After almost 5 years at Shopster, I've accepted a new job in my home town of Vancouver. I am going to miss all the people, as everyone has been terrific. Shopster is now well positioned to take advantages of the new opportunities in e-commerce, and I am proud to have been part of that.
While this blog has never really been that popular, and this will be the last entry, I hope it has been useful to the people it has reached, and I wish you success in your online enterprises.
Good bye and good luck!
Neil
Friday, March 5, 2010
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Funki Friends
At the last Festival of Crafts here in Calgary, AB, I mean Elena, who makes Funki Friends sock toys. I thought it would be neat to create a store from here products.
Click here to take a look: Funki Friends Store
Click here to take a look: Funki Friends Store
Friday, November 27, 2009
Shopster Community Launches
Shopster has lauched a new community-powered support system (powered by Get Satisfaction) for Shopster.
If you have a Power Merchant account, click on the 'Community' tab on the top navigation.
Basically, you enter the question you have, and it then presents similar questions and answers. If none of the answers what you are looking for, you can submit it as a new question.
As employees, we've started putting in common questions and answers we've gotten before, to get the ball rolling.
I recently submitted one question "What's the easiest way to receive payments by credit card?" and then posted my answer here.
This week, I also helped one of our Power Merchants import a large number of products using our new datafeed standard.
Our new datafeed standard always Power Merchants not only to import their products easily into the wareouse, but also automatically creates the categories for their store, and sets the price.
One interesting aspect was that the merchant wanted to put pricing information directly in the product descriptions, but that pricing information was specific to the consumer's price in their store. To do this, I added an undocumented additional column called StoreShortDescription, which had their store specific description, while ShortDescription carried the general description for the warehouse.
After importing the data, I then manually set their store descriptions different from the descriptions in the warehouse.
If you have a Power Merchant account, click on the 'Community' tab on the top navigation.
Basically, you enter the question you have, and it then presents similar questions and answers. If none of the answers what you are looking for, you can submit it as a new question.
As employees, we've started putting in common questions and answers we've gotten before, to get the ball rolling.
I recently submitted one question "What's the easiest way to receive payments by credit card?" and then posted my answer here.
This week, I also helped one of our Power Merchants import a large number of products using our new datafeed standard.
Our new datafeed standard always Power Merchants not only to import their products easily into the wareouse, but also automatically creates the categories for their store, and sets the price.
One interesting aspect was that the merchant wanted to put pricing information directly in the product descriptions, but that pricing information was specific to the consumer's price in their store. To do this, I added an undocumented additional column called StoreShortDescription, which had their store specific description, while ShortDescription carried the general description for the warehouse.
After importing the data, I then manually set their store descriptions different from the descriptions in the warehouse.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Finding Great Products to Sell Made Easier
Finding Great Products to Sell Made Easier
I’ve been working on a very interesting feature lately, which has launched without much fanfare, but is really cool.
Long time users of the Shopster E-Commerce platform can acknowledge that finding products from our huge virtual warehouse has been a challenge in the past. You could spend every second for an entire year (without sleeping) looking at each product and still not see everything (at only 10 seconds a product).
Under the new Merchant Network model, you choose the suppliers who have products you are interested in. Based on your local context, Shopster now generates daily the list of new products added, and products which have dropped in price.
This means, within 24 hours (or less) of a supplier making a new product available, you can have that product available for sale in your store, or for drop shipping.
How it works:
1. Supplier makes a new product available on their website.
2. Shopster picks up that new product (as fast as within 1 hour for some suppliers) and makes it available to you in our warehouse.
3. Every morning, the system finds all new products added by suppliers in your network, and generates a Network Activity message for you.
4. Next time you log in, under Network Activity, you will see a new message like:
Audio, Mobile, Gaming and More has added 12 new products.
5. Clicking on the link takes you straight to the 12 new products, where you can instantly add them to your store, or purchase them for drop shipping.
With this level of automation, you can be one of the first (if not THE FIRST), person to have that product for sale on the entire internet.
Try adding Books, DVDs, CDs and Video Games or Audio, Mobile, Gaming and More to your network to see this feature in action.
Currently, Network Activity informs you of new products, price drops, and partner updates to their profiles, with more to come.
If you haven't signed up with Shopster yet, you can still test out this feature with a free account.
I’ve been working on a very interesting feature lately, which has launched without much fanfare, but is really cool.
