Magento’s large market share and consistant growth factored into our decision to integrate with Magento. Our goal is to provide small and medium sized businesses with the best possible e-retail solution, so partnering with the the leader in the industry was a smart choice. Magento is an established ecommerce system that has become a household name in the Ecommerce world.  Magento sits atop of the Ecommerce world with 6,795 out of the top 1 million Ecommerce stores.

We understand that Magento might not be the right platform for you which is why we also integrate with Etsy, Shopify, Ebay, 3dCat, to help simplify your inventory needs. We strive to create the best inventory management integration possible. Our strong integration will delivers great results whether whether it’s with Magento or any other one of our great partners!

This infographic from Language Connect lists the top e-retail markets of the world according to sales value. The BRIC group values’ are also listed with the top 5 most sought products/services online. Check out the infographic we can see which are the most important e-commerce markets around the world.

The TOP 5 market leaders are:

1. USA with 176.2 billion dollars
2. UK with 68.8 billion dollars
3. Germany with 53.12 billion dollars
4. China with 48.3 billion dollars
5. Japan with 45 billion dollars

Etsy seems to have finally taken notice of their expensive pricing structure and has decided to make a change. Etsy is now only charging the one listing fee of 20 cents, regardless of the quantity you are listing of that same item. If you happen to sell more than one of your items, Etsy will add the listing fee for each item, but now don’t have to worry about paying multiple listing fees for items that are just sitting there. If you’re confused on what all of this means, you can check out the screen shots for further explanation with illustrations.

This new pricing policy goes into effect on May 21, 2012!

Using Bizelo through 3DCart gives online retailers the ability to:

• Automatically pull orders from 3DCart to Bizelo
• keep inventory quantities in sync between 3DCart and Bizelo
• Utilize our simple yet powerful software to increase efficiency

We’re excited to offer direct integration with 3dcart. Online merchants using both Bizelo and 3dcart will greatly benefit from a more powerful ecommerce solution!

About 3dcart (http://www.3dcart.com)

3dcart is a complete ecommerce software solution for merchants to build, promote and grow their online business. The company’s services include the tools, advice, support, and technology to manage an entire online operation. 3d cart combines many of the most requested eCommerce features into a simple and affordable shopping cart. With thousands of merchants all over the world, 3dcart has built a solid name for themselves!  Shopping Carts from 3DCart allow online retailers to market and sell products online.  3DCart includes all the features necessary to build and edit online storefronts, control online and offline payment options, set up real time shipping options, contact your customers, manage your shop inventory, and much more, all without writing a single line of program code. 3dcart also creates custom eCommerce designs for thousands of online stores. 3dcart gives you all the tools to create your website and online store. Clients can start with over 50 eCommerce website templates, and can create their own designs using HTML & CSS.

What is Vend?

Vend offers “Point-of-sale for clever stores.” Their retail web-based point-of-sale system is an awesome addition for anyone looking to bring their POS into the 21st century.

Among their features is an offline mode — Vend continues to work even while disconnected. The data will automatically synchronise the next time you connect. The app works on Mac, PC, iPad and Android, with hardware you already own including barcode scanner, cash drawer and receipt printers. And it’s easy to add additional locations and registers.

They offer a no-obligation, cancel anytime subscription with a free trial period, so give it a shot!

How does Integration with Bizelo Work?

To add Vend integration, simply go to your Stores tab and click Add Store. Then select Vend as your store type. You will need to enter your credential information so that Bizelo has permission to talk to your store. Once authenticated, you can click on Sync Stores and pull in your inventory items and historical orders.

At that point, your stores will then be synced so if you make any inventory changes in Bizelo, they will be instantly modified in Vend. Furthermore, any inventory changes made to any stores connected to Bizelo and shared with the Vend store will likewise update your Vend inventory. So, you can keep Vend in sync with your other stores!

It is important to note that Vend doesn’t currently support webhooks, so this means that we have to poll the Vend servers to inquire about new orders (they aren’t automatically pushed to us as is the case with other integrations). We poll currently every 15 minutes, so there might be a 15 minute gap between the time an order is placed on the Vend site and it appears in Bizelo. Also, Vend does not notify us when you make inventory quantity changes on the Vend site. So, it would be best to make them in Bizelo as we automatically and instantly make the changes in Vend.

Finally, we’ve seen some problems where people have Vend and Bizelo connected while simultaneously connecting Vend and Shopify. Once Vend and Shopify are connected, there shouldn’t be any need for a direct connection between Vend and Shopify. The connection might cause problems, so consider Bizelo to be your “hub” and we’ll keep Vend and Shopify in sync for you.

