Gift Rep Sandy

Archive for the ‘E-Commerce Websites’ Category

Yesterday, Malcolm and I attended the Stores Online web marketing workshop in Spokane, Washington.

Stores Online “provides a wide range of solutions for entrepreneurs seeking a trusted resource to help them launch and/or manage their online business.”  According to their website, “StoresOnline is the most comprehensive eCommerce and marketing service provider because of its best-of-breed software, customer support and training.”

We have been working with Stores Online since 2004, and have used their templates to develop our first websites.  I love their e-commerce system if you are selling a lot of products. We use it for our websites:  Idaho Gifts Wholesale and Tastes of Idaho — both sites list hundreds of products!

The workshop was great!  Even though we have been using their templates for years, attending this refresher course gave me some new information and ideas for my upcoming website:  GiftandGourmetWholesale.com (still under construction at the time of this post)!  Also, I got a chance to realize how much I have learned and implemented over the last 5 years since starting our websites!

One of the tools they gave us was Compete.  After you register with Compete, you can compare your competitor’s websites to see which search terms visitors use to access their site.  Very valuable tool to see what keywords and mega tags and descriptions you want to add to your own site.

We have had a love/hate relationship for Stores Online for most of the time we have been working with their system.  Their templates and Merchant Service section is very complete and helpful — probably one of the most complete web marketing system I have ever seen!  But, we have gone back and forth with them several times in the past over URL and template information changes.  Seems that we bought the original system (6 customizable website templates) BEFORE they made their major updates and they are unable to update our websites without starting all over again!  A job I am not willing to do nor willing to pay their tech staff $50/hour to do for me!!

Despite our disagreements, I still use Stores Online and like the options they give me.  And I enjoy the workshop and learned lots of new things to implement on my sites.

So … watch over the next weeks and months for my new website on their NEW system:  Gift and Gourmet Wholesale!

Bookmark To: