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.
Friday, October 16, 2009
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.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Shopster Super Release
As of right now, the newest release of Shopster is live.
There was a ton of navigation changes to make getting around the site easier.
More importantly through, there are new ways to get access to interesting products to sell. On the main page of the Shopster Virtual Warehouse are a bunch of boxes which feature products.
By far the most interesting is the Price Drops box in top right can corner. Clicking this box will show you all the products with price drops in the last 24 hours. Currently, this list is not sortable by price drop amount (but hopefully will be in the next release), but it gives you a good indication of products that have good margin.
The 'What's New' box gives you the latest products added to the Shopster system. Since we get new products in every day (in reality, multiple times during the day), you can check this box every day and see new products. New products are great because it is less like they are already saturated on eBay or other storefronts.
Speaking of storefronts, we are finally dropping the term 'RShop' from the Shopster vocabulary. It makes a great database table name, but not so clear of a name for our subscribers.
There was a ton of navigation changes to make getting around the site easier.
More importantly through, there are new ways to get access to interesting products to sell. On the main page of the Shopster Virtual Warehouse are a bunch of boxes which feature products.
By far the most interesting is the Price Drops box in top right can corner. Clicking this box will show you all the products with price drops in the last 24 hours. Currently, this list is not sortable by price drop amount (but hopefully will be in the next release), but it gives you a good indication of products that have good margin.
The 'What's New' box gives you the latest products added to the Shopster system. Since we get new products in every day (in reality, multiple times during the day), you can check this box every day and see new products. New products are great because it is less like they are already saturated on eBay or other storefronts.
Speaking of storefronts, we are finally dropping the term 'RShop' from the Shopster vocabulary. It makes a great database table name, but not so clear of a name for our subscribers.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Is Shopster Any Good?
* Is Shopster any good?
* Is there a link to a Shopster review?
* How does Shopster compare to Doba, Megagoods, Dropship Direct, etc?
As you know, I work for Shopster, so I can't provide an unbiased review. I would suggest however, before you trust any dropship / wholesaler review, make sure to check the authenticity of the review site.
Check out a list of biased dropship reviews here:
http://www.scamreviewsites.com/
My best advice is to try the 1 week free trial. Make sure to cancel before the end of the first week, or you will be charged. The first week is 100% free. This means, if you cancel before the week is up you won't be charged a single penny.
* Is there a link to a Shopster review?
* How does Shopster compare to Doba, Megagoods, Dropship Direct, etc?
As you know, I work for Shopster, so I can't provide an unbiased review. I would suggest however, before you trust any dropship / wholesaler review, make sure to check the authenticity of the review site.
Check out a list of biased dropship reviews here:
http://www.scamreviewsites.com/
My best advice is to try the 1 week free trial. Make sure to cancel before the end of the first week, or you will be charged. The first week is 100% free. This means, if you cancel before the week is up you won't be charged a single penny.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Increase RShop Traffic with Sitemaps
Updated Oct. 17th, 2008: Good news! There is now a feature within Shopster to general the sitemap.xml file for you. After logging in, go to Promote Store, Submit to Search Engines
RShops and Sitemaps
One of the toughest problems you'll face in creating a profitable RShop is generating traffic to your website. The first step is to make sure Google, Yahoo, and all other search engines are aware of your site. That way, if a person is using Google to search for products, there is a chance your RShop will be in the search results.
Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live become aware of new web sites by following links from existing pages. Unless you've linked to your new RShop from a personal website or blog, and a search engine has followed the link to your RShop, your RShop may be never been found by the search engines.
Creating and uploading a Sitemap solves this problem. A Sitemap is a file which contains all the links in your website. You manually direct a search engine to your Sitemap file. Best of all, it's free!
While not technically difficult, there a number of steps to use a Sitemap.
For my example, I will use www.google.com. At the end of the post are links to other search engines which can also read Sitemap files.
Step 1: Register a Search Engine Account
Step 2: Verify your RShop with the Search Engine
While not technically a prerequisite for Steps 3 & 4, the first thing you should do it verify you are the owner of the RShop. This will let you see if your site is currently indexed by Google or not.
Step 3: Generate and Upload the Sitemap file to your RShop
I'm ashamed to admit Shopster does not generate this file for you. You'll have to user a third party tool. I used xml-sitemaps.com.
Step 4: Get the Search Engine to Read the Sitemap File
By this step, you have now verified your RShop with the search engine, and make available a Sitemap file available on your RShop.
Now that you have a Sitemap for your RShop, you should let the other search engines know about it. Here are some links:
Yahoo! Site Explorer (https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit)
Microsoft's MSN Search (http://webmaster.live.com/)
Ask.com (http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/webmasters.shtml#22)
RShops and Sitemaps
One of the toughest problems you'll face in creating a profitable RShop is generating traffic to your website. The first step is to make sure Google, Yahoo, and all other search engines are aware of your site. That way, if a person is using Google to search for products, there is a chance your RShop will be in the search results.
Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live become aware of new web sites by following links from existing pages. Unless you've linked to your new RShop from a personal website or blog, and a search engine has followed the link to your RShop, your RShop may be never been found by the search engines.
Creating and uploading a Sitemap solves this problem. A Sitemap is a file which contains all the links in your website. You manually direct a search engine to your Sitemap file. Best of all, it's free!
While not technically difficult, there a number of steps to use a Sitemap.
- Register a search engine account (i.e. www.google.com).
- Verify your RShop with the Search Engine.
- Generate and Upload the Sitemap file to your RShop.
- Get the Search Engine to Read the Sitemap File.
For my example, I will use www.google.com. At the end of the post are links to other search engines which can also read Sitemap files.
Step 1: Register a Search Engine Account
- Go to Google's Webmaster Tools page (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/)
- If you don't have a Google account, you'll have to create one.
Step 2: Verify your RShop with the Search Engine
While not technically a prerequisite for Steps 3 & 4, the first thing you should do it verify you are the owner of the RShop. This will let you see if your site is currently indexed by Google or not.
- Login to Google's Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/)
- On the Dashboard page (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard) under Sites, add your RShop's site. For example: 'thryva.secure2u.com'
- Under Next Step, click the Verify your Site link. (The same link is also available on the Dashboard page next to your site's name.)
- The page will say, Verification status: NOT VERIFIED.
- For 'Choose verification method..' choose the Upload an HTML file.
- Open Notepad, or any other text editor, and save a empty file with a file name specified by Google. Mine looks like "googleced35171b031861b.html". What is important is the file name, and not the actual contents of the file (it makes no different if the file is empty or not).
- Open a new browser (will be returning to the current page later), and log in to your Shopster account (http://service.shopster.com/).
- In the top navigation bar, click the EDIT RSHOP link.
- From the left navigation panel, click the RShop Settings label to expand the menu choices.
- Click the File Manager link.
- You show now be on the RShop Settings: File Manager page. If you aren't, cheat by pasting this URL in your browser (http://service.shopster.com/retailer/designer/managefiles.aspx).
- Make sure under the Current Folder panel, you see "/ Root /". If it is longer than this, make sure to click the Root link.
- Under the Files panel, click the Browse button, and select the file you created in Step 5 (the empty file whose name is like 'googleced35171b031861b.html').
- Click Open and the path to the file should now be in the text box to the left of the Browse button.
- Click Upload File link to the right of the Browse button.
- Your verification HTML file is now uploaded.
- Switch back to your original browser displaying the Google Webmaster Tools - Verify a Site page.
- Click Verify.
- If all went smoothly, your RShop should be verified. You can check this by going back to the Dashboard page and looking at the Verified? column. It should be a green checkmark.
Step 3: Generate and Upload the Sitemap file to your RShop
I'm ashamed to admit Shopster does not generate this file for you. You'll have to user a third party tool. I used xml-sitemaps.com.
- One xml-sitemaps.com home page, in the Starting URL text box, enter in your RShop's URL. In my case, 'http://thryva.secure2u.com/'.
- I choose Change frequency to 'Monthly', but choose what most actively describes how often you will be updated your RShop.
- Leave default choices for the rest of the options and click 'Start'.
- Note that the 'free' version of their generator will only allow up to 500 pages.
- Once it finishes, download the sitemap.xml file to your computer.
- If you have more than one RShop, you should name the file to
-sitemap.xml, because the files you upload to your RShops are stored in the same directory, and you will need one sitemap file for each RShop. - You will now want to upload the Sitemap file to your RShop exactly in the same way you uploaded your verification HTML file in the previous set of instructions. (go to http://service.shopster.com/retailer/designer/managefiles.aspx and upload file to root directory).
- You will now want to upload the Sitemap file to your RShop exactly in the same way you uploaded your verification HTML file in the previous set of instructions. (go to http://service.shopster.com/retailer/designer/managefiles.aspx and upload file to root directory).
Step 4: Get the Search Engine to Read the Sitemap File
By this step, you have now verified your RShop with the search engine, and make available a Sitemap file available on your RShop.
- Log in to Google's Webmaster Tools. (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/)
- From the Dashboard, choose your RShop's site and under the Sitemap column click Add link.
- For 'Choose Type...' choose Add General Web Sitemap.
- In the text box, enter the file name of the Sitemap you uploaded to your RShop. This is either 'sitemap.xml' or '
-sitemap.xml'. - Click the 'Add General Web Sitemap button'
- Google should now tell you your Sitemap status is 'Pending'. Google will eventually use your sitemap to add your RShop to its search engine. Once done, you can use Webmaster Tools to see how your site is being found through Google searches.
- Click the 'Add General Web Sitemap button'
Now that you have a Sitemap for your RShop, you should let the other search engines know about it. Here are some links:
Yahoo! Site Explorer (https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit)
Microsoft's MSN Search (http://webmaster.live.com/)
Ask.com (http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/webmasters.shtml#22)
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