Archive for January, 2010

Does Your Website Look Good For Everyone?

Author: Tyler Sorensen

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

As I work on my and my clients websites I use this one incredible tool EVERY TIME.

It’s so easy to use, and best of all… it doesn’t cost a single penny.

We’ve all done the quick, how does my site look in the couple different browsers I have on my computer check, and if you don’t do this, start NOW!

Well most of us only have a couple or few browsers on our computer, and having a quick to check ALL browsers is out of the question. Well, there’s a tool out there that helps  solves this…

It’s called Adobe BrowserLab.

When you go to this website, put in your site’s URL and it will automatically give you a screenshot of what your website looks like in ALL browsers (e.g. IE, Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, etc.).

Not only will it give you what your website looks like in the current version of a browser but it will show you what it looks like in past versions as well. Quickly comparing IE8 and IE7 is now a snap.

You will be amazed at the things you will find when looking at your website in different browsers. And this isn’t just from a “look pretty” standpoint, you could actually be losing sales because something doesn’t show up correctly in one of the browsers.

But the best feature, is the ability to test different resolutions. People have their screen sizes set many different options, and checking those manually is a HUGE pain. This tool gives you the option to check different resolutions, which can be a big time saver.

There’s even more subtle options, such as checking to see what happens to your site when a user has javascript or Flash disabled. (And yes, there are people who visit your site with these disabled)

So save yourself some time, and visit the site below to check out your website in different browsers. You’ll have to setup an account if you don’t already have one, but don’t worry… it’s free!

https://browserlab.adobe.com

Popularity: 51% [?]

What Do You Think? Vote Now Below!

Posted in Best Web Practices, Current Hits | 4 Comments »

Changing Billing Duration For A Recurring Order

Author: Tyler Sorensen

Friday, January 15th, 2010

One of the biggest flaws 1ShoppingCart’s recurring billing system has is the ability to change the duration (how often someone is billed) once a new recurring order is placed.

Sure you could push out the date, but what happens when someone wants to change the service, or a better example, goes from billing every 30 days to every 60 days?

For example:

One of our clients sells vitamins. Every 30 days a client is billed and shipped a new bottle and each bottle contains 60 pills because you take 2 a day.

Lets say a client named Bob orders a bottle of vitamins every 30 days. Bob forgets to take a few pills every month so he starts to build a surplus.
After a while he calls up and asks if we can pushout his next order. That’s easy, we just push out their next bill date in his recurring options.

(In 1ShoppingCart it’s the “Date Next” field, which is the next processing due date)

But what if Bob wants a bottle shipped every other month because he only takes one pill a day? (Bob isn’t very good at following directions)

This gets a little tricky and most of the time our client would re-enter all of Bob’s information and create a whole new order.

This is such a pain and waste of time. I mean, to do this you have to write down a lot of information: billing name, address, shipping information, product information, credit card information, etc. and then enter it all back in.

We thought there had to be a better way. And there is…

Here’s all you need to do to change Bob’s order in the system.

  1. Login to your 1ShoppingCart account
  2. Scroll over ‘Orders’ in the main menu and click ‘Recurring Orders’
  3. Search the recurring orders and find the clients account
  4. Click the link under the “Charge Status” column (This will bring up their previous completed order)
  5. Click “Create Recurring Event” that is located in the top links
  6. Edit the information accordingly and be sure to check the “Select” box at the end of the row.
  7. Click ‘Create Recurring Order’ to save the information

OPTIONAL

Now you will have 2 recurring events for that client so if you only want one recurring event be sure to go back and delete out the original.

That’s it… Easy wasn’t it?

Popularity: 63% [?]

What Do You Think? Vote Now Below!

Posted in Current Hits, Orders/Recurring Orders | 3 Comments »

Add Multiple Quantities For Your Visitors To Order

Author: Tyler Sorensen

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

I just got a question from a client and instantly thought of my readers. The question is a simple one to answer and yet, no one knows about it.

You see my client sells Chocolate and when someone goes to order most customers want to order more than 1. So how do we set it up for someone to order 2, 3, 5, 10 or even 100 chocolates in one order so it’s seamless for the customer?

Sure they could go to the order page and change the quantity themselves. But don’t you think that you will lose sales by doing this?

I sure do.

Now I haven’t tested this personally but I can tell you from my experience that you are losing sales if your clients have to add the quantity manually because the client will forget or will see the price and back out.

So here’s a quick fix for this solution.

At the end of the product URL to the order form all you need to do is add the following:

&qty=2

The number at the end is the quantity you would enter. In the example above I am adding a total of 2 products to the order. If I wanted to add 10, all I would do is change the 2 to a 10.

So here’s an example.

To order just 1 of my Affiliate Program Setup Packages I would just use the 1-step checkout URL and it looks like this:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/SecureCart/SecureCart.aspx?mid=E919F4C9-ADAF-4A66-9807-63E1E74FD68E&pid=002508019ecbde7ccc9614e63d8710fb&bn=1

Then if I wanted to add 2 or more my link would look like this:

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/SecureCart/SecureCart.aspx?mid=E919F4C9-ADAF-4A66-9807-63E1E74FD68E&pid=002508019ecbde7ccc9614e63d8710fb&bn=1&qty=2

Now, if you have a programmer you can do a drop down list where clients can choose their quantities and it would automatically add that many to their order.

It’s that simple! Talk to you soon.

Popularity: 47% [?]

What Do You Think? Vote Now Below!

Posted in Current Hits, Product Creation | 3 Comments »