Check it out!

If you haven’t already signed up for the eRetail Inventory Management app yet, then do so now! We offer a 30 day free trial and we’re looking to work with as many Vend customers as possible. So, what are you waiting for? Check it out!

Here are two important features to keep in mind when looking at a software package to buy for your handcrafted jewelry business:

Inventory Control: One of the most difficult parts of running a bead jewelry business is handling inventory. You have to constantly track of what jewelry pieces and what supplies you have in you inventory. This is very important when evaluating a software package for your business. Keeping track of your beads in stock will  allow you to monitor supply costs and labor as well as help you set the correct price level for each jewelry piece you make and sell.

Customer Tracking and Order Fulfillment: Tracking your past clients orders will allow you to inform them about sales and new jewelry pieces you want to promote. Order fulfillment is just as important. Customers are more impatient than ever, and efficiency matters if you want to retain your clients. A great inventory management software package will allow you to easily track the status of your inventory and well make it easy to manage and fulfill orders from start to finish.

Affordability and Support: You do not want to spend too much and get useless features that you will never use, but you also do not want to buy cheap jewelry software that leaves you strandad when you encounter an issue. Make sure it’s easy to contact the company in case of any issues.

Any bead software package you buy should help you operate your jewelry business, and allow you to focus on making and sell your bead jewelry! Check out our eRetail Inventory Management app as a good place to start!

This technology revolution is far from small. According to a March report released by IDC and Unisys, in 2011, 41% percent of workers used personal tech­nology to access business appli­ca­tions, up from 31% in 2010. While the study included personal computers, a Nielsen survey found that consumers who owned a tablet were less likely to use the traditional computer.

This is why traditional business programming like appointment scheduling, calendars, and billing software have all moved online, into the cloud. Using the cloud for online appointment scheduling is smart because it allows your employees access to information from anywhere, making your business extremely efficient.

Are you currently using cloud technology in your small business?

There are several simple steps that your synagogue can take to make to offer a great user experience while keeping your website as donor-friendly as possible. These are the ideas that came to mind:

1. Your website: How would you rate your website compared to others? Is it easy to find the donation page from your home page with a “donate now” button?

• Some of the websites I visited only linked to the donation page from their home page. A donation button on every page would make it much easier to to donate.
• Many websites I visited looked like they had not been updated for years, which led me to wonder if the synagoge was even in business. This is a big turnoff, and would make me hesitate to donate. Many  wonder if your non-profit is well-run or if you are even still in business.

2. Your donations page: What does your donations page look like?

• Does your donations page offer me the ability to submit donations online and offline?  It’s important to keep things simple. Make it as easy as possible for your donors to give.
• Does your synagogue suggest gift amounts on your donations page?  Have you ever tested other ways of listing donation levels to see if they increase the size of your average on-line gift?

3. Organization Contact Information: Is your organization’s address on your donations page?

• Many websites make it difficult to locate the organization’s mailing address. It’s frustrating when you have to search for “contact Us” pages and navigate away from the donations page.
• There are many easy fixes non-profits can apply to their online giving system, but this is a good place to start. Donors expect the donation process to be simple.

Is your website as easy and donor-friendly as it can be?

1. List your church with Google Places. Google Places is free for businesses and non-profits to list their site. Google Places displays businesses and non-profits according to the geographical location of the user.
2. Include important keywords on the main page of your website that highlight any special services or audiences that will be searched by your target market, and make sure to constantly update  your website content. Make sure to include relevant blogs and articles on the site as well. Relevant content is important because it will increase the chances that users will find your church easily.
3. Include external links on your site. In return, request that those sites you link to will provide links back to your site. If you are affiliated with an activity or youth center in the area, ask to exchange links with the center. External links and back links will help your search engine page rank.
4. Make sure your church homepage loads quickly. Google now considers page load time as one of the variables in the formula for page ranking. The faster the church homepage loads, the higher the page will be ranked in major search engine results.
5. Make sure your church site includes a site map page with appropriate links and images with proper descriptions.
6. List your church site with popular social sites such as Digg and Del.icio.us.
7. Ask members of the congregation to link to the church site on their websites and blog to help increase visibility. Your Google ranking is partly determined by the number of links to your site are included on other sites and blogs. More links should help your site maintain a higher page rank in Google.

Here’s a great infographic from Searchengineland.com to help explain the science behind SEO.

