options of your store admin and there is no way to specify different ship rates on a per supplier basis. We are looking at that possibility but it requires extensive & complex changes to the store codebase. What most people do is setup a basic shipping scheme using a table rate that charges based on % of order total or based on the total weight of the order. If your profit margins are correctly set, even though you will not match all suppliers shipping rates exactly, you will be pretty close. USPS and UPS can also be used to provide real time quotes - if your suppliers are in vastly different locations, use a ship origin zip code which is somewhere in the mid-us region - that way your shipping rates will balance out over many orders.

You can also use the ship rate override field in the product editor to set a specific shipping value for products which will override the normal rates.

Why can I not find my website domain online?

There are 2 ways to go to a website. The most direct way is to type the website address www.yoursite.com ( also known as domain or URL ) into the address bar of a web browser. The address bar is the white box in the top part of the web browser usually labeled 'Address:' which shows what website you are on. If you type in an address and click go or hit enter, the browser will go to that address - if it is a valid address, you will see the website.

If you are using a domain and you cannot get to your website in this manner, then your domain is misconfigured and we will help you to resolve that problem - create a support ticket in your site admin and we'll track down the issue. Usually this occurs when you have a domain you setup through another domain provider (not us) which is not correctly pointed at your site as per http://www.myshopkart.net/myshopkart_help_faq.htm#pointdomain. Or you have not entered your domain name into the domain settings area of your store admin.

The 2nd way of finding websites is via search engines like google, yahoo and MSN. In order for your website to get listed in these search engines (SEs), you need to submit your site address to them so they know to index your website. Simply having a domain online, does not get you automatically indexed into the SEs. Using the SE feeds and the sitemap tools in your store admin you can submit your site to the SEs and that can get your site indexed so that you can be found via google and yahoo.

Sometimes when you type a website into your browser, you are actually filling a search box that launches a search at MSN or google (all the search engines now have toolbars they add to your browser that look like the address box of your browser) and this will not take you directly to the website you typed in. To be certain make sure you go to the white box labeled 'Address:' at the top of your web browser then hit enter.

Where do I go for technical support?

In your store admin there is a link in the top left corner |** CREATE/VIEW SUPPORT TICKETS **| - use this area for support requests. Email is unreliable and the support system allows all comments pertaining to a given issue to be grouped together creating a 'cradle to grave' history on the issue. MyShopKart technical support staff is always checking the support ticket system for new support requests so that is the fastest & most effective route to getting help. Like most webhosts, we do not provide phone support because it would greatly increase the cost of providing the service.

How does the order status get set on checkout?

For most store setups, the status of an order is pending on successful checkout - this means the payment was received if using a real-time CC processor like ppal WPP or authorize. Pending means you have to have the item shipped by your supplier (always xref orders with the payment notification from your processor though to make sure you were paid).

however, when using ppal standard there are 2 steps in the checkout because part of the checkout process happens at the ppal website. On the final page of checkout in your store when the confirm button is pressed, the order is captured in your store admin and the status is set to payment pending because at this point the buyer has not paid for the items. Then the buyer is redirected to ppal where they pay. If they complete the process at ppal, the order status is set to pending and they are redirected to the thank you page on your site. If they do not finish the payment process at ppal, then the order status will remain payment pending because they have not paid for the order. In this case you should email the buyer to find out what happened...

Why do my buyers have to create an account to checkout?

All online marketplaces require that buyers create an account - amazon, ebay, etc. This is standard practice for selling online and for very good reasons - before you can provide an accurate shipping quote you need the buyer's contact information. For your checkout system to send an order confirmation you need the customer's email. So the 1st step in checkout is always capturing the relevant customer details to create an account which is used for the rest of the checkout process. This account is also useful to you because you can use it to send promotional follow-up emails to your visitors when you want to promote specials or new products. As well your web buyers can use this account to check on the status of an order without having to email you about it. Creating an account is a required and expected part of purchasing online...

I am not getting automatic inventory updates in my preloaded store?

Make sure the inventory sync is set to daily in your supplier sync area of the store admin.

When I click on the buttons in the page editor (insert image, hyperlink, font color) nothing happens?

Make sure you have popup blocking turned off for the myshopkart.net domain. Also try logging into your site admin via the myshopkart.net/yoursite/user path rather than the yourdomain.com/user/ path...

My hosting plan got cancelled at paypal but I did not cancel it? How do I fix this?

If you change your paypal account funding source - change your credit card or bank account - that will cancel any existing subscriptions you have setup through paypal ( since the authorization for the initial subscription was for another funding source ). The only way to rectify this is to use the upgrade hosting link in your site admin to recreate the payment plan. If there is any overlap in payments we will credit back the difference. If you do not recreate your payment plan once it gets cancelled, your site will be deleted by our monthly cleanup bot. So it is best to deal with this situation as soon as it arises. Your site will not be deleted until the end of the term you last paid for though so if you are on a multimonth plan, this only becomes an issue once you are beyond the anniversary rebill date of your term.

How do I know if my store is ready for sales?

In order to you to accept orders in your store, you have to have products for sale, the payment process and the shipping setup. If you have a preloaded store all that was done when you signed up. So one thing you should do before making actual sales, is to visit your store as a customer and make a test purchase. If you have a domain setup, then go to yourdomain.com and create a test user in your store (your cannot login to your store as a customer until you create an account in your store like your real visitors will - just add a product to the cart and try to checkout then when prompted to login or create an account choose create an account).

That way you'll see what your actual customers will see when they purchase and you can insure that your store is properly setup. Also make sure you are familiar with your supplier's dropship policies so you are clear on what to do to have your orders shipped by them.

I cannot login to my site?

Remember that you cannot login to your regular site - the site your customers visit - without creating a test user in your store. So if you are trying to login there 1st create an account via the my account tab.

To login to your user admin - the site you use to manage your store - you should be following the www.myshopkart.net/mysiteid/user/ path to your admin.

In rare cases your browser security settings should be reset so you can login to password protected sites that use cookies.

Some tips on how to reset your browser settings to avoid this issue:

If you are unable to login despite providing the proper usr/pwd info, you will need to follow the instructions below:

1) Set your security options

To make sure your security options are set correctly, please do the following: In Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to Tools>Internet Options. In this window, click on the Security tab. In this window, scroll all the way to the bottom of the selectable options to User Authentication>Logon. There should be four selectable options. Make sure "Prompt for username and password" is selected. Click "OK," and restart your computer. This should ensure that you will be asked for your username and password.

2) Set your caching options

In Internet Explorer, go to Tools> Internet Options on your toolbar. In the Internet Options window, select the 'General' tab. On this window, go to 'Temporary Internet Files' and select 'Delete Files.' To ensure you are seeing the most recent pages instead of a cached page, select 'Settings' on the 'Temporary Internet Files' window. In the next window, where it says "Check For Newer Versions of Stored Pages" make sure that the button next to "Every visit to the page " is checked.

See these links as well to see how to reset your browser security:

http://www.tradexpro.com/default.cgi?action=loginandcookies

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=654&morepop=1#loginbounce

How do I renew a domain I have setup with myshopkart.net?

The cost to renew a domain is $19.95USD and is good for 1yr. To renew use this form:

renew your domain here:

I would like email boxes with my domain name - how do I set that up?

If your domain was registered by us then you can setup email in your domain cpanel at:

http://access.enom.com

temp pswrd: lesswork ( you should have changed the pswrd though )

Once you login go to email settings and click edit. Then in the dropdown pick Email Fwding then click the add new button. If you want all email that goes to your domain so x@yourdomain.com where x is anything, enter * in the username field and that will create a catchall email for any email to your domain. Then in the frwrd to box enter a regular email box you use. Then save. You can also enter in specific usernames like support, sales and so on but using the catchall those would all get frwrded anyhow.

Then when you want to show an email on your site you use whatever you want - sales@yourdomain.com , support@yourdomain.com etc... the html syntax to create a link on your site is:

<a href="mailto:support@yourdomain.com">support@yourdomain.com</a>

If you want your store emails to come from that email or you want the contact us page to go to your domain email, go to your admin > general settings and add that as your contact email.

If your domain is registered with another host - we did not register the domain - then you would have to check with them to see what email options they offer. All good domain hosts offer some email options. Steps similar to the above ones should allow you to create domain email boxes. If your domain host does not offer email, then the only option is to transfer the domain to the host we use - enom - then use the steps above ( or register a new domain through the setup domain link in your admin ).

The occasional order is being linked to the wrong customer - how do I fix this?

