Quick Savings: Canon XSi Coupon code $60 off

Posted on September 24th, 2008 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing.

Just a quick post since I’ve talked about my Canon XTi camera before (I still love it by the way).

However the newer version has been out for awhile now and has gotten great reviews (and some of my jealousy I must admit), its the Canon XSi and its got 12.2 Megapixels (great for making those calendar prints, etc).

If you’d like one for your business (see my past post about the XTi) Here’s the coupon code:

$60 off EOS Rebel XSi Black 12.2 MP 3X Zoom Digital Camera! Coupon Code: SZT8CS0RVR2HMJ

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eBay and your PoD shop - Making Auctions Do Double Duty

Posted on December 9th, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing, Print on Demand.

I was an eBay seller before I was a CafePress shopkeeper, not a serious seller, just a casual person selling things I owned.

Once I had a few CafePress shops I tried selling some of my CafePress items and didn’t do that well (broke even or didn’t sell the item). I didn’t have an eBay store set up though, I just did normal listings with non html descriptions so the auction presentation admittedly could’ve been a lot better. So in the end it was not really worth it in terms of sheer profit on an item when I still had to pay the base price for the item plus eBay fees.

However, I still occasionally list things on eBay because I think of my auctions more as an advertising expense than a pure profit generator. Here are my reasons why I think of them this way:

1. I mention my store in my About Me page

It is not OK with eBay to put your store link in the auction listing itself but you can add it to your About Me page. By the way, it is also not OK to say in your auction listing “Go to my About Me page for a link to my store”.

2. When I ship out an item I include a link to my store on the packing slip

I use PayPal to generate packing slips for me and I put my thanks and my store url in the area they provide for a note.

3. When I ship out an item I include a flier / catalog type page that promotes related items in my shop.

I’ve created a few versions of a single sheet flier that showcases different items in my shop. I include a coupon code when one is available.

What I haven’t done yet is include information about signing up for my shop’s newsletter. I should add that to the flier I think.

Note that the above methods work even if you are not auctioning off items you actually sell in your shop. I am auctioning off collectible figurines related to my store theme. Chances are if they like an X figurine they may like a t-shirt or sticker or hat, etc about X as well.

At any rate, I tend to use eBay when I can sell things in a batch (less post office trips) and/or when they have a special going on. For example right now they have a free Gallery option until December 12th.

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Ebay No Listing Fees for a Month

Posted on August 31st, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing.

If you wanted to try them out for selling your stuff, now till September 30th is the time to do it.

The “catch” is that you have to buy the Gallery feature to get the free listing and have the start price at $9.99 or less.

However, in my opinion, when selling a product, Gallery is an essential purchase. You also still have to pay a Final Value fee and you’re going to likely want to have the Gallery picture option, but still, free listing is nice.

They are also doing a 25% discount on listing fees if you want your starting bid to be $10 or higher as well.

I use eBay mainly to try to get my stuff in front of new customers so to me I look at it as a marketing endeavor as well as a way to sell off extra inventory I have.

Some more details:

When is it?
Starting Wednesday August 29, 2007 between 00:00:01 PT (12:00 AM plus one second on August 29, 2007) and ending on Sunday September 30, 2007 at 23:59:59 PT(11:59 PM plus 59 seconds).

Can I use Reserve?
Yes you can use Reserve with your listings. However, if your start price is under $10 and your reserve price is $10 or more, you will receive 25% off your insertion fee.

Full details.

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Instant Domain Search Tool

Posted on July 9th, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing, Website Tips.

While you can go to many places to see if a domain is taken or not, this tool is fast and shows you the domain status instantly as you type it. The other bonus is that your searches are kept private. This is an important factor because some domain registrar companies have been accused of grabbing domains folks have searched for, in which one person is just testing out searches, decides to sleep on it and then comes back to find out the domains were bought.

Handy when you’re trying to find a name for your latest website.

Instant Domain Search

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Quick Country Code Lookup Tool

Posted on June 1st, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing, General Business.