Bizelo: Tell us about your business: How long have you been in business? Which markets do you serve? What’s your particular focus or expertise? And what makes you unique?

SmartOSC: First founded in 2004, SmartOSC has then quickly become a well-known partner in e-commerce development. Focusing on middle and large customers, we provide full packages from consultancy, design to IT development and e-marketing service. As of 2012, SmartOSC employs nearly 80 people and is dedicated to delivering quality and driving growth for online business. Our main markets are usually in US and Europe.

To differentiate from other competitors, our company chose to focus on high flexibility and unprecedented ability to adapt as work requirements changes, maximum responsiveness by prioritizing feature requests into rank order based on customer needs. We also concentrate on product’s quality; implement test-driven development, clear role definition and active communication with customers to minimize risks.

Bizelo: What other companies are you currently partnered with, and how has that helped your business?

SmartOSC: Currently we are proud to be a Certified Silver Magento Solution partner. Besides that, we also do other industry partnerships, such as Nexcess, a Magento hosting company and Virtual Logistics, a supply chain data integration company.

We build sustainable win-win partnerships that provide a healthy balance of investment and return for both SmartOSC and its partners. It also helps us to provide a professional full-service e-commerce solution from technology platform and infrastructure, front-end development, e-marketing activities to logistics and order fulfillment.

Bizelo: What are your future plans for growth?

SmartOSC: Since the first days, our vision is to become one of the leading e-commerce companies, serving as a bridge to the emerging Asian markets. To be able to do that, we aim at offering world-class e-commerce services to our customers in the quickest and most affordable way.

Bizelo: Who are your “ideal” customers?

SmartOSC: We usually target large brands that are committed to increase their online revenue and seriously invest in this channel. We are also vertically focused within “e-commerce friendly” segments such as fashion, jewelry, food, to mention a few.

Bizelo: What advice do you have for companies looking to partner with companies like you?

SmartOSC: By joining force with us, the partners will be associated with one of the leading companies providing premium e-commerce services, exclusive access to information on our products and services. They also can get access to co-branded marketing material and be able to “bundle” your specialized services with SmartOSC.

Bizelo: How can potential customers find you?

SmartOSC: Potential customers find us mainly via our website, and referrals. Our social presence is also strong in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We are also actively participating in international trade fairs.

One effective way to measure progress is to record various measurements during the member’s first visit. For example, you could record a member’s weight, body fat percentage, and waist measurement. After 2 weeks, you could record the measurements again to see if you they are moving towards their goal. When their goals are reached, these members can be placed in an ongoing program where they can be monitored once a month.

With the use of simple and comprehensive assessment programs, your customers can track their progress, set goals for each assessment. Customer assessments are valuable and beneficial for both you and your customers. You can charge a fee for these assessments or include them is various training programs or memberships you are currently selling. Incorporating fitness assessments into your business can provide opportunities for you to generate more revenue in addition to adding more value for your members.

Does your Health & Fitness Club have an assessment program in place?

Vinny Ribas is the founder and CEO of Blue Sky sister company Indie Connect, a global business club for serious independent artists, songwriters, musicians and music professionals. Indie Connect helps its members increase their chances of success by providing practical career direction and education, combined with live and online industry networking opportunities.

Vinny is a published author and popular speaker at music industry conferences, and here are his 12 steps to a long and promising career in music:

For maximum efficiency your systems should be flexible, simple and easy to operate to increase your productivity. The ability to make better management decisions based upon reports and the information gathered can result in better decision making, and more effective and efficient personnel deployment.

Server based time and attendance software and solutions are a thing of the past. A web based system can complement the way your business operates and typically will result in reduced time accounting and processing.

How does your e-commerce business manage online returns?

There are many factors that determine success when it comes to Drop shipping, but the most important of them all is selecting the correct drop shipping partner. It’s important to find a company that is both safe to do business with, and easy to deal with. There are thousands of drop shippers to choose from, and it’s important to find a dropshipping company that will help you run a stable and profitable business without any costly headaches.

In order to succeed, there are many factors that you must account for in order to get the best return on your investment when you’re selling a product through drop shipping. Before you select any dropshipping company to do business with, make sure you scrutinize it to a good extent to ensure it lives up to your expectations and is safe to do business with. Make sure to read the fine details, in order to understand the shippers requirements such as fees, order minimums, non-refundable application fees, and variable pricing.

A great way to see if your drop shipper is legitimate is through a simple google search. Search the name of your drop shipper with the word ‘scam’, to see if there is any negative comments. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) is a great place to check as well, to see if they have any information on the validity of the company.