Long time users of the Shopster E-Commerce platform can acknowledge that finding products from our huge virtual warehouse has been a challenge in the past. You could spend every second for an entire year (without sleeping) looking at each product and still not see everything (at only 10 seconds a product).
Under the new Merchant Network model, you choose the suppliers who have products you are interested in. Based on your local context, Shopster now generates daily the list of new products added, and products which have dropped in price.
This means, within 24 hours (or less) of a supplier making a new product available, you can have that product available for sale in your store, or for drop shipping.
How it works:
1. Supplier makes a new product available on their website.
2. Shopster picks up that new product (as fast as within 1 hour for some suppliers) and makes it available to you in our warehouse.
3. Every morning, the system finds all new products added by suppliers in your network, and generates a Network Activity message for you.
4. Next time you log in, under Network Activity, you will see a new message like:
Audio, Mobile, Gaming and More has added 12 new products.
5. Clicking on the link takes you straight to the 12 new products, where you can instantly add them to your store, or purchase them for drop shipping.
With this level of automation, you can be one of the first (if not THE FIRST), person to have that product for sale on the entire internet.
Try adding Books, DVDs, CDs and Video Games or Audio, Mobile, Gaming and More to your network to see this feature in action.
Currently, Network Activity informs you of new products, price drops, and partner updates to their profiles, with more to come.
If you haven't signed up with Shopster yet, you can still test out this feature with a free account.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Shopster's Network Continues to Grow
Shopster's network is continuing to grow, with new people and products coming in everyday.
It seems that momentum towards Christmas is starting to build, and preliminary data is showing a pickup in activity and sales.
Personally, I wrote the code for the new "Buy Now" button, which makes it easier to purchase products if you are a pure dropshipper. (Previously, you had to add a product to your store inventory before being able to move it into the shopping cart).
I've recently helped some of our suppliers update their inventory in our virtual warehouse, and here's some highlights.
"Audio, Mobile, Gaming & More" continues to update their cellphones (both locked and unlocked), and has recently added a fresh supply of T-Mobile Sidekicks.
"Poker, Tools, As Seen On TV" has recently added Airsoft guns and accessories, as well as Star Wars merchandise.
Both "Bath & Beauty 2" and "Bath & Beauty 7" continue to add new fragrances on a daily basis, and continue to be retailer favorites.
It seems that momentum towards Christmas is starting to build, and preliminary data is showing a pickup in activity and sales.
Personally, I wrote the code for the new "Buy Now" button, which makes it easier to purchase products if you are a pure dropshipper. (Previously, you had to add a product to your store inventory before being able to move it into the shopping cart).
I've recently helped some of our suppliers update their inventory in our virtual warehouse, and here's some highlights.
"Audio, Mobile, Gaming & More" continues to update their cellphones (both locked and unlocked), and has recently added a fresh supply of T-Mobile Sidekicks.
"Poker, Tools, As Seen On TV" has recently added Airsoft guns and accessories, as well as Star Wars merchandise.
Both "Bath & Beauty 2" and "Bath & Beauty 7" continue to add new fragrances on a daily basis, and continue to be retailer favorites.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Shopster Merchant Network
So, this morning Shopster has quietly released the latest features in Shopster, branded Shopster Merchant Network. Personally, I like Shopster Social better.
What's different? Pretty much everything. It was a huge code release, the biggest in Shoptser's history, and I'm glad it is finally out the door.
Some of the notable changes in this release are:
1) You can finally add your own products, and are not limited to products supplied by our integrated suppliers.
2) Money collected from sales goes directly into your payment gateway (Authorize.NET, PayPal, BeanStream, etc.) instead of passing through us.
3) You can build your own network of relationships, decided whose products you want to sell (including your own), and who can sell your products.
One of the biggest changes you'll notice is the Power Merchant application is built around people, not products. View other people's profiles, view their products, and start building relationships. Starting with My Space, and now Facebook and Twitter the Internet has become more personal, and Shopster provides the platform for managing your business relationships with the same ease of use as managing your personal relationships.
You'll notice a 'Beta' sticker next to the Network tab in the application. It's not really 'Beta' in the sense of being unstable. It is marked 'Beta' because we want to be open to the direction set by our users in how they want to Network to work.
The traditional roles of supplier, retailer, and consumer have become blurred. How do you classify someone on Etsy who buys a leather band for another Etsy member, adds their custom silver charm, and then sells it on their store? or a big supplier who provides bulk sales to store, drop ships for eBay sellers, and also has their own direct sales store?
