adventures in ecommerce

I decided to try wordpress at an ecommerce solution because of the fantastic framework, adaptability and growing number of plugin. I didn't find a lot of good shopping cart plugins available when I embarked on builing my site, http://kitchenandlaundry.com a few months ago. The best available was the WP Shopping Cart (3.4.6 beta). Out of the box, it provides a lot of good functionality, a nice interface for adding products, paypal integration, and it’s easy to modify the layout using CSS.

All that being said, I've had the following difficulties with the plugin:

• SEO and indexing - I thought that this would be a big benefit for using wordpress but none of my product pages have been ranked by google and it appears that they overall structure is difficult for indexing. As a result, most of the traffic to my website kitchenandlaundry.com has been through Google adwords and not organic search.
• Compatibility with other plug-ins - There are some fantastic plugins available for Wordpress but they may not necessarily work with the wp shopping cart. The reason is that instead of using “posts” to represent products the plugin creates a new set of database tables and functions. As a result, Wordpress plugins designed to function on posts may not work.
• Tracking products - From the shopping cart control panel, its tough to see how many times a given item has been viewed, added to the cart, etc. You can do this through google analytics if you setup a funnel.
• RSS product feed - I'm sure this has been added, but at the time I installed it wasn't available.
  Documentation - If you want to modify the functionality of the plug-in, you are basically on your own. This is understandable as the company wants you to buy their upgrades in order to add functionality.
• User community - Still very small compared to oscommerce & zend cart.
• Users accounts - Oscommerce does this very well as customers can login and check their order status, address book, etc. It may not be a big deal if you aren't interested in repeat customers.
  

I’m sure a lot has changed since 3.4.6 beta and I’m interested to hear what other people’s experiences have been with wp shopping cart. Any suggestions?

amazon zshop

I was burned by amazon marketplace and I would not recommend their service to anyone. The review and comment system gives absolute power to the buyer and leaves the seller little or no recourse if dissputes occur.

Trying out amazon.com zshops

I signed up as an Amazon seller last week to help augment the sales of my main webpage http://cceshop.com. For $39, Amazon sellers can list products for sale on the main Amazon market place website, as a stand alone web zshop, or as an auction site. Signup was very easy and they provide a suite of tools to help you import your products, prices, and inventory into their system.

You can find my zshop at www.amazon.com/shops/cceshop

Live traffic condition for Portland, Oregon on your cell

Google recently announced Google Map Mobile will provide live traffic data for Portland, Oregon and 30 other cities in the US via cell phones. I decided to try it out of my Blackberry and share some of my findings with you.
To download and use Google maps, open the following link on your phone, http://google.com/gmm. If you hate typing on your cell, try sending the link as an email or SMS text to your phone. Otherwise, open your phone’s browser and enter the URL. You should be prompted to confirm installation. If you have trouble with the setup, check the compatibility list at http://www.google.com/gmm/index.html.
Assuming that you have the application installed, you’ll need to start Google maps. On my phone it was installed under the “Applications” folder.

Your first task is to find Portland, Oregon on the map. There are a couple of ways to do this: Panning or “Finding a Business” / “Finding a location”. Each is discussed briefly below.
Panning is best used for when you are performing precise selection or fine tuned movement across a small portion of the Google map.
My phone had the following key mapping for navigation:Key Direction5 Pan up8 Down7 Left9 Right
The screen is updated as you pan and requires your phone to perform more frequent requests to Google to update the screen. Note method may prove costly depending on your service agreement and if you per Kb/MB. I suggest you give panning a try just to get the hang of it. Next try Finding a Location using Google maps.
Finding a Business/location is typically the easiest way to navigate to a specific address on the map. This feature is extremely useful if you get lost going someplace and are too embarrassed to ask or call for directions. To use this feature, you’ll need to select “Find Location” option and select then “Enter an address” from the resulting window. Type a valid street address using the touch pad and press the enter key. If you’ve entered a valid address, the map will center upon it and the address will be stored on your phone for future searches in the “Recent places” menu. I suggest looking up the address of your house so that it can be used in subsequent searches. .
Now that you have found a valid address, it should be displayed on the map. If you’d like to save the address in your favorite places for quick searches later press the 2 key. Scroll to “Save as a favorite”.
Ready to see live traffic conditions? Ok, select “Show Traffic” and wait patiently as the Google Map web service performs its magic.
Now your phone will be annotated will green and red lines indicating update to date traffic conditions. To get a more detailed look try zooming in on the map using the 6 key to Zoom in and the 4 Key to Zoom out
This post just scratches the surface of what you can do with Google maps mobile. For more more details , check out the Google Maps mobile website at
Drop me a line and let me know how accurate the live traffic service is during your commute home on The Sunset. cell driving Google map mobile