Make sure you truly are cutting out the middle man with thorough proper research in order to set up a lean and profitable operation!

FreshBooks- FreshBooks is web-based accounting that specializes in letting you send and receive invoices. With Freshbooks, you can track your hours and accept payments via credit card, PayPal, or e-check. For free, you can manage up to three clients with no additional staff allowed to access your account. Upgrade to $19.95 a month and you can manage up to 25 clients. $29.95 gets you unlimited numbers of clients but you’ll have to pay $39.95 a month to allow others on your team to manage your books through FreshBooks.

Quickbooks- A full accounting system that can handle invoicing, job tracking, budgeting, estimates, automatic bank reconciliation and much much more. As a leader in the accounting software industry, Quickbooks has proven itself as a a great option. Recently, Quickbooks released an online version with a low monthly cost. One of the best things about Quickbooks Online is that everything is “in the clouds,” with no need to waste money upgrading your software each year. Instead you are charged a low monthly fee that typically ranges from about $25-35 a month.

Xero- An cost efficient online accounting software product for small and medium-sized businesses.  Their simple web interface allows business owners and their employees, accountants, bookkeepers and other financial advisors access to up-to-date financial records in real-time. The key features of Xero are importing bank accounts, invoicing, expense claims, fixed assets, stock support, standard business reporting and management reporting.

Quickbooks, Freshbooks, and Xero are great accounting programs, but they still require someone to manually enter data. In order to maximize your accounting efficiency, you should consider automating your accounting process. With the Bizelo eRetail Accounting Sync web app you can push orders and stock levels into your accounting program automatically saving you both time and money!

Cut costs: You should expect to save more money than you spend on inventory management software. With such a low price point,  you might be surprised how quickly an affordable web based app can pay for itself.

Increase efficiency: One of the main purposes of using inventory management software is to save time and make your company more efficient. With the right inventory software, you should see a decrease in the amount of time it takes to place orders, receive products, and pick, pack and ship products to customers.  Features such as auto listing and multiple store sync can save you from hours of extra work as well.

Boost employee productivity: Inventory management software should be simple and easy to learn so that multiple employees can easily access and use the software properly. This allows you to easily delegate inventory management responsibilities to multiple people. If one of your employees takes a day off, you know you can you can relax instead of scrambling for help.

Optimize inventory levels: Idle inventory does not help your company , and neither does an empty shelf. Too much inventory is a waste of money and too little is a missed opportunity. Inventory management software should use as much information as possible to gauge your inventory needs and make sure you have just enough inventory to meet demand.

Our Bizelo eRetail Inventory Management App is a great inventory management solution that makes it simple and easy to mange your Magneto, Shopify, and Etsy eCommerce store. Try out a free 30 day trial and see if Bizelo is right for your eCommerce Business!

Evan: Tell us about your online shop. What do you sell and what makes you unique?

Sam: My store is Plugyourholes.com, and we mostly sell body jewelry and clothing. What makes us stand appart is the ability to customize larger gauge items, low prices, high quality, and our close ties to the music industry.

Evan: What items are the most popular with your buyers?

Sam: We have noticed a double edged sword with our popularity. On 1 side the loudest, brightest, and most in your face items like our Spread Your Love, Not You Legs shirts, or flashy diamond bling plugs fly off the shelves. The flip side of that however is that the simplest, classiest and most low key items sell at nearly the same rate. Everything that’s in the middle seems to be too much, or not enough for most customers.

Evan: Which online ecommerce platforms are you currently on? Are you planning on selling in other places? If you do, Do you have any other online stores? How do they relate to your current shop?

Sam: Currently we use Shopify. In the past we have also used osCommerce, and Magento.

Evan: What would you like to improve about your ecommerce experience? 

Sam: More backend customizability. More relevant social network integration.

Evan: What do you spend the most time doing that you’d like to eliminate or reduce?

Sam: Things that I have already trained someone else to do. haha. I think that inventory replenishment, and maketing are probably the largest consumers of my time.

Evan: Besides Bizelo, What are some tools that you use?

Nick: Right now we use Olark, Mad Mimi, Sum All, and quite a few others.

Evan: What other pieces of advice or feedback would you have for other online retailers currently on the Bizelo platform?

Sam:  Get it, Learn it, Use it.

Evan: How can potential customers find you?

Sam:  Plugyourholes.com

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Posted By: Evan Schwartz, Community Manager 

Make sure to check out Compete.com if you haven’t already.