Click here to give it a try, without needing a credit card.
What's different? Pretty much everything. It was a huge code release, the biggest in Shoptser's history, and I'm glad it is finally out the door.
Some of the notable changes in this release are:
1) You can finally add your own products, and are not limited to products supplied by our integrated suppliers.
2) Money collected from sales goes directly into your payment gateway (Authorize.NET, PayPal, BeanStream, etc.) instead of passing through us.
3) You can build your own network of relationships, decided whose products you want to sell (including your own), and who can sell your products.
One of the biggest changes you'll notice is the Power Merchant application is built around people, not products. View other people's profiles, view their products, and start building relationships. Starting with My Space, and now Facebook and Twitter the Internet has become more personal, and Shopster provides the platform for managing your business relationships with the same ease of use as managing your personal relationships.
You'll notice a 'Beta' sticker next to the Network tab in the application. It's not really 'Beta' in the sense of being unstable. It is marked 'Beta' because we want to be open to the direction set by our users in how they want to Network to work.
The traditional roles of supplier, retailer, and consumer have become blurred. How do you classify someone on Etsy who buys a leather band for another Etsy member, adds their custom silver charm, and then sells it on their store? or a big supplier who provides bulk sales to store, drop ships for eBay sellers, and also has their own direct sales store?
Click here to give it a try, without needing a credit card.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Latest Shopster Release
Ahh.. Friday afternoon after a mid-week launch. The perfect time to reflect on what went right, what went wrong, and what can wait till Monday... :)
So, in case you haven't received the latest Shopster Newsletter, a major release went out mid this week. I worked on two key features, the ability to export order data out of the Shopster system, and into your own data analysis application (a.k.a. Excel), and the ability to reactivate your account.
Before now, to reactivate your Shopster account, you had to call customer support. Now, you can do so by simply trying to log in again with your email address and password. The system will tell you if your account is currently cancelled, and ask you if you want to reactivate.
Currently, if you reactivate through the automated system, you get an additional 1 week trial. Note that there is a limit on the number of times you are allowed to reactivate, so please don't abuse this system thinking you can cancel and reactivate every week for free service.
For the order export utility, we had to made some hard decisions in how the data should be formatted for export. Currently, the system lets you export order data out for the last 3 months. You can choose to export out in Excel, PDF, or comma delimited format (CSV). An interesting report is the Product Statistics report which gives you summary product information over all your orders in a given month. If this feature is well received, I hope to be able to offer more analytical reports for export, rather than just raw data.
For the first time, a Shopster e-Commerce subscriber can export out their customer's full information related to an order, including the email address, billing and shipping addresses, and contact information.
If you are a e-Commerce subscriber, the reports are available through:
Storefront Channel, Manage Store, Download Reports
If you are a Product Source subscriber, the reports are available through:
Product Export Channel (or eBay Channel), Manage Orders, Download Reports
Now that the release is out the door, I'm going to have to address the backlog of business intelligence requests sitting in my Inbox.
So, in case you haven't received the latest Shopster Newsletter, a major release went out mid this week. I worked on two key features, the ability to export order data out of the Shopster system, and into your own data analysis application (a.k.a. Excel), and the ability to reactivate your account.
Before now, to reactivate your Shopster account, you had to call customer support. Now, you can do so by simply trying to log in again with your email address and password. The system will tell you if your account is currently cancelled, and ask you if you want to reactivate.
Currently, if you reactivate through the automated system, you get an additional 1 week trial. Note that there is a limit on the number of times you are allowed to reactivate, so please don't abuse this system thinking you can cancel and reactivate every week for free service.
For the order export utility, we had to made some hard decisions in how the data should be formatted for export. Currently, the system lets you export order data out for the last 3 months. You can choose to export out in Excel, PDF, or comma delimited format (CSV). An interesting report is the Product Statistics report which gives you summary product information over all your orders in a given month. If this feature is well received, I hope to be able to offer more analytical reports for export, rather than just raw data.
For the first time, a Shopster e-Commerce subscriber can export out their customer's full information related to an order, including the email address, billing and shipping addresses, and contact information.
If you are a e-Commerce subscriber, the reports are available through:
Storefront Channel, Manage Store, Download Reports
If you are a Product Source subscriber, the reports are available through:
Product Export Channel (or eBay Channel), Manage Orders, Download Reports
Now that the release is out the door, I'm going to have to address the backlog of business intelligence requests sitting in my Inbox.
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