Web Hosting, Advertising, Keywords

A friend asked me about how to get his website listed on google and yahoo. I thought I would share a summary of what I wrote .

Submitting URL to search engine for free
http://www.google.com/addurl/
http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request

www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps - Submit a sitemap that allows google to efficiently index your website content. It requires you to create a robot.txt file and verify that you are owner of the site. There are two verification methods, uploading a html files with a provided name or including a meta tag in your header. You site must be verified before you can use the tools mentioned below.

The site also provides statics about your site, how/when its been last "crawled", pages that have been indexed, etc.

Checking keywords.
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ - Give this one a try and see how many hits your keywords will generate.
Google has another great tool for keywords research. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?defaultView=3

Cheap Domains (No web hosting included)
http://order.sbs.yahoo.com/ds/ChooseDomain?d=&.p=YD1&m=dom&.src=sbs&.promo=PASSPORTPLUS Yahoo! Small business. Domains cost $3 for the first year. However, it goes up after that! I bought one domain with them and the service is pretty good
http://godaddy.com domains cost $6.95. I’ve bought a couple of domains with them and they have good customer service.
http://www.ipower.com – Domains cost $2.95 but I’ve heard the customer service is kind of iffy.

Amazon Instant Ecommerce Website

Amazon is offering free Web hosting of your e-commerce bookstore. Or you can sell any other kind of merchandise except the usual prohibited stuff like firearms and pornography. Amazon hasn't announced this program yet. It's still in beta, but you can sign up here.I've got to admit, I never saw this coming. It's a bold move by Amazon, and a huge counterpunch to eBay's Stores program, which costs at least $14.95. The barriers to entry to e-commerce are just about gone now.

The only remaining obstacles for Joe Six-Pack having his own Web store are monthly hosting fees and the hassle of getting your own domain. With this offer, Amazon eliminates both those headaches for you -- you just give them the name of your company and the URL you want to use.And not only that, Amazon will collect the payments for you, so no need for you to fiddle with PayPal or paying a big application fee for your own credit-card merchant account.Believe it or not, it gets even better: Amazon is thinking about offering to warehouse and ship your goods too. My understanding is this part of the program hasn't been finalized, but it's part of the plan.Looks like Amazon is targeting every kind of merchant under the sun, not just booksellers. Here's one of the pilot stores, a Web site that sells waterproof bedding. Other pilot stores are selling coffee, auto accessories, flowers -- a big variety.Now this program won't automatically generate traffic to your e-commerce site -- that's still your job. But here's the great thing about it: Say a visitor to your site buys your item. During the checkout process, they see related merchandise from another Amazon seller. You can get an affiliate commission (probably about 6.5 percent) on that additional sale. To get these additional commission, you'll need to sign up for Amazon's Associates Program separately. One more thing: The word I hear is that Amazon will tie this new program into its plans for pay-per-click advertising. In other words, if you're paying Google to bring in customers using Adwords, Amazon is going to go after that business too. [From slickdeals.net]

Free Hosting, website at Microsoft Office Live Beta

Microsoft Office Live Beta is giving away basic websites, domain name registeration, 5 email addresses for free. See http://officelive.microsoft.com/default.aspx

Cool stuff and random thoughts

You gotta check out my buddy's blog at http://amelabs.blogspot.com/. Tony has some good articles on cool new products available on the web.

The Bridge™ iPod® Docking Station

Now, The Bridge literally links your iPod and Harman Kardon allowing you to share the favorite tracks and playlists stored on your iPod with anyone in listening range of compatible Harman Kardon AVR - even in a connected second room. Dock your iPod in The Bridge, then sit back and operate it with the AVR's remote control while on-screen and front-panel menus guide your track selections. The Bridge also charges the iPod while you use it.