Compete will give you traffic reports for up to three websites, and for websites with enough traffic, it will also give a list of top keywords. You can gather valuable data with their free service, but of course there is a premium version as well. With a paid account you gain access to additional reports and some advanced features such as traffic referral.

• Check into the competition.
• Check out a website before you choose to advertise with them.
• Gather ideas from similar websites in a specific industry.

This is an quick and easy way to measure and compare traffic of websites.

Start comparing at Compete.com.

We have had several phone conversations with one of our great customers, John from KamaliKulture.com, so he’s hardly a stranger to us.  We spent some time understanding how he uses Bizelo and what we can do to better serve the needs of his business.

We are constantly striving to support our customers and listen to what’s important to them. Feel free to contact us if we haven’t had a chance to connect yet. We’d love to hear your voice!

You can always drop us a simple tweet if your busy at @bizelo!

A simple increase in marketing and advertising will not guarantee success. An improved marketing plan eCommerce marketing strategy could help, but before you jump to solutions you need to take a step back and evaluate your entire business.

Your next step is to create a “Profit Improvement Plan”, which identifies things you can do to transform potential clients directly into clients that pay, ultimately generating more profit for your business.

Start with three simple questions such as these to help evaluate your business:

1. What can you do without?
2. What can you charge more money for?
3. What can you do differently?

Starting with the first question, and continue moving down the list. Make a list of everything your business can do without. The odds that these three questions will not solve your problems, but make sure to take a hard look at each question. It’s important to take a step back from the chaos that surrounds your business on a daily basis, and analyze what’s really going on. Are there fundamental things about your business that you can change?  Can you make a change to a product your  selling, or can you tweak the way that product is being offered?  Can you partner with someone who shares the same customers?  It’ easy to consume yourself in the details of your daily operations and forget key factors that affect your business.

Take a step back, answer a few simple questions, and figure out ways to improve your profits!

By using Bizelo, your data is continually backed up multiple times a day on our servers and is available is when you need it. We can perform full backup recovery in the event of a system-wide emergency. Backups are stored offline and those offline backups are in turn backed up to other systems. We retain multiple days worth of backups, so we can recover data that has been accidentally deleted or corrupted over numerous days.

Despite all these backups and precautions, remember things can still go wrong. If you’ve made changes between the times we’ve made backups, data might get lost or corrupted. Remember to always backup your information, whether it’s on the web or on your hard drive!

Do you have any backup horror stories?

We are excited to announce that we have partnered with Groove Commerce to deliver mutually valuable offerings that improve the lives of small and medium-sized eCommerce business owners!

“We are thrilled about our new partnership with Bizelo,” says Ethan Giffin, CEO of Groove Commerce. “Our customers will greatly benefit through a large variety of web based apps that are specific to their small business. This is an important step in offering optimized strategies for our eCommerce customers beyond the launch of a new site.”

Learn more about Groove Commerce in our partnership interview below!

Bizelo: Tell us about your business: How long have you been in business? Which markets do you serve? What’s your particular focus or expertise? And what makes you unique?

Groove: Founded in 2007, Groove Commerce is an award-winning web agency providing enterprise-level services focused on eCommerce. We are dedicated to providing the complete package of web design, development and marketing under one roof. Since its inception, Groove Commerce has become a trusted source in the field, and one of the premiere web design and development companies in the mid-Atlantic region collaborating with national and international clients. Groove is an award-winning Magento Gold Solution partner and leverages the robust Magento platform for the development of successful ecommerce websites.

Bizelo: What other companies are you currently partnered with, and how has that helped your business?

Groove: Listrak – They tie in nicely with Magento via extensions. They are an ecommerce focused email marketing company that provides unique revenue generating solutions like Cart Abandonment series, welcome series, and re-engagement series. They have helped our business by providing solid ROI for clients who engage them.

buySAFE – We partnered with buySAFE in the development of their Magento extension. This relationship helps our business through mutual referrals.

Magento – Our partnership with Magento began 3 years ago. We provide expert resources focused on the platform and work exclusively on Magento for all ecommerce redesigns. We recently won the Rising Star award for our success on the platform. Since Magento is the fastest growing ecommerce platform, we have found the partnership to be very successful.

You can see all our partners on our partner page.

Bizelo: What are your future plans for growth? 

Groove: We continue to focus on future growth. We have added new team members recently and look to hire more in the next quarter. Our team growth is reflective of the growth of our clients, as they continue to find success through engaging with Groove, Groove will continue to grow.

