July 2008 StoresOnline Merchant Newsletter

Greetings from Robert Schow, VP of Customer Relations

The summer months are upon us, and with the heat come new and exciting opportunities for our merchants to increase their site-building knowledge. In this newsletter we will discuss a free merchant webinar that we will be hosting on July 17, 2008 at 3 PM MST.

Merchant Webinar
Do you feel as if you don't have all the answers you need all at once? Or feel as if you have great information at your hands but need some kind of interaction, or someone to talk to?

What is a webinar you might ask? If one were to look on the internet for the definition it would tell you a webinar is short for Web-based seminar, a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the Web.

Benefits of a Webinar

• A key feature of a Webinar is its interactive elements -- the ability to give, receive and discuss information. Contrast with Webcast, in which the data transmission is one way and does not allow interaction between the presenter and the audience.
  
• Participants are able to interact with the instructor(s) and ask questions and get answers in real time that pertain to the topic in discussion.
  
• Webinars offer a convenience to the participant and a low cost level if any at all (FREE), depending on the business decision of course.
  
• These types of online courses have a higher impact than being able to take what you have in the help button, merchant services, and even the Getting Started Packet simply reading this material.
  
• No travel is required.

Attending a webinar is like attending any seminar apart from the place where the event takes place. Instead of meeting in a conference room you meet in a virtual conference room on the web. Joining a meeting does not take long and is relatively fast and easy.

With the way technology is today and the added convenience Webinars bring to any given company for further instruction of a certain discussion or topic, Stores Online is proud to announce our first Customer Support Webinar which will be held on July 17, 2008 live at 3 PM MST, and we invite all active merchants that wish to receive further enlightenment in setting up your own personal websites.

Our topic of discussion will be in regards to setting up your own Ordering Rules which if you are familiar with, will calculate the shipping costs of your orders which you ship out to your consumers that visit and purchase from your website. We will have some of the best instructors in this given area of discussion.

Again we invite you to join us on July 17, 2008 at 3 PM MST live where we will discuss with you Ordering Rules and then open the last few minutes to Questions and Answers.

Check http://www.storesonline.comfor a link to the webinar.

New StoresOnline Pro Features

New Design: Cologne and Nouveau are now available in StoresOnline Pro. Check them out by clicking on the Site tab.

Default Categories: You can now turn on and off the default category using the Set Default and Remove Default buttons. Selecting a Default Category can save you time while adding new products to your website. For example, if you know that the next 20 products that you add are going to be in your “Summer Collection” category, select that as the default category. As you add these 20 products, you won’t need manually assign each product to the “Summer Collection” category, it will be done automatically. Then, when you start adding products that belong in another category, you can switch the default category to that one. If you are adding a variety of products that are all in different categories, then you might want to click the Remove Default button so that you can assign them to their correct category one by one.

New Tutorials: There are two new tutorials available in Merchant Services: Anchor Text Linking and Pay Per Post Advertising. These are both brand new optimization and marketing techniques that are proving to be quite affective.

Introducing the Avail 24/7 Communication System from StoresOnline. Make Your Small Business Look, Sound, and Feel Like a Big Business! Get your own Toll Free Number now by calling customer support at 801-434-8582. Manage your account online and view your voicemail, email and faxes in one location.

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Featured Testimonial

Gerald worked with 164 people in his company-all who dreamed of striking out on their own some day. Proudly, Gerald proclaims, "Everyone I worked with kept talking about doing it, and talking about doing it, and talking about doing it. So I went out and did it. And they are still talking."

Karen West and her son, Raymond
www.kozykomfortbykaren.com
Click Here to read their story

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Our customer service and programming departments are committed to providing the best possible service to our merchants by listening and responding to their needs. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for our customer service department, you may visit us at www.myquickresponse.com for 24/7 Customer Support Live Chat. You may also call 801-434-8582.

As always, we are grateful to have you on board as a merchant with StoresOnline! See you next month!

Robert Schow
VP of Customer Relations
StoresOnline, Inc.

June 2008 StoresOnline Merchant Newsletter

Greetings from Robert Schow, VP of Customer Relations
The summer months are upon us, and hopefully the heat stokes your entreprenurial engines. Get ready to hit June hard by making a strong statement with your site design. In this newsletter we will discuss how to design a website that makes the right statement and ensures your customers that their experience with your busoness will be worthwhile.

Design to the Point
Your website is the only salesman for your business that your customers will ever meet. It is your showroom, your brochure, your customer service department and the nice person behind your checkout counter. In short it is the entire customer experience rolled into one package. With that in mind you should be aware of the importance of properly designing your website.

Many people build websites to suit their personal tastes. They include their favorite colors and pictures, and they make it a very enjoyable experience for themselves. But is that the point of an eCommerce site? eCommerce has one point, and that is to sell a product or service.