Features:
Simple Solution for playback and navigation control of your iPod.
Ready AVR Receiver
Single Cable Connection from the Bridge to the AVR
Use AVR's Remote and Front-Panel to navigate and control iPod iPod Navigation displayed on-screen and AVR front panel

SpamBaiting

Mike Wendland (Detroit Free Press): November 4 article looks at SpamBaiting

There's a new way to fight those Nigerian scam e-mails that keep circulating online.

It's called SpamBaiting.

The idea is to pull a reverse sting on the spam scammers, leading them on by pretending to go along with the con through increasingly silly and insulting e-mail replies.

While it's not officially endorsed by law enforcement, the pastime has become so popular that more than 50 Web sites are now devoted to hassling the scammers. The biggest and most imaginative is 419eater.com, which calls the practice a cyber sport and has posted dozens of e-mail exchanges with scammers from all over the world.

Surely, if you've been online for any length of time, you've heard from these electronic con artists who pretend to have fortunes worth millions that they want to invest or move out of the country. They offer you a lucrative cut, supposedly to help them do it.

As the greedy victims get sucked into the scam, the con artists find ingenious ways to get them to send their bank account info or pay up-front fees needed to get the cash out of their country.

The con is called the Nigerian scam, or 419 fraud, after a section of the Nigerian criminal code that makes the practice illegal. Although it originated in Nigeria, it is being used by online criminals all over the world.

iRivier T10 Mp3 Player

I got an iRiver T10 1 GB MP3 Player for my 35th birthday (Yes, please feel free to send me any belated gifts!). I've been extremely satisifed with the player so far. The first thing that impressed me was its size; Barely larger than the double A battery that powers it. Speaking of batteries, you probably forget how to change them because the T10 has an exteremly longer battery life of up to 12 hours.

The user interface is intuitive and its easy to modify audio settings. Overall the play has some nice features such a FM Radio, audio recording (from microphone, and from over the air FM broadcasts), and support for Mp3 and wmv.



Its also fully compatible with Windows Media player 10 (included) so you can drag and drop within the media player UI to upload songs.

You can see all of the components that come with it in this shot:



Let me know what you think. You can find this product on my website at the following link: T10 MP3 Player

A good rub goes a long way

Hold on, don't get the wrong idea here. I'm talking about a good rub for your bbq. Check out this article from Cook's Illustrated magazine. I tried out the Grill-Roasted Pork Loin recipe from the July issue.

This is what it looked like while it was cooking on my grill. It tasted wonderful and the rub was easy to make!

---

If you feel brave and have time, try out the receipe below take From Boston Magazine online.

Slow-cook pork barbecue
By Cook's Illustrated founder and America's Test Kitchen host Christopher Kimball
From the June 2004 issue

It's best to have a covered grill with a built-in thermometer so you don't have to lift the cover to check the temperature. Be sure to keep the heat low -- it should never get much above 225 degrees -- and use indirect heat. Weber makes half-moon-shaped charcoal bins for indirect cooking.

1 4- to 5-pound boneless pork butt
1 cup barbecue rub
1/2 cup Vinegar Moppin' Sauce


1. Rub meat with barbecue rub and set aside at room temperature while preparing fire. Start two small piles of charcoal on either side of a covered grill, 15 briquettes each. Place a drip pan half-filled with water in the middle and an oven thermometer on top of the cooking surface. After 20 minutes, place six additional briquettes on each pile of coals, add soaked wood chips on top of the briquettes, and place meat over the drip pan. Cover and cook meat for three hours. Maintain an even 225-degree temperature by checking every hour.

2. When meat is done, wrap tightly in aluminum foil, place in a 225-degree oven, and cook for an additional two hours or until pork is fall-apart tender.

Serves eight to ten

Barbecue rub for beef and pork

2 tablespoons coarse salt
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon cumin
2 teaspoons ground cardamom
2 teaspoons allspice
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons black pepper
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons paprika


Mix ingredients and rub over meat before cooking.

