Ecommerce - Ambaum

Wall Street Journal Article about Online Reviews

Posted on December 2, 2016January 3, 2023 by Andrew Crawley

When you prepare to purchase something online what’s the first thing you do? If you are like me you head right over to Amazon, search for a product and dive into the customer reviews. The Wall Street Journal today had a great article on customer reviews, some of the highlights:

Amazon is tightening up who can leave reviews by requiring an account to have spent at least $50 on a credit card prior to creating a review.
5 star ratings aren’t necessary, the most purchased items typically fall into a 4.2 to 4.5 star range
Negative reviews are expected by shoppers, it’s ok to have them with all the positive reviews as it conveys legitimacy
Creating customer loyalty programs is a great way to encourage reviews (both positive and negative)

Adding customer reviews to your store is pretty straightforward in Shopify or Woocommerce. A popular app that we have installed on Shopify is Yotpo Reviews, they also have a plugin for Woocommerce.

Consider offering gift cards for reviews post purchase. We have setup automated emails for customers that go out 20-30 days after the order is placed and ask the customer for a review. You can mail out a gift card to Amazon, Starbucks etc, and encourage your customers to leave reviews on your site.

Starting Your Online Business With Shopify

Posted on July 6, 2016January 3, 2023 by Andrew Crawley

When starting your online business, there are many things to consider. One of the most important decisions you will make is which platform to use to create your online store. Shopify is one of the most widely used eCommerce platforms for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is how easy it is to get your store up and running.

When you sign up for Shopify, you are given a free 14-day trial so you can experiment with the interface. This trial period is great for testing out themes, adding products, and testing apps before committing to using Shopify. After the trial period, there are three different plans that Shopify provides.

Basic Shopify– This plan has the cheapest monthly rate and comes with the least amount of features, but could be the best plan for you when starting your shop if you are not ready to fully commit to Shopify.
Shopify – This is their standard plan that comes with additional features like Abandoned Cart Recovery which allows you to see which customers had products in their cart, but didn’t go through with the checkout process.
Advanced Shopify – This is the plan that has everything. This plan comes will all of the Shopify features and is great if you are selling and shipping products in high volume.

There are other plans that are available if you have specific needs for your shop, but these three are the most commonly used. Here is a full list of the pricing plans and the features they come with.

Once you have selected your plan, whether it is the free-trial or you have decided to commit to Shopify and go with one of their paid plans, there are a few more steps you need to take to get your store up and running.

Select a Theme

By default, your store comes with a barebones theme called Launchpad Star. However, you might want to select a theme that has already been developed and comes with built in features that will make it easier for you to change things like color and layout. There are so many Shopify themes available that it came seem a little overwhelming when you look and see how many there are. However right off the bat, you can decide whether you want to use a free theme or a premium(paid) theme. The free themes are great and will work as a quick and easy way to make your shop look presentable, however most of them don’t come with all of the bells and whistles of a premium theme. You have to pay for the premium themes for a reason. Most of them come with support and have a lot more features than the free themes.

Once you have selected a theme, you can start adding products to your site.

Adding Products

Now comes the fun stuff! Adding products to your site is easy with Shopify. You can create collections, or categories for your products to make it easier for your customers to find what they are looking for. You can also add variants for different colors, sizes, prices, etc. for your products. When adding products, make sure to fill out as much of the information as possible because it will make everything easier for you down the road once you start selling products and you have to track inventory, adjust shipping costs, or any of the many things that can change as your business grows.

Now that you have added some products for your customers to purchase, we can get into some of the more complex aspects of Shopify.

Installing Apps

Shopify Apps are tools that other developers have created to make your life in Shopify easier. Much like the themes, some of them are free and some you have to pay for. There are apps for marketing, shipping, social media, pretty much anything you can think of for your store. As you are searching through the apps, be sure you know the cost of the app. Some of the apps list a price range or provide a free trial and then charge you after the trial is up.

Viewing Your Shop

Once you have your theme, products, and apps installed on your store, you can go to your shop see what it looks like. Assuming you haven’t added a custom domain and your shop is still in test mode, you can view your site by clicking the button at the top of the dashboard navigation next to the Shopify logo. Shopify will provide you with a domain for you shop, something like shop-name.myshopify.com. Don’t be alarmed when your shop doesn’t look quite like you want it to! You can make a lot of customizations on your own in the dashboard without having to do any coding.