Remember the point of your website and you will design a website that can succeed.

Discussion
Your website has a very simple job, to sell your product. Your Home Page is designed to welcome visitors and assure them that they have found exactly what they are looking for. Your Contact Us page is designed to reassure visitors that if there is a problem, you can be easily reached for help. Your About Us page is designed to assure potential customers that you are a company run by real people that they can trust. Your information pages help the customer make the decision to buy, and your Product pages are designed with just one goal, to get visitors to click the “Add to Cart” button, turning them into customers.

Application
As you design each section or each page, go through the following list and make sure that, whenever possible, what you are doing meets the outlined requirements.

Content
Is the content of your site accurate, up to date, relevant and useful?
There may be plenty of other sites with identical content. Make sure your site has information for your customers that they can trust. Make your site a resource to them by including addition information beyond making a purchase. Most buyers visit a site at least four times before they buy anything. A site that has useful information will be visited frequently, and if return visitors already trust your site, they will be ready to buy from you when the time comes.

On the other hand if your site has old news or yesterday’s model how does that look to visitors? Who would take the chance of buying from a poorly maintained website?

Is your site unique?
Remember this can be a help or a hindrance to your website. You want to be unique and memorable without being unusual or strange.

Technical Questions

• Does each page load in a few seconds when accessed from a dial-up connection? If your Home page has large graphics you may lose impatient visitors.


• Does everything function properly?


• Are there any broken images?


• Are there any links on your site that lead to a page that cannot be displayed or that cause any other errors?


• Does the ordering process function properly when used with systems running on all platforms?


• Does the ordering process work with all products and payment and shipping options?


• Does your site fit on a screen 800 pixels wide?

Nothing will tarnish your credibility like a broken site.

Marketing Questions

Your page must tell each visitor:

• WHO you are.


• WHAT you sell.


• HOW MUCH the product costs.


• WHY someone should purchase the product.


• WHY someone should purchase the product from you.


• WHY someone should purchase the product now.


• HOW to obtain the product.

Does your page look professional?
Run a spell check on every line of your site. Mistakes are not the message you want to send to your visitors.

Is the header and navigation bar consistent throughout your site?
Many visitors will enter your site from pages other than your home page. Make sure they can find their way around.

Does your page elicit a want or a need from your visitors and does it show them how your product can solve it?
People don’t buy cars because they want cars. They buy cars because they want to go places, sit in luxury and look cool. Sell the experience and then offer the solution.

Does the text on your page take longer than a few seconds to read?
Often, people skim content rather than read it. Most of us read the bold type whenever we can and web surfers are no exception. If your webpage contains as much information as a page from a book, then how much of it is actually being read?

If so break it up with bold subheadings like this one.
Long passages of text are often necessary to say all that needs to be said. However, remember that people shopping on the Internet are often pressed for time and have numerous other sites trying to sell them the same thing. Say what you need to say in as few words as possible.

Bulleted lists have several benefits:

• They make key points more memorable.


• They show your selling points to those of us who are :


• Too lazy to read the whole page.


• In a hurry.


• In the habit of reading the bold type only.

Does your page have large graphics?
Large graphics or too many graphics distract your readers from the message you are trying to get across. Some graphics are necessary and can be a very effective tool in selling but keep in mind that people seldom buy anything based solely on the images they see. Images may get your customer's attention, but they will buy based on the printed word.

Use images to punctuate and enforce the information on the page. A picture may be worth a thousand words but have you ever bought anything based on just a picture?

Does your page focus on selling to the right group?

People who view your site can be divided into three groups:

1) Those who have already decided to buy your product.
2) Those who have decided not to buy.
3) Those who have not yet decided.

The first group is nice but they don’t require any selling, just a working website. The second group will not be moved but only visit the site to browse. The third group is the only one on whom you can hope to have any effect whatsoever.

Focus your efforts on turning the “undecided” visitors into customers. Otherwise, you are not making the best use of your website.

Common Mistakes in Website Design

Unclear text - The information on your website is useless if customers can’t read it. While small fonts, fancy or unusual typefaces might look nice to your eyes, many visitors have different screen resolutions, color settings and might be using browsers that do not support your typeface. Stick to dark text on white or light backgrounds, and use standard typefaces like Ariel, Times or Courier.

Hard to find Links - Create links that are clearly links. Links are the key to any webpage; do not make it difficult for your visitors to find what you are trying to show them.

Incompatibility - Microsoft Internet Explorer, or “IE”, is still the most common browser in use today, so it makes sense to design your pages to work in that environment. A few years ago 95% of all Internet traffic was using IE, but that number is dropping steadily. It is more important than ever to test your site using Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Netscape Navigator as well as many other browsers.