Vinegar Moppin' sauce

1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
2 teaspoons hot red-pepper flakes
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce
1 tablespoon peanut oil
salt and freshly groundpepper to taste


Mix ingredients in a small saucepan and heat. Serve hot as an accompaniment to grilled foods. If you serve barbecued foods chopped, this sauce can be mixed in.



Ok, now for a serious list of the best rubs on the webs go to bbq-porch. Drop me a line if you try any of them.

Weber Chill Portable Outdoor Refrigerator

Its hot outside, but you can still enjoy a good cookout. The Weber Chill Portable Indoor/Outdoor Refrigerator saves you from making trips indoors to get a cold drink or to another steak for the grill. No hauling ice chests and no lugging bags of ice. Simply plug the refrigerator into an outdoor outlet and your set.

The Weber Chill features a roomy 15.9 cubic feet of storage, enough for 72 12-ounce beverage cans. Two handy mahogany shelves add serving space. Choose from three hot colors—silver, blue, and burgundy. 110 volts class A rating-UL approved



Love to have a lot of favor with your bbq. Check out the Weber 2820 Smokey Mountain Cooker Smoker. Its great for slow cooking bbq chicken, ribs, or brisquet. If you're adventureous try out this receipe from foodnetwork for Sweet and Smoky Baby Back Ribs

Boring but made some minor changes

Its 5:00am on saturday morning and I couldn't sleep. I stayed up and made a couple of updates to my website cceshop.com. I reordered by rss feed so that the most recent items are listed first - see it here

Also added a few rss feed just for mp3 players. Give it a try - here

Optimized the loading of the main page by removing call for banners and also tweaked the usefullink.php to include links to my two new blogs. I'm interested to see if it helps with googlerank.

Yahoo 360

Yahoo has a new blog service for users called Yahoo 360. It has some decent features such as linking photos posted to yahoo photos and adding links to friends blogs. You can also search for phone with similiar interested and make friends with them. It has much more of a community feel to it than blogger.com

Check out my page here

Pioneer AirWare XM2Go Portable XM Satellite Radio Receiver

Pretty cool, now you can take XM with you. Pioneer AirWare XM2Go Portable XM Satellite Radio Receiver has a nice form factor with pretty good features.

It also seems like Napster and XM have teamed up. You can buy music that you hear on XM. See this yahoo link for more details.

Harry Potter Mania (Old News)

We stood inline with the huddled masses to get the new Harry Potter book. It was fun, even for an old guy like me (who happens to have not read any of the books).

Check out the images that I took with my Motorola camera.

IBM T42P

You should be jealous. I got a new IBM T42P as my work laptop and it rocks. Its quite an upgrade from the T30 that I've had for the past year.

New Web site and HostFor2Buck

Well, just to complicate things more I started a second site. Are trying HostFor2Buck and better pretty dissapointed I added a subdomain focusing just on appliances, kitchenandlaundry.cceshop.com

As for hostfor2bucks. How can you be dissapointed after spending $24 bucks for a
domain name and web space? I had the grand delusion that I could run a small business on their site. Check out the tread below where I ask about SSL support.

>
> I need to install SSL cert on my server, but I cannot find it in
> the web server settings as stated in the CP manual. Could you
> please enable SSL for my site.
>
> Thanks,
> Bailey

Dear Customer,

You cannot install SSL on your site, SSL is not an available option.

Sincerely,
Hostfor2bucks.com


Can I do any form of https on the server? From the description on the
website, it appeared available. Is there a shared SSL cert that can be
used?

Thanks,
Bailey

Thank you for contacting us. Please point us to the page on
www.hostfor2bucks.com where SSL appears to be included.

Sincerely,
Hostfor2bucks.com


Great customer service?

On to 2005

Very slow christmas season this year. Last year, I sold $10K in digital alone in digial cameras.

This year, I wasn't able to get needed inventory of the items that people wanted. Sirius Satellite radio was very popular and the products on the site had fairly high page ranking on froggle.

Updated front page http://cceshop.com, to have two category columns and change the coloring. The live help had some initial success but has slowed dramatically.

Update logo to have two colors - need some honest feedback on how it looks.

This year, need to work on local advertising, improving page rank and launch the http://kitchenandlaundry.com web site.