Bizelo: Who are your “ideal” customers?

Groove: An ideal customer for Groove is a business who is already selling online, but sales may have recently plateaued or fallen. Groove focuses on measurable metrics including conversion rate, traffic, and average order value to help clients increase revenue online and reach their sales goals. We work with companies in every industry from lacrosse equipment, to medical supplies, to high-end chocolates. Through ongoing Magento partnership engagements and online marketing services, we can continue to fine-tune and optimize strategies beyond launch of a new site.

Bizelo: What advice do you have for companies looking to partner with companies like you?

Groove: For companies looking to partner with Groove, the best advice is to come prepared with a plan that shows the mutual benefits. The best partnerships are those that create success for both involved.

Bizelo: Do you have any recent photos or screenshots of recent projects or portfolios that you would like to share?

Contact Groove:

Website: www.groovecommerce.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/GrooveCommerce

Twitter: GrooveCommerce

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Posted By: Evan Schwartz, Community Manager 

Nick shares some great insight about his eCommerce shop with us. Read our interview, and don’t forget to check out their beautiful website at www.ttrno.com.

Evan: Tell us about your online shop. What do you sell and what makes you unique?

Nick: Our online shop represents our European motorbike dealership in New Orleans. It is a way for us to reach out to and engage our customers as well as expand our customer base. We are one of the nation’s premier european motorcycle shops, with an award winning showroom in downtown New Orleans. We feature Ducati, Triumph and Vespa motorbike brands, as well as a full line of the highest quality apparel and riding gear by Ducati, Triumph, Rev’it, Arai, TCX and more.

TTRNO is also increasingly involved in the newly opened NOLA Motorsports Park. We have now expanded with a trackside Speedshop which offers services to riders on track days.

The Shopify website features our current inventory of motorcycles and scooters, our popular blog with current news and events, and also has our complete stock of gear and apparel available for online purchase.

Evan: What items are the most popular with your buyers?

Nick: Right now, we have seen a very slow start online. This is the off season, and a very niche market, but we are now moving into riding season and expect sales to pick up. Based on traffic, the motorcycle inventory is by far the the most viewed part of the website. However, we have been selling hard to find Triumph and Ducati apparel as well.

Evan: Which online ecommerce platforms are you currently on? Are you planning on selling in other places? If you do, Do you have any other online stores? How do they relate to your current shop?

Nick: We are using Shopify. Shopify is totally amazing, I’m so glad we made the decision to go with such a beautifully designed, powerful and incredibly easy to use software. We have not even needed any outside development work! We are not selling any other places online, but we may explore Ebay for old, hard to find Vespa parts which we have lying around.

Evan: What would you like to improve about your ecommerce experience? 

Nick: I’m not sure.  Perhaps a little cleaner aesthetic, and be able to provide a more interactive experience.

Evan: What do you spend the most time doing that you’d like to eliminate or reduce?

Nick: The most time consuming aspect of working on the site is uploading new product inventory. To know what items need to be added, I just use the purchase order, because it’s difficult to try to sort out new items out of our business software. I could add the items via spreadsheet but it’s actually just quicker to go one by one and make sure everything is right.

One thing that would be amazingly helpful to most people running an e-commerce store is if manufacturers would begin giving their retailers the photos and descriptions in an easy format, rather than hunting them all down on their website or calling this person or that!

Evan: Besides Bizelo, What are some tools that you use?

Nick: We use Bizelo to update inventory via spreadsheet. This saves us a ton of time. Other than Bizelo, we love to use Mailchimp for our newsletters. There are other Apps for Shopify that we are interested in to automate shipping or provide pretty looking invoices, but we are experiencing low sales so this hasn’t been a priority.

Evan: What other pieces of advice or feedback would you have for other online retailers currently on the Bizelo platform?

Nick: I’m not sure, we are looking for some advice ourselves!

Evan: How can potential customers find you?

Nick:  Customers can find us by direct traffic, Facebook, advertising on motorcycle forums, google and google shopping.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ttrno

Twitter: @ttrno

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Posted By: Evan Schwartz, Community Manager 

]]> http://blog.bizelo.us/2012/03/05/bizelo-customer-spotlight-the-transportation-revolution-ducati-triumph-vespa-of-new-orleans/feed/ 0 http://blog.bizelo.us/2012/03/01/shopify-has-announced-their-build-a-business-winner/ http://blog.bizelo.us/2012/03/01/shopify-has-announced-their-build-a-business-winner/#comments Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:28:53 +0000 ecschwartz http://blog.bizelo.us/?p=1503 Shopify has announced the winner of their famous Build A Business competition which is catered to entrepreneurial small business owners. The goal is to sell as fast as you can in order to generate the most revenue out of your online store. The prize pool is unlike any other competition in its class with $500,000 in prizes to dish out to the winners. This is not your typical $100 gift card competition you generally see. Shopify continues to raise the bar with evenets such as this. How can you not love a company who’s willing to pay you to open up and successfully run a  business? With over 3,000 entrants, $12 million dollars in products, and eight months of hard work, the winner has been announced by Shopify!

