I frequently set up GeoTrust SSLs on my client’s ecommerce websites who are hosted with DreamHost. For those of you who wanted to give this a try yourselves, here are the steps I follow.

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Just got notified from a client who noticed several orders in her store failed to go through – she uses Authorize.net as her payment processor. It’s 8:00am PST and we just verified that indeed, you can’t get to Authorize.net. Found this discussion about Authorize.net being down, allegedly due to a fire, but I can’t confirmed this. Here’s another posting about Authorize.net being down.

We called the number here:

10800 NE 8th St, Suite 600
Bellevue, WA 98004
Tel: 425-586-6000

But the recording said they were closed for the holiday.

UPDATE: 7/3/09 8:24am

We’ve tried unsuccessfully to contact Wells Fargo and whenever they transfer us to Authorize.net, the line is busy. We did manage to reach a Wells Fargo person who said they have been in contact with Authorize.net this morning and that there was some kind of power outage. The representative said she didn’t know when they could be back up.

UPDATE: 7/3/09 8:27am

From http://twitter.com/authorizenet

We apologize for this disruption and ask for your patience as we work with the team at our datacenter to restore service.

We are down due to a fire at our primary data center in Seattle. We are working to restore services, but no ETA at this time.

UPDATE: 7/3/09 11:13am

My client tells me that her Authorize.net is back up and her online store is working again.

From http://twitter.com/authorizenet

Transactions are up except for Global processing and Concord. No ETA on those, but we are working on in.

Lately I’ve been on a mission to get my business certified as a green web design company. As part of that effort, I have been doing research online into how exactly to accomplish this. I wound up on one online store that looked legitimate and I started to purchase carbon offsets. I quickly lost trust in the online store and wanted to share with you the red flags I found.

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As we approach the holiday season, I thought it would be appropriate to give some tips on how to make sure you’re getting the most out of your online store in terms of search engine optimization, including some examples.

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This is topic covers one of the things that annoys me the most when I’m shopping online. I recently had a particularly frustrating purchasing experience with Ticketmaster that I wanted to share. This example will help explain why I’m so against forcing online shoppers to create a login account before they can purchase something from your online store.

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I’ve found myself explaining this to my clients, with varying degrees of success, so I thought a really well-written blog article might help. This article will attempt to explain the difference between static web pages and dynamic web pages, and why your particular website might have one or the other or even both.

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If you’re like me, you do quite of a bit online activities that utilize secure websites. Shopping on online stores, banking, and investing all require a secure connection between your browser and the website you are sending your private information to.

But how often do you notice whether the little padlock in the upper right hand corner of your browser is actually there? This article serves as a reminder to always, always, always check.

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A client of mine recently hired a bookkeeper to do her state and local taxes and was surprised to find out that she should be collecting sales tax on shipping and handling.

I wanted to write this article to provide help for other online retailers who may be asking the same question, because the answer was a bit hard to find.

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Many of my website clients, after watching their website traffic statistics, are dismayed to see many people coming to their website leaving after only visiting one page (this is called the “bounce rate“).

They also often see visitors who may look around at several pages and then decide to leave without purchasing anything.

They even see people who were very close to a purchase. Visitors who after adding items to a shopping cart and starting the check out process, left before completing the purchase ( this is called “shopping cart abandonment“). While all of these visitor activities are normal and expected, what’s often surprising to my client is how often they happen.

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If you’re a Washington state business and you ship/deliver goods within Washington state, you need to collect sales tax based on the destination starting in July 2008. This is very different from the current way we do it, which is based on whether the business is based in Washington. It’s quite confusing, and I don’t have it all sorted out, but will be updating this article as I learn more.

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Shopping cart abandonment is a visitor behavior and a metric that every online store owner should be aware of and actively tracking. It happens when a potential customer puts an item in their shopping cart, but fails to complete the purchase process. Studies I’ve listed in this article quote shopping cart abandonment rates of 60% – 80%. Knowing what your rate is, and what you can do to improve it is vital to the well-being and success of your online store.

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You’re thinking of launching an online store to sell your products or services. You’re wondering if you’ve got what it takes to be successful in this rapidly changing online arena. You’re wondering how much time it will take and what it will cost. You’re wondering if you’re smart enough. This article hopes to help you answer some of these questions before you invest in an online store.

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Adding an online store to your website can dramatically increase sales, but it’s important that you understand HOW to run your online store BEFORE you select which one to purchase. This is a tour inside the store owner administrative area of the eCommerceTemplates (ECT) store, my favorite online store software application.
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If you’re shopping for an online store, it’s important to become familiar with the particular online store application before you make your purchase decision. Online stores vary significantly, and I’ve made this video tutorial to give you a quick overview of my favorite online store: eCommerceTemplates (or “ECT”).
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ECT (ECommerceTemplates) just came out with a new version of their online store and they’ve included a great image uploader function. This type of function used to be available only as an after-market modification. As of now, the 5.5 manual doesn’t include instructions on how to use this new 5.5 image uploader function, and so I’ve made a video tutorial to help folks understand and use this new feature. Enjoy!
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The ECT (ECommerceTemplates) online store has a nice administration area that allows store owners to manage every aspect of their stores. Here’s just one quick tutorial on how to view orders in your ECT online store.
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My favorite shopping cart to install for my website clients is eCommerce Templates, or “ECT”. ECT has a long list of features already built in, but what happens if my ecommerce customer wants a feature that the ECT shopping cart doesn’t have? Sometimes there are after-market modifications or “mods” that web developers sell. But which actually work? Here’s my review based on my own experience installing various modifications, mods or add ons for the ECT shopping cart.
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I recently was asked by a client to help fix some issues she was having with her osCommerce shopping cart. The first two shopping carts I did were osCommerce and ZenCart (an osCommerce derivative), and although I now work exclusively with ECommerce Templates, I agreed to help try and fix her store. She had already been through 5 other website designers! Since I enjoy being a hero, I agreed to help. But it wasn’t easy, and I wanted to document what I discovered so that other people who are shopping for an online store and thinking about osCommerce vs ECommerce Templates would learn from my experience.

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If you own an online store or shopping cart and you transmit personal information from your customers, you need to encrypt that information using an SSL certificate. But there are so many choices that vary wildly in cost, how does an online store owner know which one to choose?

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Follow these steps to set up PayPal Website Payments Standard to work with ECommerceTemplates (ECT) Online Store:

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