Customizing Your Theme

Now that you have seen your shop and the framework for what it will look like, it is time to make some basic customizations. In the Shopify dashboard, you will need to navigate to the Customize Theme section. To get there, select the Online Store button from the left menu, then click the Themes link. You will see a preview of your theme with some options above it. Click the Customize Theme button. Here you can set colors, add a logo, and make several more modifications to your site. Each theme is different so you will have to click around to see what you are able to customize. You can also install new themes without losing your existing products and apps so don’t hesitate to try a new theme if you feel like you might not like the theme that you initially chose.

Launching Your Store!

The moment has finally arrived! You are ready to start reaping the benefits of your hard work and selling your products to the masses!

First though you do need to go through the final set up process with Shopify. Click on the Settings button on the main Shopify navigation menu. Here you will see a list of all of the different settings that are preset on your site. We would highly, HIGHLY recommend going through each of these settings and at least taking a look to make sure that the information is correctly filled out. After you have ensured that you have the correct information entered, you will need to decide whether to use a separate payment processor, or Shopify payments. If you use another payment processor, you will need to set up an account with them and tie it to your Shopify store. If you decide to use Shopify payments, you will need a checking account where Shopify can deposit your revenue. Ultimately the decision is up to you, but using Shopify payments makes things a little bit easier as you won’t have to manage a separate payment processor, it will all be managed under your single Shopify account.

Once you have set up your payment processor, you are one step closer to selling your products and services online! You will need to take your shop out of test mode in order for customers to finalize the transaction. To do so, you will go back to they Payments section under Settings and make sure that the Test Mode button is not checked.

Setting a Custom Domain

Now that you can actually sell products, there isn’t anything else that you HAVE to do immediately. However we definitely would recommend using a custom domain as it makes your website more identifiable and makes your business seem more professional. To set your custom domain, you can either register through Shopify or through a separate registrar like GoDaddy. Once you have decided who your registrar is going to be, click the Online Store button again in the dashboard and select Domains. Here you can either purchase a domain, or add a domain that you have already purchased through a separate registrar. If you are adding a domain you have already purchased, you will need to set the DNS to point to your Shopify store. To do so, follow the instructions provided by Shopify. You may need to contact your registrar as well for instructions on how to update the DNS. Once you have updated the DNS, it can take up to 24 hours to propagate, but is generally much faster than that.

Selecting Your Plan

This is the final step in getting your shop set up. You will need to select a Shopify plan. If you go to Settings>Account in the dashboard, you will see where you can change your plan type and add a credit/debit card. Once you have selected a plan and entered your card information, that’s it! You are ready to go and can start selling to customers!

Although your shop is set up and accessible online, there is so much more that Shopify can offer to enrich your customer’s experience. It would take a year’s worth of blog posts just to scratch the surface of what Shopify can do. As Shopify Experts, we are here to help you unlock the full potential of your store. Just go to our Shopify page and let us know what it is that you need!

Becoming a Shopify Expert

Posted on April 20, 2016January 3, 2023 by Andrew Crawley

As the online retailing market continues to grow, so too does the demand from our clients to create an online store for their businesses. While we are very confident in our ability to create an e-commerce store that not only looks amazing, but is equally as functional, we wanted to take our e-commerce skills to the next level, particularly with Shopify.

Shopify has a program called Shopify Experts. In order to become an Expert, you must submit an application containing 5 stores that you have created as well as descriptions and code examples of the work. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to not only prove to ourselves what we already knew, but to also gain certified validation that we are indeed Shopify Experts.