Made the boyfriend code this country code tool for me (he also wanted to try out Ruby on Rails). I’ve got the most popular country codes memorized but when something new comes up it’s fun to find out what new country will have a citizen sporting one of my shirts :)

There are already lists of country codes out there but this tool lets you just plug in the 2 digit code and hit return (or the “Go!” button on the page ) to find your answer.

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Music Video Maker Automatically Sets Pics to the Beat

Posted on May 8th, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing.

So, as is my wont, I was checking out the latest web2.0 sites and found fliptrack which lets you make a slide show from pictures. Yeah, nothing new. But they provide music to go with it. Still not new. And, it is automatically set up to play your pics to the beat. Ok that’s new.

What else is new is that the site has gone through the trouble of dealing with licensing issues so you can legally share these videos on MySpace, Blogger, etc.

I made a quick video to test them out. I used their desktop application (you can do it all online too). The interface was decent, especially for a free program. You could actually create your own timing just by clicking and dragging frames though I stayed with their suggestions for the most part. They had the option of using effects as well so yes, you too can do a star shaped transition effect ;) Unfortunately for Mac-only folks they only have a Windows version right now so you’ll have to do it all online.

Though I was tempted to use the “Scooby Doo” theme (and maybe I still will later), I chose the song “Too Sexy” for the fun, cheese factor. The concert pics are ones I took during SOE’s FanFaire in Atlanta last year. Good times. Url link to video: http://www.fliptrack.com/watch/QDLl85LBzq

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eComXpo Last Day

Posted on March 22nd, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing, General Business.

Sorry for not posting earlier. This online conference is here: http://www.ecomxpo.com google around to see if you can get a free pass. They have presentations where you can ask live questions but they also have on demand presentations and show and booth prizes. This is my third or fourth time attending.

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Easy Visual Site Statistics - Crazy Egg

Posted on March 10th, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing, Website Tips.

So I’ve been testing out statistics tracker, Crazy Egg for a few months now.

I’ve been quite happy with them and have been meaning to do a positive write up on them, but with a recent addition to their service they have gotten even better!

In a nut shell (or should I say eggshell?) Crazy Egg gives you statistics you can find through other services, but it does it with a great visual interface which shows you visitor habits in a very intuitive way. There are three main tools, all are shown first over a live picture of your website page.

They have a heat map overlay, a list of what links got clicked the most, and then an overlay with clicks and stats coming off as “flags” from links. The new addition to their service is also on this “flag” — it’s a “More” option which shows referring links. So, for example you can see a “flag” on a link to a t-shirt and then be able to conclude that, “People who clicked on this came to the web page because they typed in “T-shirts” in google.

It’s a brilliant service and the free version allows you 5000 visits a month. The whole thing works like other trackers, you insert some javascript and then visit their website to view the overlays.

I’ve used it to test two versions of my homepage and found it quite easy to see the impact in my changes.

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CafeTool Box Now Free - Create a Feed for Google Base

Posted on January 22nd, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing, Google, CafePress.

CafePress Premium Shopowners, you now have another free option for creating a Google Base product feed, CafeTool Box.
Previously the only free option was Adam’s Instant Cafe Feeder.

I’ve not used CafeTool Box yet but the word is that it works great. I have made feeds with Instant Cafe Feeder and was quite pleased with it, especially on how it handled my largest shop.

If you’re not sure about what these tools are for, they are for creating feeds to submit to Google Base, Google’s shopping and user submitted information website. You can get a great response if you have items titled well and on topics that folks often search for. You can read more about Google Base here.

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99 Tips for Poor Web StartUps from Aviva Directory

Posted on January 11th, 2007 by thetshirtnexus.
Categories: Marketing.

This a lengthy article so you might want to read it in spurts. I haven’t finished reading it all myself but there is some good solid advice here. I noticed Text Link Ads, which I had mentioned in a recent post is also in there.
Tip o’ the Hat to my friend Jean for sharing this bit.

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