Before we reveal the winner, you have to check the amazing grand prize:

* $100,000 cash
* A VIP trip for two to New York including round-trip airfare, hotel and spending money.
* While in New York, have lunch with Seth Godin. (author of Tribes, Purple Cow and countless business bibles.)
* One-hour business advice session with Gary Vaynerchuk, best-selling author ofCrush It and The Thank-you Economy.
* VIP trip to California where you have dinner with Tim Ferriss, visit the Googleplex and receive a personal AdWords consultation. Tim is the best-selling author of The 4-Hour Work Week, The 4-Hour Body and, soon, The 4-Hour Chef.

And the winner is…

Coffee Joulies

“Dave Jackson and Dave Petrillo (commonly referred to as ‘The Daves’) are two mechanical engineers from New Jersey. They went on Kickstarter to crowd-source their funding of Coffee Joulies with a goal of $9,500. They ended upraising $306,944 with 4,818 backers. They’re one of Kickstarters most successful projects, and they’re also one of Shopify’s fastest growing online stores. Coffee Joulies are polished stainless steel beans that regulate the temperature of coffee.” -Shopify.

Check out the infographic for an overview of the competition:

Picture this: Your best employee has called in sick in the middle of your busiest weeks of the year. Quickly, you grab your nephew John to help out. “I’ll be glad to help,” he says to himself, “I am great with computers, don’t worry.” Unfortunately for John, excel is the inventory management software of choice.

John starts resorting thousands of line items as he tries to figure out what to do with all of the data. After struggling with the data for over an hour, John gives up in frustration. John accidentally forgot to mention to anyone that he had resorted the data and saved it before leaving.

Hundreds of orders are now delayed, thousands of inventory items are mixed up, and this bad day quickly turned into a disastrous nightmare!

Don’t let this happen to you!

Running an eCommerce business is a big challenge, and you need the right tools to handle it. Our Bizelo eRetail Centralized Inventory Management app is focused on small companies that want simple and effective inventory management. Speed is essential in the ecommerce industry. Your customers don’t like waiting for extended periods, so you need to get their products to them fast.

Inventory software is one of the best ways for you to act quickly and be flexible when working with customer orders. Just imagine when multiple orders start coming in all at once. Our Bizelo eRetail Centralized Inventory Management app allows you to sync inventory across multiple online stores, including Magneto, Shopify, and Etsy, pick and pack products, and fulfill orders with confidence. Always know where your products are, how many you have and when you should reorder them.

This is one lesson you don’t want to learn the hard way!

Youtube has developed OneHourPerMinute.com– an engaging and interactive infographic web site to illustrate what happens in a YouTube second. Check out the video preview below!

Evan: Tell us about your online shop. What do you sell and what makes you unique?

ASB: We know how bold our mission is and we know some of you are asking how an apparel company plans on making it happen. It’s an incredibly challenging feat that will involve education, investment in teams and players, and fostering growth in the youth circuits. Our lifestyle apparel is unique because it encompasses all the tangibles that make rugby players great. The messages we convey are about hard work, being a team player, toughness, respect, and having fun. We make apparel that rugby players and fans are proud to wear and giving back to the rugby community will help build support for American Rugby.

To see more of the American Sin Bin story check out our video: http://www.americansinbin.com/pages/about-american-sin-bin-rugby

Evan: What items are the most popular with your buyers?

ASB: We mostly sell high quality form fitting t-shirts and our most popular styles include “On the Shoulders of Giants,” “Punish Often,” and Nothing Hurts. For a glimpse of our most popular styles check out our homepage: http://www.americansinbin.com/. 

Evan: Which online ecommerce platforms are you currently on? Are you planning on selling in other places? If you do, Do you have any other online stores? How do they relate to your current shop?

ASB: Our online ecommerce platform is Shopify and we get most of our traffic from Facebook as we use that as the main forum to communicate with our fans. We even post design ideas and get feedback from our followers to help create the best shirt possible.