Whenever you promote your products or links in your store, make sure you are not including the session variable as part of the link:

http://www.finddropshippers.net/product_info.php?products_id=6128747&s=f25a269c0193ab26b0f434f88296b638

The &s=f25... part of the link represents the unique session of me browsing my site - that value changes each time a different visitor arrives at my site and is also used to re-identify a repeat visitor. So by placing the session value in my marketing links, I am causing different users to arrive at my site using the same session key possibly causing the order process to mixup order details [the myshopkart engine generally will catch this and reissue a new session key, but at peak traffic times when several people are arriving at your site all with the same session key - as if they were the same person - the possibility of order process errors increases]. To be on the safe side never include session information in your marketing.

All references to links on your site should strip off the session information so that each person who follows the link gets their own unique session key on arrival.

So if I am promoting the above link, I would publish it minus the session key as: http://www.finddropshippers.net/product_info.php?products_id=6128747

My siteid does not match my domain name or the title of my store - is that a problem?

If you are using a domain name, your siteid is irrelevant because your siteid is never seen - it has been replaced by the domain. So there is no reason to change a siteid. You could have a siteid like - myshopkart.net/abc/ - not a great name - but since you have setup a domain called cheapcandles.com, that is what people will see - not myshopkart.net/abc/. The Title of your store is what shows up in the blue bar at the top of the browser window, and this can be set in the general settings area of your site admin - this can be whatever you choose.

Why do I get secure and non-secure items warning on my pages - my SSL lock does not seem to be showing up?

When you add images or scripts to your site you have to use the following syntax src=//www.somedomain.com/file.gif etc. or you force the browser to use http when it is in SSL https mode and vice versa - you should not use src=http:// syntax - that is the cause of such warnings... Forcing the browser to access non-secure items when it is in https mode will also prevent the lock sign from being displayed in the browser status bar ( bottom right corner ).

NB - if you are using google adwords on your site, you will have issues with security popups on checkout because adwords is not SSL compliant. So this will hurt your conversion of sales. Try your checkout process to make sure the google ads are not affecting your checkout. If they are, remove them from your page footer. See also: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=10528&topic=8439

When I make changes to the product in my preloaded store, the next day the changes are all gone?

Preloaded stores are by default made to sync with the supplier they are setup with each night. This does not affect products you add from other suppliers or any changes you make to those products. But it is important if you want to make changes to the preloaded products which get syncd each night. To avoid losing changes to these products you can turn off the nightly product sync by visiting the 'supplier product sync' page in your admin. This is a good option if you plan on making changes to many of the preloaded products. Otherwise, if you want to make changes to only a few preloaded products, you can set that specific product to not sync - Go into the edit product wizard under Catalog where the product details are and click the 'do not sync' checkbox which will prevent your changes from being lost.

Remember that you can make bulk changes to pricing in your product sync area and you do not need to change prices individually if you don't want.

Why does my paypal email show up at paypal when I make test purchases in my store?

This would not happen for anyone but you - ppal places a cookie on your PC each time you login which allows them to remember you the next time you go back to paypal. This cookie allows them to place your email in the paypal id box. But when other people are checking out of your store, your email will not show up in the login box at ppal.

How do I enter conversion/sales tracking information into my store?

Conversion tracking allows you to track the results of your marketing by reporting the sales totals back to the company you are using to market your site (google, yahoo, etc. ). In order to setup conversion tracking go to the conversion tracking area of your admin and follow the instructions there. You must be careful to follow the instructions of the company that provides the tracking script or the tracking will not work. Usually the information on how to use the tracking code is presented for non-technical people. But it is not always clear...

Case in point - google provides the following instructions on how to setup conversion tracking:

http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=27203&query=tracking&topic=&type%20

but as of now myshopkart only provides data on the total sale amount for use with conversion tracking. So all the data that google can track we cannot provide data on ( yet ).

The only value available is the price of the order so the only way to implement this google form code is like so where _ORDER_TOTAL_ is the only variable you can place in the data stream:

</textarea>
</form>

NOTE: Do not include the square brackets when setting the values for the form. In addition, do not use commas to separate the thousands place in your total, tax, and shipping fields - any digits after the comma will be dropped.

becomes

UTM:T|na|na|_ORDER_TOTAL_|na|na|na|na|na
UTM:I|na|na|na|na|_ORDER_TOTAL_|na

</textarea>
</form>

The extra data is Ok to have but the bottom line is that you want to know how much revenue a given ad you have setup (ie with google adwords) is producing. Over time we will increase the amount of data available in the conversion tracking area.

How do I accept CC and echeck payments from non-paypal members?

This is a setting in your ppal account - login to ppal and go to your account profile then Selling Preferences then Website Payment Preferences - then "PayPal Account Optional" and make sure that is turned ON.

Other ppal settings that might affect who you can accept payment from:

Payment Receiving Preferences & Website Payment Preferences - all the entries that say "block payments" .

How do I get my site indexed into Google?

There are links to ggl feeds and ggl sitemaps in your site admin. To generate your gglbase feed and upload it - login to your site admin via www.yourdomain.com/user/ (where yourdomain is the domain you have setup for your site in the domain settings area ) then click on the ggl feed link in your admin. Then right click on the notepad icon and select save target as. Then save the file to your PC. Then find that file on your PC and rename it from .php to .txt. Then go to google and login to your google account and click on the gglbase link.

Then click on upload files or bulk files - then use the browse button to find the file on your PC and select it for upload to ggl.

You need a google account to submit to gglbase which is now used to submit to froogle as well. Just go here to get one: https://www.google.com/base/welcome

NB- Google has total control over which sites they list through googlebase which is only one element of google - if googlebase rejects your site, you can still get indexed into the regular google search engine. No one can guarantee how google will rank or deal with a site that requests inclusion. Use the google sitemaps tool in your admin to submit that as well which will increase your visibility on google. Use multiple marketing methods to drive traffic to your store and avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.

If you do get disapproved by Google, use this link to find out why:

http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=29044&utm_source=ui&utm_medium=error

and this one to email them for more info:

http://base.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=error&hl=en

You should submit the ggl sitemap to your ggl account as well. The instructions are almost the same as for gglbase - you login to your site admin via www.yourdomain.com/user/ (where yourdomain is the domain you have setup for your site in the domain settings area) then you go to the ggl sitemap area - doing that generates that sitemap files that ggl needs. Then follow the instructions in the ggl xml sitemap area of your store admin to let ggl know how to access your map file.

Google Verification

ggl often want people to prove they own the site they are trying to submit - in your site admin there is a link for ggl verification where you add a special meta tag that comes from your google account. See:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35181&ctx=sibling

make sure you follow the instructions for the meta tag not the file upload.

I also urge you to consider using google adwords to drive targeted traffic to your site. Some relevant links about using Adwords:

http://www.googlelady.com/category/google/google-adwords/

https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox

http://dropship-suppliers.com/frm/finding-dropship-products.htm

Why do the store/order emails come from the myshopkart.net/mystore/ path and not my domain?

In order for your store to send emails that do no include the myshopkart path, use your domain name to access the site - this is the URL you should use to promote your site and the one your buyers will use... When you site is accessed via your domain, all emails will show as coming from that domain and will make no mention of myshopkart.net.

NB - there are 2 emails that go out from your store when an order occurs - one that goes to the buyer which uses your domain, and one that goes to you the store owner which does not use your domain since it is going to you ( not your customer ). So when testing make sure you do not confuse this and assume that your domain name is not used for the email sent to the customer - you are likely looking at the email that goes to the store owner and not the one sent to the buyer.

I don't seem to get the order emails or contact form requests from my site?

SPAM filtering has become a major issue with most of the major ISPs - AOL, Earthlink, NetZero and most other ISPs are all filtering/rejecting email they deem as unsolicited. If you are not getting the order notifications or contact us requests from your site, then you should consider setting up a dedicated email on a free email provider like www.hotmail.com - you can see a list of free webmail providers here:

http://www.emailaddresses.com/email_web.htm

This is a problem that is not going away and the only real solution is to use an email provider that allows you to turnoff spam filtering...

How do I get the bestsellers area to show products that I want featured?

Bestsellers is a dynamic area which gets built based on your actual sales - if you have no sales then no bestsellers will show. If you want to populate that area with your favorite items, turn on the Check/Money Order payment module in your site admin then go to your site and purchase the products you want to show up as bestsellers - just keep adding to your cart until you have all the products you want shown - then checkout using the Chk/MO payment option. Bestsellers is based on quantity so if you want item A to show up above item B make sure to set the quantity of A to a number greater than that of B at checkout. This will setup your bestseller list...

How do I set the size of the product images in my shop?

Go to your user admin then click Images (under Configuration). Set the small image width to the value you want - should be under 225px though or it will throw off the look of your site. Leave the small image height as 0 which will keep the images in the proper scale. If you set both of these, the images will look distorted.

Where can I find more suppliers who will dropship?

Go here: http://www.lessworkmoremoney.com/member/ - the login details are in your store admin under Find Dropshippers

What happens if I sell something in my store - then what?

When someone orders from your webstore, the order details are captured, their credit card is charged & the funds are deposited into your account [if you have selected paypal as your payment processor then the funds go to your paypal account. If you use authorize.net, then they capture the funds and remit them to your bank account].

You are notified by email that you have an order pending. You simply confirm that you have gotten payment then login to your webstore, grab the order details & forward them to your supplier [your supplier will have already defined processes for how you have your orders fulfilled; if unsure about these contact your supplier for the details].

The payment you get from your buyer goes directly to you and has nothing to do with your supplier - just like purchases at Wal Mart go directly to Wal Mart not to the companies who manufacture and supply them with products. Then you pay your supplier the wholesale cost on the product and have it shipped to the buyer and make a profit on the difference between what you charge retail and what you pay the supplier.

The supplier ships the goods and the process is complete. You track the progress of the order through your supplier and can set the status of the order in the orders area of your site admin ( e.g. if the order has shipped from the supplier warehouse, you can set the status to "order shipped" ). Everything that has to do with order fulfillment is done through your supplier and you should acquaint yourself with their order & shipping processes.

Remember that you should always confirm that you have gotten payment before having items shipped - your payment processor will always send you a separate notification about the payment. And, if you're using a dropshipper, you have to place the order with them in order for the item to get shipped.

Orders are not automatically sent to the supplier because each order should be manually reviewed to make sure it is valid/correct and that payment has been received. Otherwise you could be paying the supplier for orders that you yourself have not been paid for. Always review orders prior to having them shipped...

Also remember that if you are ordering for yourself, you should never place the order in your store because you can order directly from your supplier at the cost price. Store orders are for real customers who will be paying you or for test purchases.

NB - any supplier you choose to sell items for should be thoroughly checked out before you list their items - do not list items until you have properly setup an account with them and verified that they will indeed ship the orders you sell. Your relationship with a supplier is crucial - if they drop the ball, you are left to pickup the pieces. Always do a good check on a supplier you are thinking of using; if you can't get a good history on them, stay away.

My paypal shipping is overriding the shipping shown in my website?

You have some shipping settings defaulted in your ppal account which override the values coming in from your site - login to paypal and go to your profile tab then then selling prefs then shipping calcs - then at the bottom make sure you check the box that says:

Miscellaneous — Allow transaction-based shipping settings to override profile settings (Optional).

Click here to allow transaction-based shipping values to override the profile shipping settings listed above (if profile settings are enabled).

Then save that change - this will ensure that the values passed in from your website get used for purchases made through your store ...

I have heard that marketing is a big part of succeeding online. How can I market my site?

You can use a variety of search engine submission tools...

http://www.searchengines.com/URLsubmission.html
http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156221
http://www.bruceclay.com/web_rank.htm
http://www.bruceclay.com/web_add.htm

http://r.netmechanic.com/enginestarter/enginestarter.cgi?free=1

http://www.freewebsubmission.com/

Also consider using the Froogle, Googlebase and Yahoo feeds available in your user admin to submit to the these search engines.

2 articles that also relate to marketing via PPC SEs:

http://dropship-suppliers.com/frm/finding-dropship-products.htm
http://dropship-suppliers.com/frm/dropship-method.htm

I also want to mention a couple of tools you can use to research products to sell online:

http://www.123promotion.co.uk/ppc/
http://www.nichebot.com/

One word of caution about companies who want you to pay them to submit your site to search engines or to optimize your site for SEs - most of these companies are just after you money and will offer little or no actual value for what you pay them. So be very careful in this area.

http://www.viz.co.nz/seo-scams.htm
http://www.seoresource.net/Avoiding_SEO_Scams.htm
http://www.claytowne.com/seo_scam.htm

Effective marketing is the single most important activity required for success online. There are many marketing methods which can be used to promote your site. The scope of the topic is so wide that a book is required to aptly cover the realm of emarketing. Some of the better books I have reviewed are:

http://lessworkmoremoney.com/cgi-bin/go.pl?imt127

http://lessworkmoremoney.com/cgi-bin/go.pl?rudlrsell

and of course the emarketing info in the Ultimate Emarketing & Dropshippers Guide at http://uedg.net/ is great & inexpensive too. If you have little marketing knowledge, it is really worth the time/money to read one of these publications in order to get a good marketing foundation. Without traffic, a website cannot make any money. So beefing up your marketing knowledge is vital.

A simple process for finding the right products & driving the right traffic to your store

This is a formula I highly recommend & use myself to make money selling tangible product online. So let me clarify the right way to use dropshippers. I'll quote from http://www.dropship-suppliers.com where I talk about the difference between wholesalers & dropshippers:

One mistake even some experienced online sellers make is to try selling products that are already over-saturated online. When you use a dropshipper, you will not be getting the same price on an item as if you were buying a container load. That's just common sense. But many people somehow think that a dropshipper will provide them with the same cost on a digital camera as WalMart gets when they buy 10 truckloads. Ain't gonna happen...

So the key to using dropshipping right is to use a solid repeatable process for picking & testing what you're going to sell. It means setting up with reliable dropshippers & testing their products quickly in order to establish the good sellers one product at a time. It means uncovering niche markets & staying away from things that compete with 10 ton gorillas like WalMart. That's a big part of what I teach in the Ultimate Dropshipper. The good news is that there are millions of niche markets just waiting to be mined & plenty of opportunity to make money.

There are 2 key things in this:

1) You cannot sell successfully to a market that is saturated - there is simply too much competition! So when you're trying to decide what to sell, stay away from anything you can buy at chain stores like WalMart or Sears. The more specialized a product is the better. Look for oddball products that are not in the mainstream - these are products that will be much easier to sell online because you will be able to tap into a smaller but much more 'targetable' market - remember, if you can't reach the people who want what you're selling, then you will not sell. That's marketing - connecting a prospect with what they want & are willing to pay for. It doesn't matter whether you like the products you sell or that they be appealing to you personally. They just have to be profitable.

Of course if you can mix your interests/hobbies with what sells then great. But don't get caught up in trying to make your hobbies into a business when other things can generate much more profit. Make your business your hobby - profitability is what counts.

2) Use a structured process to test potential products so that you can quickly build your business one product at a time. The person who compares the dropshipper price with the ebay price has got it only partly right. They looked at ebay only - is that were most people buy online? Nope. Damned if I can find the Jupiter research stats I saw just the other day on e-commerce! It showed that ebay gets a ton of traffic but that 75%+ of people buying online were buying from websites they found through search engines or other online marketing means.

So anyone prospecting a product to sell online has to go farther than ebay to determine if the product is viable. Check Google, Froogle, Yahoo, & ebay. Something that might not sell on ebay might do well from your own website & vice versa.

As well, although someone might be listing at ebay for a lower price, are they actually selling? I often see products sell for higher than other people are listing. This can relate to better product presentation, keyword usage, feedback issues, auction or listing format, etc. .

Always use the advanced search feature at ebay to check completed items on anything you are thinking of selling - this will show you how many auctions closed & at what price. Check the auction details for those sellers who are selling & getting more bids. What are they doing to be successful? Do the same thing...

I use Google Adwords ( Google's payperclick feature ) to test products all the time. In less than 24 hrs. you can find out if your product idea has legs - you can even be making profit! Here's how you do it.

You pick a few dropshippers that interest you & get their pricing. Then one by one you go through their products looking for those that are priced competitively - check Froogle and/or ebay completed auctions to see what others are charging. Single out the products that are competitive. Then head to Google Adwords & Overture to setup accounts. These are pay per click search engines that allow you to drive traffic for the specific keywords of your choice. The fastest way to test whether a product is worth selling is by test-marketing it via these PPC search engines.

So load the products you singled out into your shopping cart and set the price then drop 20 bucks into an account at Google Adwords. Setup ads to drive traffic for the specific keywords related to your products - the more specific the better. Often these very specific keywords will be dirt cheap and sometimes not. To start, go with the lower cost keywords because this increases the chances that you'll make money.

For each of the products you are testing you drive targeted traffic then determine based on costs for clicks versus profit on sales whether or not that product is worth keeping. This is a quick way to determine which products will be profitable. It is not the bottom line - there are tons of other promotional methods, but this gives you the kind of immediate feedback that determines whether you spend more time trying to promote something. With only PPC marketing you can uncover profitable products which grow one at a time into bigger and bigger profits.

Here's an example of a product I am testing -

http://www.wholesale-dropshipping.com/product_info.php?products_id=275

So far the results are not great & I'm not going to waste much energy on this product. In 6 months, I'll give it another spin - this is new technology & a little ahead of the curve. The point is that it's a piece of cake to test products this way.

You might have to research many products before you find a good one - I went through about 30 products one morning this week until I found one that looked promising. When I actually tested the product online, it sold right away & I am betting that it will keep selling. I get prices from a dropshipper then I just run through everything they have. If I find nothing, then I move on. If I discover some products that have potential, then I test them online. I keep the ones that sell & dump those that don't. It's that simple.

So be patient & diligent about researching & selecting products and use PPC to speed up the process - I guarantee you will find some profitable niches...

How do I add products & add pictures of my products to my cart?

Before you can add product or product images you have to know what products you want to sell and have some basic info on the products. As well you have to have product images in .gif or .jpg format. If you are using a supplier for your products then they will have all that on their website. You can just copy the product info from there and save the product images by right clicking on a image you want to use and then clicking 'save picture as'. Make sure you are saving your images to a place on your PC you can remember and get back to later.

Now back to how to add product/images...

in your site admin area - left hand side go to Catalog > then click Categories & Products

Create a category or click on an existing category ( like a dept store, products have to be organized by categories )

Now click the new product button to create a new product
( or click the product you want to edit if changing an existing product then click the edit button )

Fill in the required fields with the relevant product info ( your supplier will provide that ).

Now to add the image you want for your product, go to the field called Product Image: and click the browse button. This will open up a new window which will allow you to find the product image on your computer. So you have to navigate to the folder where you saved the product image and click the image file you want to use for the product in order to have it show up in your cart. If you are not sure where the product image is, then cancel adding the image for this product and leave the add product page aside for a minute.

Go to your computer desktop ( the window you see when you 1st turn on your PC) & create a folder called 'product images' by right clicking on the desktop and selecting New Folder. Now when you want to save product images to be used in your shop always save them in this folder which you can easily find later.

Now once you have your product image(s) in the folder on your desktop, go back to the new product page from your shop and click the add image browse button again. Now when you are asked to find the picture to add click the 'desktop' button on the left side which will show you all the folders on your desktop then click the folder called product images you created earlier. Then select the image you want to the product then click open.

The finish filling out the info for that product and click preview. If you are happy with your product listing click insert or hit back to make more changes.

This process can be re-used to add/edit products in your shop.

NB - make sure the products you add are set to taxable goods in the add product wizard or they won't trigger any taxes even for buyers in your state...

How do I remove products & categories from my store?

In order to delete products & categories from your store, go to your site admin area - left hand side go to Catalog > then click Categories & Products. From there you can select any category and use the delete button to delete the category (and any products within that category). If you click on the category name, you will also be able to view/disable or delete specific products from within the category.

**Pre-loaded Store Users** - because of the inventory sync process with your supplier, once you delete a category or product from your shop, it will not be recreated on store resync. So before you delete products/categories, be sure you want to remove them from your site as there will be no way for you to have them reappear once you remove them...

How do I add extra images to my site?

You can add extra images directly using the upload extra images link in the configuration section of your site admin. This can be done with as many images as you want...

Then you go to your page editor and and use the image button on the toolbar to insert the image by providing the path ( http://www.myshopkart.net/images/_products/yoursite/image_name.xyz ) to the image file on the server.

>> TO do this directly using html see below

Then you can use this notation to reference the images in your website pages via the view html button <> of the page editor...

NB yoursite is the siteid of your site (e.g. www.myshopkart.net/demo/ )

you can use the insert image button of the built-in myshopkart page editor - once you have uploaded the image you want to use, simply provide the url [http://www.myshopkart.net/yoursite/images/_products/image_name.xyz] and the image will appear where you have selected to place it. If you provide no details on the image size the image will be displayed in its native dimensions.

NB - if you want a banner or image link to open in a new window, you have to add target="_blank" to the link code - once you have created the link for the banner, click on the <> html edit button - the link code will look like:

See: http://www.myshopkart.net/feb11/page.php?page_id=751 for a sample banner...

Can I upload html files using FTP or make changes to the cart using my own files?

No. The cart has many automated/dynamic features which are embedded in the source code. All changes you make can only be done via the cart admin which can be accessed at http://www.myshopkart.net/your_store_name/user/ . But you can use an html editor to design changes then copy & paste the html into the edit html sections of the admin.

I am lost. What do I do 1st?

1st take some time to poke around the admin to your site - this is the area that is used to manage your store. Like any learning process, you will have to take some time to familiarize yourself with the administration tools used to manage your site. You can't break anything so have some fun & experiment with things.

Your actual store - the place webshoppers go to purchase products - is located at myshopkart.net/storename/ where storename is the siteid you picked when you signed up.

The admin for your site is located at myshopkart.net/storename/user/ where storename is the siteid you picked when you signed up.

You got an email with this information and your password to login at the time of signup.

Where are the products for my store?

Your store won't have any products in it until you add them. If you already have a supplier or you supply the products yourself, then you can begin adding products to your store right away. In order to add products you need to have some basic info about the product you are adding ( weight, name, description, etc. ) and a digital image of the product. If you are using a supplier, they can provide you with the product images & details you need. You just copy them into the fields in the add/edit product wizard under the Catalog > Categories & Products

If you are supplying your own products, then you must supply the images yourself ( digital camera pictures work fine ).

If you need a supplier for products, then use the dropshippers directory to find a supplier for the products you would like to sell. Login to the directory using the link that is in the left column of your admin panel under Tools > Find Dropshippers ( pwd right below link )

2 articles that also relate to picking what to sell:

http://dropship-suppliers.com/newsmar2.htm and http://dropship-suppliers.com/news.htm

The key is to not waste your time on busy work without properly thinking through what you should sell. If you put in tons of hours adding products to your store only to find out later that you can't sell them because you can't generate traffic, then you have wasted your time. You need to really follow the testing methods I describe in the articles above in order to insure that your time is put to best use. 2 weeks of good planning which leads to a profitable site is far better than jumping right into adding products without any concern for how to generate traffic. So ignore my product selection advice at your own peril...

Here are the basics of how to setup your store:

Login to your admin panel then, set the Configuration options by clicking the Configuration link - each relevant section of config is described below ( those omitted should be left as is ):

Configuration Options

My Store

Store Name - the name you want for your store (e.g. - Low Priced Jewelry )

Store Owner - your name

E-Mail Address/E-Mail From - your email address

Country/Zone - your country/region

Leave the other items as is...

Page Editor

This is the section that allows you to change the txt on the site. A good way to do it is to open 2 browser windows - open one with your site & one with your admin area. When you make changes in the admin, go to the other browser ( alt + tab keys) & hit refresh ( F5 key ) to see the change. This way you can see the changes as you make them...

In order to get most use of the editing functions, use a free website builder to create the html you want to use in the edit html section so you can format text the way you want it to look with point & click ( like a word processor ). Then just paste the html.

Update: the page editor & product description now use a wysiwyg ( what you see is what you get) webeditor so you can create fancy formatting without using html or a separate editor. Login to your shop admin to see the new wysiwyg editor.

Here are 2 samples of how far you can go with the layout:

http://www.wholesale-dropshipping.com/product_info.php?products_id=275

http://www.wholesale-dropshipping.com/product_info.php?products_id=250

if you want to use complex formatting that includes tables and other formatting elements, use an external html editor to create your content...

The best free editor is by far Netscape Composer which comes with the Netscape navigator browser. Some people don't like to install another browser on their PC, but I highly recommend you use netscape composer to create nice looking product listings. It also allows you to produce html for the edit html sections without ever having to directly write any html. Once you have created the look/format & added the text you want, you simply click on the HTML source tab at the bottom of the window. Then you copy/paste the html you want to use into the product description or the edit html section you want ( only paste what is between the <body></body> tags ):

<body>

###### you copy what is below the body tag above ####

<p><font face="Arial">I was at the <b>party</b> last night</font></p>

###### up to what is right above the body tag below ####

</body>

All web pages have this structure so you will always be copying content that is between the body tags.

Get the netscape browser with built-in web composer here: see here for setup instructions

Although this section is called Edit HTML, you don't really need to use html unless you want to. So you can just type the txt you want in the edit window & it will come out that way on your site. Or you can use a webeditor as above & not be concerned with the actual html. If you are interested in learning some html, you can learn some basics here:

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/

http://www.pageresource.com/html/basic.htm

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/teachingtool/html.html

I'll outline a few things:

HTML tags are the little codes used to tell your browser how to display things. Most tags have a start tag <B> and an end tag </B>. The txt in between would be affected by that tag. You can combine tags so that several tags can work together:

<CENTER> <B> and an end tag </B></CENTER> would give ( center & bold the txt ):

and an end tag

Here are some basic tags:

<BR> starts another line

I was at the <BR> party last night will display as:

I was at the
party last night

<B> </B> will bold the text in between

I was at the <B>party</B> last night will display as:

I was at the party last night

<CENTER> </CENTER> centers the text in between

<CENTER> I was at the party last night </CENTER> =>

I was at the party last night

OK enough for now - consult the URLs above for more...You don't really need to use html because the built-in editor takes care of that for you.

