Blog Category: eCommerce

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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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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