American Sin Bin was thought up by rugby players who work for a company called Ranger Up, the premier military apparel company in the U.S. and one of the largest Mixed Martial Arts apparel companies around. Ranger Up is an extremely fun, but relentless and demanding work environment that uses the ecommerce platform Yahoo! The two brands are related because rugby players, military service members, and mixed martial artists all share a passion for teamwork, competition, and sacrifice. Ranger Up specializes in t-shirts but also offers fight shorts, bags, glassware, and bracelets.  Giving back to the military is a huge part of our business and is really the driving force of this brand. 

Evan: What would you like to improve about your ecommerce experience? 

ASB: Overall, the experience we have had getting our website started and promoting this brand have been amazing. The way in which technology has progressed over the past years have made creating your own online store and running a small business easier than driving in rush hour traffic. 

Evan: What do you spend the most time doing that you’d like to eliminate or reduce?

ASB: We spend most of our time running reports and trying to forecast trends in consumer wants and needs. With an up and coming brand, such as American Sin Bin, the sales can fluctuate drastically due to exposure, national tournaments, and player’s competitive season. 

Evan: Besides Bizelo, What are some tools that you use?

ASB: We use Whiplash Invoices to print large quantities of invoices, which reduces print time and allows us to pick and pack orders efficiently. We also use Chimpified which allows us to sync our Mailchimp account to our website and create newsletters to send to our followers regarding special deals and upcoming events. We even use it to sign up fans for the email list when we are on trips or at events where we can use an iPhone or iPad. 

Evan: What other pieces of advice or feedback would you have for other online retailers currently on the Bizelo platform?

ASB: We believe staying organized and taking the time to learn the capabilities of the tools you are using are invaluable. 

Evan: How can potential customers find you?

Website: www.americansinbin.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AmericanSinBin

Twitter: @AmericanSinBin

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Posted By: Evan Schwartz, Community Manager 

When you relist an Etsy listing, not only are you making it available for a new customer to buy, but you are also putting it back on the top of the list of products. This gives you increased marketing visibility and helps to make even more sales. When you renew a listing on Etsy, your product gets listed under the ‘newly listed’  category.  Your product is bumped to the top of the first page of Etsy, and for a short period of time you’re getting maximum visibility. This makes it important to relist your Etsy products at the right time and frequency.

Bizelo is proud to announce that we’ve added automatic relisting to our capabilities. If you have an Etsy store, simply go to your Etsy store settings and check the “Automatically Relist from Available Quantity” option:

The way our auto relist feature works is that you keep your actual available quantity to buy in Bizelo — in your “Quantity In Stores” amount. So, if you have 10 items available to sell, make sure that Bizelo has the Quantity Available in Stores set to 10. We will still set Etsy to have just “1″ in the quantity on Etsy. When a sale comes into Bizelo, we will deduct the amount purchased from your Quantity In Stores and if you have the Relist function enabled, we will automatically relist that item. We will continue to relist the item until either you run out of available Quantity in your Stores, or you have set a minimum threshold limit for that item. That’s it! Remember that Quantity in Stores is different from Quantity on Shelf. The Shelf quantity is what you have to ship customers, and Store quantity is what’s available for people to buy.

The auto relist feature makes relisting and renewing Etsy items easy and hassle free.  Our new Etsy autorelister makes our Bizelo eRetail Inventory Management App better than ever, saving you time and increasing your productivity.

• Automatically relist an Etsy item whenever an order comes in, without having to log into Etsy
• Relist from available store quantities. Store quantities are automatically deducted
• Relist until the available quantity reaches “0″ or you have set a minimum threshold level for that item.
• Renew while you sleep – don’t forget those customers on the other side of the globe
• Manage renewals in multiple Etsy and other ecommerce shops from one Bizelo account

“Just wanted to touch base and let you know how great this auto relist function is that you just turned on for us.  It is just starting to sink in how REALLY great this is going to be for us.  I knew it would be a HUGE labor saver but I never considered how it could be a sales driver.  On ETSY, the spoils go to the aggressive shops that list ALL the time.  Customers tend to search and then view by “most recently listed”.  As we all know, people’s attention span is short.  If you don’t get seen in the first couple of pages, they are on to the next search.  Hence you must always be listing, relisting, getting your stuff “to the top.” Until today, overnight orders sat until morning to be relisted. While Europe searched, I slept.  According to theory, not anymore.  With auto relist, I will be able to keep items moving to the top, hopefully driving more sales.”