Main Page HTML - this changes the text right above the new products section

Just enter in what you want to say here - you can also have product images/specials info here but you'll have to use html to setup the links & format the images. See the fancy formatting section on that.

Shipping/Packaging - set the handling fee to the amount you want ( 0.00 if none )

The other options should be left as is unless you are an advanced user...

Stock - set the 'check stock level' to false

Catalog Options

Categories / Products - you set up your products using this area. You can add products directly or you can create categories then add the products into the appropriate categories. If you don't create categories, they won't show up in the left column categories box on the main page. So it's a good idea to create them.

Create a Category:

Set the Category Name:

Category Image: & Sort Order: are not required...

After creating a category, click on it then you can add a product to that category.

Create a Product:

These fields are required:

Products Name:
Products Description:
Products Image: to add an image for your product, you 1st have to have the image saved on your PC. Do this by going to the site where you get your products & saving the products pic ( right click on it & select 'Save Picture As'). The click the Browse button to upload the image to your cart.
Products Model: set this to the model number or SKU your supplier gives you - if you use many suppliers prefix it with a code that will tell you who the supplier is.
Products Price:
Tax Class: Set this to 'Taxable Goods'

Modules Options

Payment Modules - payment processing comes in 2 forms - real time ( meaning the payment is processed during the purchase and the funds are collected immediately ) and offline ( meaning the card details are captured but no funds are collected ).

In the payment modules area if you enable the method Credit Card - this is only for capturing the card details for later processing ( assuming you had access to a payment gateway that you could submit the transaction to ). So this method only provides capture of the CC details.

To get real time processing you need to enable paypal which you are already able to use - simply click the green light beside the paypal module & provide your paypal email then save and click the green light again. Paypal processes all major credit cards even for people who aren't paypal members so they are a good inexpensive method. To start, setup paypal as your processor - until you have some traffic at your store go with paypal. You can add another later...

Set the status to red for all the options except Paypal which should be green. Then edit the paypal option & set the email to your paypal email. Leave the other option to 1 ( in techno speak 1 means true & 0 means false )... Once you edit the options click save - if you don't see anything make sure the green light beside the payment option is clicked after you save.

All the other realtime processing options require that you have an account before you can use their gateway. Of these authorize.net, is the best and most reliable option.

Do not offer more than 2 payment options or you will lose sales and waste your time - keep it simple - use paypal and/or one other online processor. Stay away from manual Credit Card or chk/mo because you have to make sure you get paid before you have any items shipped.

Many users have expressed a desire to have an option other than paypal to process payments - although paypal is the least costly not all buyers want to use paypal especially if they are not already a paypal user.We have recently found an excellent payment processor who can set up authorize.net ( they process all credit cards ) as an alternate to paypal - if you want to consider this option go here:

http://www.myshopkart.net/ccprocessing.htm

If you do go ahead, they will assist you in getting your authorize.net payment module setup and if you want they will even login to your cart and do it for you.

MyShopKart Support

do not add zones or tax classes to the payment/shipping modules or you will get unexpected results ( no payment/shipping options for everyone not in that zone/state ). In the payment/shipping modules the zones & tax class should always be set to --none-- - see the section on taxes below for help on how to setup taxes - it is done in the taxes section of the Modules in your admin - not in the payment/shipping sections

Paypal Website Payments Pro merchant account: this is a new service from paypal which allows you to process CC orders right on your site without the buyer having to be transferred to paypal - it is the same as authorize.net. If you want to use this option you must upgrade your regular paypal account in order for them to grant you access to their system - they will provide the required info for you to activate and use the WPP module in your site admin.

NB - there are 2 components to using WPP - WPP and paypal express checkout - WPP allows you to accept CC on your site without transferring to ppal and express checkout allows people to checkout by using their stored ppal account details. Both the WPP and express checkout require a WPP account at paypal and you cannot use either one unless you have a WPP merchant account at paypal. Both are already setup to work in your store but you must setup a WPP account with paypal in order to be able to provide the payment modules in your store admin with the proper credentials required by paypal. You also need to have get a security file called a pem cert from ppal and email it to us at support@myshopkart.net so we can install it on the server. If you are unsure what that is contact your ppal WPP account rep as only ppal can provide this to you or explain how to get it: paypal - 1.800.836.1859

Once you have been approved for PayPal's Website Payments Pro suite, you need to provide your Web Store with your API certificate.

Log in to your PayPal account at https://www.paypal.com/ by entering your email address and password in the Member Login box.
Click the "Profile" subtab.
Click the "API Access" link in the "Account Information" column.
Click "Request API Certificate".
Complete the required information on the "Request API Certificate" page. Please Note: Your API certificate password is not your PayPal password. It is suggested that you create a different password. You may want to write it down and keep it in a secure place to reference later.
Click "Generate Certificate" on the "Request API Certificate Review" page.
Note your API account name, you will need this later.
Click "Download" on the "API Certificate" page.
You may receive a pop-up asking if you would like to "Open" or "Save" the file. Select "Save".
In the "Save As" box, select the location where you would want to save your certificate (ex. Desktop, My Documents). Note where you save it, because you will need it later.
Email the certificate to support@myshopkart.net along with your api login/pswrd

We will then add your certificate to the server and set your WPP module up.

About express checkout:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/merchant/ExpressCheckoutIntro-outside

About WPP:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_wp-pro-overview-outside

Shipping Modules:

**Pre-loaded Store users** - your shipping is already setup to match your supplier's shipping rates

do not add zones or tax classes to the payment/shipping modules or you will get unexpected results ( no payment/shipping options for people not in that zone ). In the payment/shipping modules the zones & tax class should always be set to --none-- - see the section on taxes below for help on how to setup taxes - it is done in the taxes section of the Modules in your admin - not in the payment/shipping sections

- your supplier will bill you shipping for the items you sell so you need to bill your buyers as well. You don't need to know the exact shipping cost as long as your pricing is giving you a decent profit & you have a rough idea of what your supplier charges... Don't use the other shipping settings until your business is selling significant volume.

If you insist on real time shipping calculations - these can be risky because if your shipping provider has a server problem then that function will cause errors when someone wants to buy - then use the UPS shipping function.

When you click to activate this you will need to provide some basic info as described in that section, but you don't need to have a account with UPS in order for them to provide real time shipping quotes. As well UPS has redundant servers to prevent the problem mentioned above.

2 essentials if you are using a real-time shipping calculator like USPS or UPS:

make sure you have updated the Packaging Options module with the zip code the items are shipping from ( shipping origin )
insure that your products have a weight specified - realtime shipping calculators do not like zero-weighted products

99% of shipping errors are because these 2 things are not done!

As well, the USPS shipping requires that you have a USPS Web Tools account - get it here: http://www.usps.com/webtools/rate.htm . This is not a regular USPS account, so using your regular USPS login will not work - it has to be a special web tools account.

We have setup a generic USPS account for you if you want to use that:

USERID=039MIKKI3099 PASSWORD=552ZJ26RQ499 - you can set the account to 'production' if you setup USPS shipping for this account and you should be all set.

3 shipping methods you should consider ( pick one ):

Table Rate - this is the most flexible - you setup ranges for order total/shipping rate like so:

25:8.50,50:10.50,75:12.50,100:14.50,150:16.50,200:25.00

Up to 25 charge $8.50, from there to 50 charge $10.50, from there to 75 charge $12.50, etc..., over 200 charge $25.00

This can be setup based on weight as well so:

5:8.50,10:10.50,15:12.50,20:14.50,30:16.50,40:25.00

Up to 5lbs charge $8.50, from there to 10 charge $10.50, from there to 15 charge $12.50, etc..., over 40lbs charge $25.00

A good model is to charge between 15% - 18% of the order total with a minimum shipping amount no less than $5.00.

Per Item - charges based on a fee per item... Not as useful as table rate.

Flat Rate - charges a flat rate regardless of order total or number of items ( can be costly if you get orders larger than expected )

Select only one shipping method - all others should be red.

many people undercharge for shipping then have to eat into profits - so make sure you are charging enough to cover the actual shipping costs.

Locations/Taxes Options

The process to setup taxes is in 3 parts - create a tax class, create a zone that will be taxed, assign a tax rate to that zone. In your site admin go to modules > tax classes then click new tax class. Then enter the title like txblgds and a descr like taxable goods. The click insert.

** Pre-loaded Store users ** the part above is already done for you - just carry out the 2 steps below for your particular state

Now go to Tax zones & click insert. Then add an abbrev for the state like NY and a description like New York for the state. Then click insert. Then click on the folder that appears to the left with the zone name you just created. Now we will associate a geographic region ( state ) with that zone. Click on the insert button then pick the US then click the insert button. then click the edit button & pick the state you want to tax in the zone box then click update.

Now the final step is to add a tax rate to the zone we just setup. Click on Tax Rates in the modules area on the left. Then click new tax rate. Set the taxrate for the state as follows:

Tax Class Title: Taxable Goods

Zone: California ( the state you want to tax )

Tax Rate (%): 8.25 ( the tax rate desired )

Description: CA tax ( whatever you want )

Priority: 1

then click insert.

That's it - for all the products you've setup as taxable goods, the buyer will be taxed if they are from the zone you setup in the above manner. You can get into more complicated setups with other tax classes, multiple zones, multiple rates, etc... but most people just need to tax the state they are located in.

See http://www.taxadmin.org/FTA/rate/sales.html for the various tax rates...

**** The steps above are all that is required to tax buyers from your state - do not add zones or tax classes to the payment/shipping modules or you will get unexpected results ( no payment/shipping options for people not in that zone/state ). In the payment/shipping modules the zones & tax class should always be set to --none--

NB - make sure the products you add are set to taxable goods in the add product wizard or they won't trigger any taxes even for buyers in your state...

I can't see my store when I go to my URL. Why not?

You need to make sure the trailing slash ( / ) is in the URL:

http://www.myshopkart.com/yourstore/

How do I add attributes like size & color to my products?

Let's say you want to add scent to the available options. You go to admin/catalog/product attributes. So there you will create an option name ( left hand side bottom of product options ) called 'scent' - just type in scent in the en: box then save. Now scent is one of the options available to your products. But there are not specific scents available to choose from so we'll add them.

Under Option Values ( right side ) move down to the drop down box & select the option called scent. Type the scent type you want associated with the scent attribute in the en: box then save. Now you will have let's say lavender as one option. Just keep adding more scent types in this way until you have all the scent options you want.

Then scroll down to the bottom where you can tie these attributes to a particular product. Pick the product from the product dropdown then select the option name you want then the option value you want then hit insert. Keep doing this until you have all the option values you want associated with the product.

The 1st time you do this will be a pain, but then the option names/values will always be available to subsequent products.

The same goes for whatever you want to add as an option. See it like this - create a category type, then add the specific options you want for that category. Then associate those category options with a particular product. You can combine as many as you want: color/size/scent/ etc...

NB - If you have multiple products you need to add options for, this method can be cumbersome, so you can use the attributes sets feature in your user admin to quickly apply options to products in a single click. Once you have created one set of options as above, you set that group up as an attributes set via the link in your user admin. Then once you have a set created like size, you apply that set to specific products using the 'AS' icon in the category/product management area.

1st you need to know how many elements options you have created for that option type ( if you have S,M,L,XL for size then you have 4 options), then you tell the sets creator how many and name the set like color_set - then on the next page you specify the various associated options for the elements in the set then save. Then when you apply that to the product in the product area & you will not need to do this in the attributes page. That page is for setting up the attributes themselves - then used by the attributes sets page to create the reusable sets so that you only have to create the options once and the set once no matter how many products require those options. See the attributes sets link in your admin for the details.

How do I set how many products show on the 1st page?

Login to your admin then go to Configuration>Maximum Values>New Products Module & edit the value - set it to the number of product you want displayed.

How do I setup my own header with my own header image?

Go to configuration then general settings - then click edit. You will have the option to upload a logo.

A few tips:

You need to use image editing software to create the image ( e.g. photoshop) or you have to get it from someone else who can build you a logo.

The image header can be set to any size but for it to look best, you should build the header to the size that fits the site template you are using ( about 260x60 pixels. Templates 3 & 5 frame the logo so with these templates you must watch the size because the image will be resized to fit within the area assigned for the logo. The other templates will deal with bigger logos.

How do I setup my own featured product on the mainpage - separate from the new product box?

2 ways to do this - easieast way:

Go to your store admin then Catalog > Featured Products.

This section allows you to replace the New Products section on the main page of your site with a section called Featured Products where you can specify exactly what products you want shown. If you select one or more products to feature, the New Product area will be replaced by the Featured Products. If you remove all the featured products using this tool, then the New Products section will reappear so you can have one or the other.

Harder way but more flexible for look & feel of the way you feature the products:

Via the edit html section of the admin you can create whatever you want in the mainpage section above the new product table. The best way to do this is to 1st get yourself a basic html editor so that you can just point & click without having to type actual html. There are many free ones online - I recommend the free Netscape composer - see here for setup instructions

Once you have the editor setup, play with it a little to get the basics. Now for your featured items...

Let's say you want to group a number of your items together on the mainpage. Here's what you can do:

select then copy 2 or 3 rows of products from the new product table on your site then paste that into a new document in your html editor
now decide which products you want featured in this area
go back to the new products area of your site then copy the product image & link ( under the image ) over onto one of the products you copied into your html editor.
Keep doing this until you have all the products you want featured - you can add text or other formatting as needed.
Once it looks the way you want, go to the view html area of your editor so you can see the html source of your new document.
Select then copy all the html between the <body> & <body/> tags ( but DO NOT INCLUDE THE BODY TAGS in what you copy )
The go to the edit html section of your admin & add this copied code below whatever you already have there.
Then save & preview your changes.
If you still need to make some adjustments ( centering, etc. ) go back to step 4 - 8 until you have what you want...

Can I change the colors or basic template of the design for my site?

No - some parts of the site are dynamically generated & are the same for all sites. You can change the whole template but not selected parts of a template. To change the template go to the general settings area of your admin and click edit... You can also add content and make changes to existing content via the page editor. One thing that cannot be changed via the page editor is the background color of the site or for pages in the site. Usability guidelines specify that page backgrounds should if possible be white. Other backgrounds can make it difficult to view text and often product images are shot on white backgrounds. Lastly the template graphics are all built for white back and would look horrible against non-white background.

Can I add custom sections to the site in order to have content that is not already part of the cart?

Yes- you can do this by editing the html that is available to you via the configuration > edit page section of the admin. You can use a basic html editor to create what you want, then you add it to what's already there or replace what you want. A good place to do this is in the Main Page HTML section. But there are limits on what you can change which are imposed by the fact that the cart has many automated/dynamic features which can only be accessed via the source code - the carts full power & purpose is in product & order management... Outside of the edit html areas, you cannot make changes to the look & feel.

You can add custom sections of content simply by creating a product in the catalog functions & setting the price to 0 - that allows you to create content entries in the left navigation bar. Combine that with fancy formatting using an html editor & you can get some great results.

See here for an example of this:

http://www.thebargainpit.com/thepit/

Look at the entries under categories...

You create a category header then a product that relates to the content you want to show. Set the price to 0 and add the content via the product descr. box which allows for full html if you need to get fancy.

How do I use fancy formatting like tables, bullets, different font sizes etc. to my product listing and my edit html entries?

>>> Update: the page editor & product description now use a wysiwyg ( what you see is what you get) webeditor so you can create fancy formatting without using html or a separate editor. Login to your shop admin to see the new wysiwyg editor.

Here are 2 samples of how far you can go with the layout:

http://www.wholesale-dropshipping.com/product_info.php?products_id=275

http://www.wholesale-dropshipping.com/product_info.php?products_id=250

I simply use my html editor to point & click my format...

The best free editor is by far Netscape Composer which comes with the Netscape navigator browser. Some people don't like to install another browser on their PC, but I highly recommend you use netscape composer to create nice looking product listings. It also allows you to produce html for the edit html sections without ever having to directly write any html. Once you have created the look/format & added the text you want, you simply click on the HTML source tab at the bottom of the window. Then you copy/paste the html you want to use into the product description or the edit html section you want ( only paste what is between the <body></body> tags ):

<body>

###### you copy what is below the body tag above ####

<p><font face="Arial">I was at the <b>party</b> last night</font></p>

###### up to what is right above the body tag below ####

</body>

All web pages have this structure so you will always be copying content that is between the body tags.

Get the netscape browser with built-in web composer here:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

IF you don't have composer as an option it means that when you installed Netscape you setup the browser only without composer - I am checking now to see if version 8 has composer built-in.

No - it does not - so in order to dowload the previous version that has composer, follow this link

http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/download/archive72x.jsp then select the

7.2 English - Netscape

Windows

not the full install version

This will allow you to install the basic browser & webeditor without a ton of useless extras ( what they call the full install ). The file is 11Mb so it will take a few minutes to download. Once the download is done click open & the install will start.

Select the "Recommended" setup type then do not check the box that says 'Use Quick Launch' then hit Next> then uncheck the box that says 'Make Netscape my home page'... Then click install... The install process will take a few minutes. When it's done the browser will start on it own & you will get asked to register for a bunch of useless services that Netscape is promoting called the Netscape Network. Just hit cancel then yes you're sure. Then the browser will ask if you want to make it the default web browser. Say no so that your current browser continues to be your main web browser - you are using Netscape only as a web page editor.

Netscape will load a webpage to sell you some more junk. Just ignore any of that & click on Window > Composer on the file menu at the top which will launch the web editor. You can even close the netscape browser completely because Composer runs as a separate application.

In the future when you want to work with the webeditor, just go to Start > Programs > Netscape 7 > Composer and you can use the webeditor without ever using the web-browser at all. Composer is as powerful as MS Frontpage ( more perhaps ) and is completely free...

Here are a couple of good tutorials which you can use to get your bearings with Composer:

http://www.valsvisions.com/html/

http://www.dzinemaster.com/composer.html

Remember - you don't need to use any web editor unless you want to create some more interesting format & style effects which aren't possible with simple text alone. I encourage you to experiment with the editor so that you can learn to integrate all the power of html formatting (tables, fonts colors & styles, bullets, etc...)

How do I add multiple pictures to a product listing?

This can be done via the description box of the add/edit product wizard.

http://www.wholesale-dropshipping.com/product_info.php?products_id=275 is an example of multiple pictures.

I create the listing format using composer or another WYSIWYG editor and I add pictures by referencing them right on the manufacturer's site.

That way I don't have to manage the pics myself. See the sample reference below.

<img src="http://www.myshopkart.net/images/_products/feb11/Dc11.jpg" align="middle"> allows you to pull the pic from wherever it is hosted:

This can be done with as many images as you want...

If you have to reference images that are not hosted somewhere else, then you will have to upload them to your account.

***UPDATE - you can add extra images directly using the upload extra images link in the configuration section of your site admin now.***

Then you can use this notation to reference the images in your product descriptions via the view html button <>...

NB yoursite is the siteid of your site (e.g. www.myshopkart.net/demo/ )

you can use the insert image button of the built-in myshopkart editor - once you have uploaded the image you want to use, simply provide the url [http://www.myshopkart.net/images/_products/yoursite/image_name.xyz] and the image will appear where you have selected to place it. If you provide no details on the image size the image will be displayed in its native dimensions.

When I click on enlarge picture in the product listing, the window only shows a portion of the image?

Images you upload have to be small enough to be viewed on the computer screen without scrolling. To be compatible with the 3 most common screen settings, you should resize images so they are 640x480 pixels or smaller.

Basically to be of high quality, the enlarge function presents the image in its native form and size. You can quickly reformat your images using a tool like:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe

Which is found at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx/

How do I cancel my store & get a refund?

You can cancel your store anytime by logging into your paypal account and canceling your subscription to myshopkart. Use this link:

OR simply login to paypal & find the last time you were billed then click the subscription link at the top to cancel...

Obviously, we would prefer to see you remain with myshopkart - your success is our success. So if you have issues that you feel need to be resolved then please email us to see what can be done to have them resolved:

Contact MyShopKart Support

Within reason, we are ready to help anyone who needs it. But you have to take ownership of what is your responsibility. We can help you resolve technical & store use issues. But we can't solve the problems that are general " I don't know what to do" issues or make your site a success for you. Give us specific information on what you're trying to accomplish and we can definitely help you. The 1st place to start is by reading this help file - one read through will answer most questions. You can also email us when you feel the help faq doesn't answer your question.

If you do end up canceling your store, we'll be sorry to see you go and hope that you will keep your dream of having an ebiz alive. Use whatever you've learned from your myshopkart experience to guide you towards eventual success. Success is always achieved through numerous small failures. So don't get down on yourself - just find a better way to get to where you want.

As per the signup terms for myshopkart which clearly state on the last step before you paid for your myshopkart store, we do not provide refunds:

Subscriptions are billed upfront & are non-refundable but your MyShopKart site can be cancelled at anytime and billing will stop immediately. Please print this page for your records.

I have read & agree to these terms of service

Also remember that you agreed to be rebilled until such time as you cancel the service so be sure to cancel if you no longer want your website or you will be rebilled on the anniversary of your term. See an example of the paypal terms you agreed to during payment when you 1st signed up ( the term varies with whatever plan you setup - monthly,3MOs,6MOs,12MOs):

        Pay To: mikkema international
        Subscription To: Ecommerce Store

        Subscription Terms: $39.95 USD for each month
        Currency: U.S. Dollars
        Amount Paid Today: $39.95 USD

      Your subscription will automatically renew at the rates stated above unless you cancel prior to the end of the billing period.

I don't want to have a site off of myshopkart.net. Can I use my own domain name so that people can come to my store without seeing the myshopcart.net address?

Yes, you can use your own domain name. A domain name is useful because it means your visitors will see www.thenameyouchoose.com instead of www.myshopkart.net/yoursitename/ - it's both easier to remember & a little more professional looking. The domain name can be totally different from what you have named your site.

Just tell us what what domain name you want (below), then we'll register the domain & point it at your MyShopKart store (35$ setup fee)... You own & control the domain we setup for you though. So whether you continue to use the cart or not, the domain is yours to keep. If you want to use a domain name you already own, see the domain settings link in your myshopkart admin for what to do. Ask your domain registrar about it if you're unsure how to do it ( we cannot make changes to domains that are not registered/hosted by us).

If you setup the domain with us, we take care of that for you.

NB - we highly recommend you getting a domain through us because we can insure the domain gets properly integrated with your site since we manage both pieces( domain & site). we setup & integrate domains for our users all the time and we know how to set it up right. if you use another domain provider you'll have to deal with them in order to point the domain at your site & for many users this is a frustrating and time-consuming exercise. save yourself the headaches and get your domain through us...

order your domain here:

[enter domain name no spaces allowed]: and your siteid: then click

NB - Domain names can only contain letters, numbers and the hyphen "-" . Spaces and other characters are not allowed.

Once we receive your domain setup request, we'll register and integrate the domain with your shop - within 48 hrs. your domain will be live and you can access your shop via the domain name. Remember though, your shop administration panel can only be accessed via the myshopkart.net/yoursiteid/user/ link not via the domain. The domain is for your shop visitors not for admin work...

If I don't want to setup a domain now, can I still do that later?

Yes - you can add a domain at anytime - it's easy to integrate with an existing MyShopKart eStore. There is a link to setup a domain in every eStore admin right under View My Store...

How do I point my domain at a myshopkart store?

There are 2 methods to point a domain at a website - one method called framed fwding simply encloses the target site in a frame so that the domain name is always displayed in the address bar (like www.eshopkart.net) . This method has a downside in that some search engines don't like framed sites.

The 2nd method (like www.finddropshippers.net) is the more traditional method using DNS and is search engine friendly. If you have already setup a domain and it is using framed fwding and not DNS, you may want to consider changing to the DNS method. To find out which method you are using simply go to your domain name and see whether the addresses changes when you click on links in your site. If not then you are using framed fwding. In order to switch to the more search engine friendly method. Do the following:

Go to you domain control panel (if you got the domain name from us we have likely already set this up - to check go to http://access.enom.com/Default.asp & use the pwd we provided when we setup your domain).
If your domain is hosted by someone else other than us, then you should use the domain management page provided by your host to 1st park the domain, then make the changes as below. For godaddy you have to park the domain then use the total DNS management link to setup the host records. Each domain host is slightly different - you may need to call them to find out how to do what is described below.

Login to the domain - in the Hosts section you will see 2 entries for the domain that point at your site. Switch the Record Type to A (Address) then edit the address by entering 64.62.203.16 for both entries. Then scroll down to the bottom and apply the changes by clicking modify.

The setting you should end up with will look something like this:

DNS ( zonefile) Current host settings:

Host Name	Record Type	Address
@	A	64.62.203.16
www	A	64.62.203.16

You are not setting nameservers but rather using your domain hosts server to setup a zonefile ( A-record) to point at a specific myshopkart server IP address.

Then back in the domain settings area of your myshopkart admin, save your full domain name above as www.yourdomainname.com. Within 2 hours your site will work with the domain name without having to frame the site. If you are not clear on how to do this then just email us your domain name & we'll do it for you. If you have your domain registered with another registrar (not us), they can help you with this. Simply adapt the instructions above to make the changes and get your registrar's help if you're unsure of what to do.