As part of our application, we had to decide not only which stores to include, but what specific examples of code we wanted to show Shopify to prove our expertise. Here is one example from Oxygen Plus:

The client didn’t like the default image swap or lightbox treatment of images on the single product page so we just adapted and recreated it for jcarousel.js

<div class="jcarousel">

<ul>

{% for image in product.images %}

<li><img itemprop="image" src="{{ image | product_img_url: "large" }}" alt="{{ product.title | escape }}" /></li>

{% endfor %}

</ul>

</div><!-- end of jcarousel -->{% assign numImages= product.images | size %}

{% if numImages > 1 %}

<div class="jcar-controls">

<span class="jcarousel-control-prev jcar-control"><span class='arrow'><img src="{{ 'jcar-nav-left.png' | asset_url }}" /></span><span class="symbol"><img src="{{ 'jcar-nav-o.png' | asset_url }}" /></span></span> <span class="jcarousel-control-next jcar-control"><span class="symbol"><img src="{{ 'jcar-nav-plus.png' | asset_url }}" /></span><span class='arrow'><img src="{{ 'jcar-nav-right.png' | asset_url }}" /></span></span>

</div>

{% endif %}

</div>

<!-- end of jcarousel -->

What this code is doing is mixing the liquid code of Shopify and adding in some jQuery to create a carousel of images. The initial statement is creating a list using a for loop to display the images. The outer div with the class “jcarousel” indicates to the JavaScript that this is going to be the carousel. The next statement looks at the total number of images in the carousel and then checks to see if there is more than one image displayed. If there is, then the carousel navigation buttons are displayed as well.

While Shopify has a ton of very cool features right out of the box, there is always going to be something that the client requests that is not provided by Shopify so you either need to find an app that will do it, or create it yourself. In this case, we decided that we could create it so we put our Shopify expertise to work and created a nice jQuery carousel for our client.

One great thing about using Shopify as an e-commerce platform is that they store a lot of your product information behind the scenes, so you just have to know how to access that information to add special features to your store. On our site, Seattle Cedar, we have a minimum purchase price to receive free shipping. We wanted to create a way to notify our customers when they add a product to their cart if they were below the minimum purchase price for free shipping and how much more they would need to add to become eligible.

Here is the code that we implemented:



{% capture carttotal %}{{ cart.total_price | plus: product.price }}{% endcapture %}

{% assign carttotal = carttotal | plus:0 %}{% if carttotal and carttotal < 25000 %}<div class=”free-shipping-notice” style=”display: none;”>Your cart total is {{ cart.total_price | plus: product.price | money }}, to qualify for Free Shipping, you must add {{ “25000” | minus: carttotal | money }} to your cart.</div>{% endif %}

What this code is doing is pulling the current cart price and storing it in a variable. Then it adds the current product price to that variable. After the cart and product price are totaled, we compare that number with the number 25000 which represents our minimum purchase price. If the value of ‘carttotal’ is less than 25000, then the notice is displayed notifying the customer that they are currently not eligible for free shipping as well as how much more they would need to spend.

These are just a couple examples of the many ways that we have been able to apply our expertise within Shopify to meet a client’s needs. Our ultimate goal is to help clients to create successful online stores and becoming Shopify Experts is another step towards that end.

Things to Consider Before you Launch Your Online Store

Posted on February 23, 2016January 3, 2023 by Andrew Crawley

You are ready to sell your products online and want to get started, but where to begin? Are you the manufacturer of your products or are you planning to resell someone else’s products?

Creating Your Own Brand

If you have your own product that you manufacture it’s much easier to get started selling online. For example if you create custom jewelry and want to sell that through your online store, you are able to set your own price because you know how much it costs you in time and materials to make each piece. With your own product not only can you control pricing, but you control inventory. If you are the manufacturer, you know how much product you need (or have a good idea) during your busy seasons so you can stock up and be prepared when the rush hits. When you manage your own brand, there is no limit to the different types of advertising you can try, all of the following could be appropriate and work well: newsletters, pay per click advertising, content marketing, email outreach and much more.

Becoming a Reseller

You can resell another manufacturer’s products online, but you have to understand the rules of their wholesale arrangement. There can be a number of stipulations/rules with a wholesale agreement, here are some examples:

You are only allowed to use certain photos on your site
You are limited to certain types of advertising
There are pricing restrictions, both floors and ceilings that you must abide by
Inventory restrictions, you may be limited on how much product you can sell

If you can successfully navigate the rules for a reseller there is plenty of money to be made. It’s worth testing out a few different manufacturers to see which ones stand behind their product and do what they say they’re going to do. After a while if you develop a level of trust, being a reseller is a great way to create a business online.

Don’t Send Your Traffic to a 3rd Party

I got a call yesterday from someone that was just getting started with selling online. They had a created an account at a popular t-shirt site, TeeSpring and were starting to send traffic to their Teespring.com/store URL. They had created a Facebook advertising account and were sending Facebook traffic directly to their TeeSpring URL. This person asked me why did I think the traffic they were sending wasn’t converting? I told them the number one issue was that they were sending traffic to a 3rd party site and not to their own brand. Why is that an issue? I could see on the top of the landing page, there were plenty of links to the main TeeSpring site and once a customer is off your landing page, they are going to navigate the store and buy shirts from other sellers. You are helping TeeSpring by driving sales to their main site and doing very little to build your own brand.

Use Your Own Domain Name for Your Online Store

If you are creating your own product or plan to be a reseller, it’s an absolute must that you register your own URL. We recommend using GoDaddy as a registrar, they are easy to work with and have a simple interface for controlling your domain name.

Where can you find Dropshippers?

Looking for a product to sell? The first place to start is by using Google, searching for products you like and then clicking on the company website to find out if they offer wholesale arrangements. There are also 3rd party sites that specialize in aggregating dropshipper information, here are a couple:

Looking for Excess Inventory or Liquidation Sites?

Another option is for you to purchase excess inventory or find inventory that a retailer no longer wants and purchase it at pennies on the dollar. There a number of sites that have sprung up to accommodate the excess inventory market, here are a couple that we like:

Any questions on how to get started, drop us an email or give us a call and we can help!

Bakery Web Design

Posted on February 17, 2016January 3, 2023 by Andrew Crawley

When we received the call from a local bakery that they were interested in revamping their site, we were excited to discuss their project and find out if Ambaum could help. I set up a call with Kim, the main website contact at Seattle’s Favorite and we discussed a plan to design an eCommerce site so they could sell to both retail and bakery wholesale customers at the same time.

During the initial planning and scoping meetings, Kim and I determined that before we could get started on the new design, we needed awesome product pictures. Kim volunteered to take those pictures and they turned out great!

Once we had the pictures we set out to create a very simple design that uses a lot of white space to really show off the great product images. You can see the bagel product images, gourmet cookies and muffin top pictures (see image below) all turned out great and fit in nicely with the new design.

WordPress for Bakeries

Now that the design was nailed, it was time to turn our attention to the platform we were going to use for the site. We love WordPress as it allows our customers to update bakery items and product descriptions within the text editor, rather than having to get in there update html, css, php and all of the programming languages we use to create sites. WordPress was very easy for us to apply a custom design and it was the logical choice for us to build this new bakery website.

WooCommerce for Bakeries

WordPress was our answer for the core platform, now we needed an eCommerce platform! The obvious choice was to use WooCommerce as it integrates nicely into WordPress and allows us to do a number of customizations to the site. The plan was always to allow wholesale bakery customers to log in to the site, review products and purchase orders. There was also the need to have potential wholesale customers apply to become a wholesaler and then we needed a form (we use gravity forms for all our forms, and we love it) called the wholesale application form for their final approval. There was going to be a lot of customization and the way to do that was with WooCommerce Plugins.

Bakery eCommerce for Retail Customers

For retail customers, the goal was to show them an overview of all the different baked good categories when a user first entered the store. At the highest level these category pages need to show customers a large beautiful image of the product and also show the customer how many individual products were located in each cookie category (for example).

Once the customer clicks on a category they can see all the products listed (an example image is the first one used in this post). After you click on a product, you land on the product detail page, in the example below this is the product listing page for 10 grain honey bagels:

Wholesale Experience for Bakery Customers

Retail customers get to see the full price of each item, but when a wholesale customer logs in they needed to see a $0 price for all items. Seattle’s Favorite wanted to keep their billing process intact and apply the wholesale customer’s unique pricing when they sent the invoice via Quickbooks. In addition, wholesale customers have multiple locations so we created a location field to go along with each order. When Seattle’s Favorite receives the order they can now see the physical location of the wholesale customers, this was very valuable especially for customers that had 10+ stores.

Custom Web Design for Cupcake and Bakery Websites

Are you looking to take your cupcake business online and create an eCommerce store? How about your bakery, is it time you started shipping your cakes throughout the country? If you want to learn more, send us an email or give us a call, Ambaum would love to help!