Business Logs

Helping companies communicate better

Alternatives to Multiply for Your Online Store

While ordering a birthday present for my sister last week, I realized that around 90% of the online shops I buy from are on Multiply. Now, I’ve always thought of Multiply as a personal social-networking site, more like Friendster and MySpace than Etsy. So why are so many people setting up shop on Multiply? Because it’s easy to use? I have nothing against Multiply, but the truth is that a default Multiply site is simply not meant for online stores. Which is why many of these Multiply shops post product listings under “Photos”, announcements under either “Blog” or “Notes”, and so forth. And then I thought maybe- just maybe- many people don’t know where else to set up an online shop?

Hence this post. If you’re looking to set up an online store, here are some alternative services to check out:

Etsy

I mentioned Etsy earlier, and am listing it first with good reason. Etsy is a community of online shops that sell handmade items- and that includes everything from t-shirts to soaps to toys. Setting up a shop is quick and easy, and there is a listing fee of 20 cents per listed item, and a 3.5% sales fee. But from everything I’ve seen, shops on Etsy do very well because they’ve built a good, active community of buyers and sellers.

Shopify or BigCartel

If something like Etsy isn’t for you, you might want to consider one of these “all-in” hosted solutions. These services take care of everything from hosting your shop to handling payment transactions for you. Set up is usually very simple, and both of these services offer great-looking shop templates, so you won’t have to worry about having an ugly shop. BigCartel has a free plan, limited to 5 products, and Shopify offers a 30-day free trial on any of their plans. BigCartel does not take any percentages of your sales, while Shopify takes anywhere from zero (for their highest priced plan) to 2% per transaction.

WordPress with a Plug-In

That’s right, you can set up an online shop using our favorite blog software. It’s as simple as installing a shopping cart plug-in such as WP e-Commerce (free), Shopp ($55 for a single shop), or Quick Shop (free and very lightweight).

eBay

Of course I couldn’t ignore eBay. Because it’s so well-known, your customers might be more comfortable buying from you- and a lot of people do have success selling on eBay. Their Basic plan is $15.95 a month, with a variety of fees depending on what items you’re selling and how.

How do you power your online store?

5 Useful WordPress Admin Plug-ins for Business Blogs

If you’re in charge of running your WordPress-powered business blog, you’ll love these five plug-ins. I like them because they make life easier for WordPress administrators, especially if you’re managing a blog with multiple users.

Dashboard Custom Menu

dashboard-custom-menu
This plug-in makes it easy to add a custom menu to your blog dashboard. As you can see from the screenshot above, you can add your own links (for example, other company sites or frequently accessed resources). You can also select who sees what, according to different user roles.

Dashboard Post-it

dashboard-postit
A must if you’re managing a multiple-user blog, this one gives you the ability to write short notes to other editors and authors. For something a little more powerful, there’s…

WP Task Manager

wp-taskmanager
WP Task Manager takes the post-it note idea a step further, allowing you to create tasks for all authors of your blog, including yourself. The plug-in comes with a special page that lists all tasks, and includes support for comments and discussions on each task.

Theme Test Drive

theme-testdrive
It’s always a good idea to test new WP themes- or changes to your current WP themes- before going live with them, especially on a business blog. This plug-in makes it easy to test drive themes from within your dashboard, so only you see the changes.

Easy Admin Color Themes

easy-admin-colorschemes
Finally, this one’s more for aesthetic reasons, letting you create and change the color schemes of your WP dashboard. Its settings include options for setting site-wide schemes, forcing schemes for certain users, and the ability to import pre-made admin color schemes. It’s a nice way to personalize your company blog dashboard in a small way.

What are your favorite WordPress Admin Plug-ins?

Weekend Blogging Tips

Most bloggers notice a drop in traffic on the weekends, and that’s natural: less people are online, less people are seeking information, on weekends. For that reason, many bloggers don’t post at all on weekends. But a lot of us- myself included- do blog on weekends. I do it mostly to prepare posts for the coming week, because it usually means the latter will be a lot less hectic for me. Feel like being a weekend blogger? Here are some tips:

Use the weekend for planning and drafting posts.

A useful tip especially for professional bloggers, who must turn out a certain number of posts during the week. With less distractions, and generally less going on online, weekends are perfect for researching material for your posts. It’s also a good time to discover interesting posts you might have missed in the past week- I’ve discovered many new posts- as well as blogs I never knew existed- on lazy weekends, simply by browsing through blogs I already subscribe to.

The weekend is great for scheduled posts.

If you’ve completed planning and drafting, and are ready to post but afraid no one will be around to read what you wrote, why not schedule the post for the upcoming week instead? Most, if not all, blogging platforms offer scheduled posts, and it’s easy to do once you know how.

Despite less traffic, people are still online.

Yes, the Internet is quieter on weekends, but there are definitely still people online- and if these people are in your niche, then you just might see a nice jump in traffic on weekends. For example, food blogs usually get visited on weekends by people searching for recipes to try out on weekends, or for dinner parties they might be throwing. Another thing to consider would be a “Weekend Roundup” of your favorite posts or links from the previous week.

Do you blog on weekends?

Five Ways to Tweak a WordPress Theme


Ah, free WordPress themes. I’m convinced they’re one of the biggest reasons WordPress is the most popular blogging platform today. From one-column minimalism to grid-based magazine layouts, photoblogging styles to made-for-Adsense themes, there are free WordPress themes for every taste- just download, install and activate!

But to set your blog apart, you’ll want to tweak that theme- and when I say tweak, I mean make small changes here and there. To make these tweaks to your theme of choice, a tool like the Firebug extension for Firefox can be very handy- but, really, any text editor will do.

  1. Tweak your header
    Usually the first place new visitors will look, and a good place to start. Some themes include “theme options” pages that show up when you’ve activated the theme, and others include banner photos or graphics that can easily be replaced with your own. If you’re using the default WordPress theme Kubrick, the aptly named Kubrickr will automatically find photos on Flickr for you to customize your header with. To get more in-depth, I recommend reading through WordPress’ official codex page on Designing Headers.
  2. Play with your widgets
    Most WordPress theme designers “widgetize” their themes, and for good reason: widgets are probably the quickest way to personalize a WordPress theme. Built-in widgets, available in every fresh installation of WordPress, include widgets for displaying your Archives, Calendar, Recent Comments and so forth- and And if the theme you love isn’t widgetized, you can do it yourself.
  3. Experiment with color
    Even slight changes to the colors on your site can have a big impact. Online tools such as the Color Scheme Designer can keep you busy for hours, or you can check out pre-made color schemes at sites like colr.org and GenoPal.
  4. Change your fonts
    We used to have just two choices when it came to web fonts: serif or sans-serif. Today, we have methods like sIFR and FLIR, which replace your fonts using Flash, the newish Cufon, which doesn’t require Flash, and CSS3’s @font-face, which works by downloading the specified fonts.
  5. Personalize your About page
    This one, which requires no CSS tweaking at all, just might be the most important way of all. Tweaking your About page, the only page that comes pre-built with WordPress, is where you can truly let your personality shine through. A photo of yourself is always good, but you should feel free to add anything here that shows the world- or your readers, at least- who you are. You can read more about tweaking your About page in a previous post of mine.

Of course, we’ve only barely scratched the surface of the ways you can tweak your WordPress theme. For more ways, the WordPress Codex is an excellent place to start.