NB - If you have trouble pointing your domain at your myshopkart site, we highly recommend you getting a domain through us because we can insure the domain gets properly integrated with your site since we manage both pieces( domain & site). we setup & integrate domains for our users all the time and we know how to set it up right. if you use another domain provider you'll have to deal with them in order to point the domain at your site & for many users this is a frustrating and time-consuming exercise. save yourself the headaches and get your domain through us...

order domain here

If I am unable to point my domain how do I transfer it to myshopkart's domain hosting?

If your current domain host is unable to assist you in setting up your domain to point at your myshopkart site, we can initiate a transfer to our domain hosting company ( enom ) which will allow us to point the domain at your site without issue. The transfer just changes who hosts the domain - you continue to be the owner of the domain and assert full control over it. Transferring it to our domain host simply allows us to point the domain at your myshopkart site and eliminates the hassle of having to deal with a 3rd party domain host.

Since there is some work/time required for us to make the transfer and point the domain we require a $29.95 transfer fee in order to do this. If you don't want to incur this fee, you can continue to work with your existing domain registrar to point the domain. To initiate a domain transfer, make sure your domain is not locked by the current registrar then order below.

Also your domain has to be 60 days old in order to be transferred - this is a required by the domain authority. If your domain is not yet 60 days old it cannot be transferred anywhere.

order a domain transfer here ( $29.95 fee ):

NB - make sure the domain name is correct and that it is not locked at the current host or the transfer will not go through and you'll have to order another transfer... Once we initiate the transfer, you will be sent a transfer request confirmation to the email listed as admin for this domain. Once you confirm the request, the domain will be transferred and we'll point it at your myshopkart site.

After the transfer request is initiated our host will request that your current domain host relinquish control of the domain. Your current host will send an email to the email address you used when you setup this domain - you must have access to this email or the transfer cannot occur. if you don't know how to access this email account login to your domain control panel and changed the email associated with your domain to an email you currently use. If you don't know how to access your domain control panel, talk to your current host.

What is a geotrust SSL secure site certificate and do I need one?

[This applies only to people who are using their own domain and a merchant account like WPP or authorize... If you are using paypal standard then you do not need an SSL cert because payment processing occurs on paypal's server which is using SSL]

An SSL cert is a security seal that insures that your site meets the security standards required to do payment processing from your website. These certs/seals are managed by a small number of Internet security authorities like Geotrust. Here's an example of the SSL seal setup at myshopkart:

Your site displays a default SSL seal and is already secure because myshopkart has an SSL cert setup for all users of the server. However because SSL certs are tied to one & one only specific domain name, the SSL cert we have setup for myshopkart will cause a warning for people who don't have their own SSL cert setup for their domain because the default SSL cert is registered to myshopkart.net and not their specific domain - the warning happens when buyers get to the checkout/payment page & looks like this:

[This warning will only appear for people who are asking buyers to enter CC numbers on their site and will not happen to paypal standard users]

In fact there is no problem with the security of the site - it's just that the name associated with the default certificate is myshopkart.net and not the domain of that user's site:

The only way around this warning is to setup your own SSL cert which will be registered in your domain name and which will not produce this warning. These SSL certs are quite expensive - geotrust charges 250USD for 1yr in order to provide the SSL cert and seal.

But myshopkart has been able to setup a relationship with GeoTrust which allows us to get a preferred rate - we can setup your premium SSL cert ( with geotrust seal ) for 185 USD. We'll aslo take care of all the details of getting your cert installed and configured on the server. If you want us to setup your own SSL cert, you can order it below

order your SSL cert here ( you must already have a domain name in order to set this up ):

Once we receive your setup request, we'll register and integrate the SSL cert with your domain - within 48 hrs. it will be live... Some myshopkart users don't care about this warning and don't want to setup their own SSL cert while others are adamant about getting rid of this warning message and go ahead with their own cert. It's really a matter of preference and budget...

If you already have our own cert then we will have to tranfer the cert to our server - because SSL requires server specific encryption processes, we have to generate a special file called a CSR which your cert provider must use to generate the cert - certs are not portable from one server to another. A new CSR must be used to regenerate the SSL cert whenever it moves from one server to another.

This process of generating the CSR and installing the cert entails several steps on our side which we charge a $35 fee for. If you want to use an existing SSL cert use this form to order an SSL transfer:

***** SSL UPDATE *****

SSL certs are confusing to many people. So I am going to try to explain a little about how they work and what options people have to deal with this issue.

There is no way to have a domain get SSL certification unless the domain
has a unique cert registered in the domain's name. We have a cert setup for all of
myshopkart.net users who use myshopkart.net/sitename/ to access or
drive traffic to the site. But when someone sets up their own domain,
there is no way for them to get SSL certification through our cert
( unless they use framed fwding ).

Each domain needs it's own cert - that is how certs work and why they
are useful - they are a digital fingerprint associated with a specific
domain. No service provider can provide a site with SSL and your own
domain that doesn't cause this warning if you don't have your own SSL
cert.

We only became aware of the security warning recently because previously
people were only using framed fwding to point their domains ( which does not
cause the warning). Then many users requested that they be able to point
domains via DNS so we added that feature. The security warning is a
bi-product of users using DNS to point the domain - there is no way to get
an SSL cert the covers multiple domains. That's the whole purpose of a cert:
to attest to a specific domain's security...

There are a few options people have that don't require their own certificate:

- use framed fwding to point your domain and there will be no security
warning

- use the full myshopkart.net/yoursite/ path to drive traffic

- use paypal standard to process payments

We realize that the cost of an SSL cert is not insignificant. But for those
who want to use DNS to point a domain at their myshopkart site along with
a merchant account like wpp or authorize.net, there is no alternative.

This is an issue that is a reality of the Internet and the rules that
govern site security. You can't have a social security number apply
to 2 people - unfortunately it's the same thing for SSL certs.

How do I get the geotrust SSL seal to display on other pages besides the checkout pages?

To display the geotrust logo at a location of your choice in your site, use the page editor in html mode ( click <> ) then paste this code in:

The save the page. That will bring the logo up wherever you place the above code.

********************************

If you have purchased your own SSL cert use the following code [use the page editor in html mode ( click <> ) then paste this code]:

********************************

How do I create my own logo for my store?

A logo is an image file that sits in the top left quadrant of your site. The default logo says myshopkart but you can create your own logo using free online tools like:

http://www.cooltext.com/

http://www.myimager.com/

http://www.3dtextmaker.com/

You simply punch in the text you want then pick some basics like color-size-style then click a button for a new logo.

Once you have a design you like, save the image to your PC ( right click on the image and select 'Save Picture' ). Then go to your store admin > general settings and click edit to upload your new logo. It took me all of 10 minutes to create these 2 samples:

http://www.myshopkart.net/apr28/
http://www.myshopkart.net/apr22/

So if you are looking for a basic text logo, check out these zero cost tools...

How do I link from my old site to my new myshopkart site or create regular links on my site?

Links are easy to do: 1st go to the page editor of your admin and determine which page you want to place the link on. Then click edit to access the editor - type the text you want visible as the link then select/highlight that text by dragging your mouse across it - then click the link button on the toolbar ( looks like a chain link ). Provide the web address that you want to link to and click OK. Then save the page you have edited and you'll be all set. This same thing can be done with banners or images - insert the image using the image tool then select it. Then click the link tool and do as above.

You can easily setup links from any existing site to your new site. 1st dermine where you want to link to on your myshopkart site by visiting the page you want to link to like for example the WEDDING SETS > WEDDING TOASTING FLUTES SET page on this demo site - that link is here http://www.myshopkart.net/bellissimo/default.php?cPath=224218_224220 in the http://www.myshopkart.net/bellissimo/ store. So that will be the link target the link will lead to. On your old site simply choose where you want to setup the link ( either a text link or an existing image on your site) and setup the link like so:

Check out our great hand-designed art glassware wedding set!

You can use whatever html editor you want to create the links - the html for the link above would look like this:

<a href="http://http://www.myshopkart.net/bellissimo/default.php?cPath=224218_224220" target="_blank">Check

out our great hand-designed art glassware wedding set!</a>

The same can be done with images on your old site - you can add text and have both the text and/or the image lead to your myshopkart site:

Check out our great hand-designed art glassware wedding set!

The html for the link above would look like this:

<p align="center"><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://http://www.myshopkart.net/bellissimo/default.php?cPath=224218_224220" target="_blank">Check

out our great hand-designed art glassware wedding set!</a></font></p>

This technique can be used to link to any page in your store ( main page, category pages or specific product pages ).