Forms - Simplify the forms you need and remove any unnecessary forms. A website should not be like a trip to the DMV. You need a secure order form that contains all the required information needed to process the order. A contact form is a must for permission marketing, but it should be as simple as possible, containing name and email only.

Horizontal scrolling - Page widths must be limited to avoid the need to scroll horizontally. Scrolling down is not an issue, but keep in mind the "above the fold part of the page" rule. Get your visitors' attention with the first thing they see, and they will gladly scroll down to see what else you have to say.

Flash and Script - Flash is great, but until everyone has super fast broadband every flash animation breaks the first website rule of avoiding long loading time. Flash increases your loading times by 30 seconds on a fast connection and several minutes on dial-up, which many of your visitors still use.

Scripts can be useful and generally don’t take too long to load, but they frequently fail to work properly. If you want to use scripts, make sure you know what you are doing and test your pages using systems running on all platforms before you go live.

If your site is designed as a showcase for your technical expertise, then design it that way. If it is designed to sell products, then limit your efforts to things that promote that goal.

Pop-Ups - Users almost universally hate pop-up windows. They are not only an annoyance but many feel they are an invasion of privacy. Pop-ups may also make your visitors fear for their safety, because pop-ups can carry spyware and even viruses. Most of your visitors probably employ pop-up blockers, so your work will be wasted anyway.

Lastly remember to listen to the experts. Look closely and frequently at other sites and see what they are doing. If you see a good idea, use it on your site.

Summary
You have invested time and money into your business. You have researched and selected a product, secured a supplier and soon will begin marketing your site in earnest to bring traffic to your site. All of this will be wasted if your site isn’t designed to sell. It’s not a difficult concept. Your website sells a product and if you make that your goal and test it frequently, you will turn traffic into sales. How quickly and efficiently you do that will determine how much profit you turn, as well as how soon you will see it.

Designing your site to sell is critical to success. Keep testing and improving your site and you will be on your way to a successful Internet business.

While searching for a supplier and setting up your business, we recommend Avail as well, it will give you the professional appearance without the cost.

Managing communications with your clients is the core of your business. Avail is the professional, easy to use, affordable communication solution that will give you control over your phone, fax, and email systems, all from the convenience of your computer.


Call customer support to activate your account today 801-434-8582

Use Avail to Manage Your Phone Calls:

Avail works together with your existing phone and phone line. No special equipment is needed. Login to your account online to update and maintain your menus, greetings, teams, and employees. Avail gives you the ability to see a list of all calls, answered or unanswered and to listen to your voicemail.

Use Avail to Manage Your Faxes:

When you work with Avail software, you do not need a fax machine to receive faxes. Avail receives your faxes as email attachments in the same place that you read your emails and listen to voicemail. Your account comes with a toll free fax number making it convenient for local and non-local customers to send faxes.

Use Avail to Manage Your Email:

With Avail, you can send and receive email from the same inbox that you listen to voicemail and view faxes. Avail allows you to use all the standard email features plus the expanded functionality that comes from having your email, faxes, and voicemail managed from the same application.

Use Avail to Manage Your Contacts:

Customers contact you by phone, fax, and email daily. Establish long-term, profitable relations with your clients and obtain reoccurring business, then it is critical to ensure that your communication avenues are open and running very smoothly.

Avail will also help you by:

• Saving You Money: Avail eliminates the need for a fax machine and extra fax line


• Providing You Worldwide Access: Avail is web based, so you can retrieve messages and faxes from your email.


• Increasing Your Company’s Reliability: No more busy signals for clients or paper jammed fax machines. With Avail, you get your faxes, emails, and phone calls and messages organized in one place.
  
  Call customer support to activate your account today 801-434-8582

As a reminder, Imergent Financial Services in conjunction with Home Savings of America is offering merchant discounts on home mortgages. Whether you are purchasing a home or refinancing your home, we are a great resource for you to find affordable financing solutions. Call us anytime for a free consultation at 866.918.8866.

Also, stay tuned for our Financial Advocate Network Release in July. Included is a suite of financial products and services that are available to Merchants at significant discounts. Our financial dashboard tool “ABOUND” will also be a key part of the release that will enable individuals to run a free financial fitness evaluation, optimize their finances, accelerate the payoff of their debts and mortgages with the revolutionary software, and improve cash flow. Feel free to check out the website at www.financialadvocatenetwork.com.

Featured Testimonial
“I can be teaching in my classroom and when I go home and check my website, I can have $2,000 worth of sales that I didn’t have to do anything to get, once the website was built. You go out shopping, spending money, and you come home and you see that money has been replaced because people have being purchasing from you.”

Karla with a K
www.proclubgear.com
Click Here to read Karla's story >>

Our customer service and programming departments are committed to providing the best possible service to our merchants by listening and responding to their needs.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for our customer service department, you may visit us at http://support.myquickresponse.com/ for 24/7 Customer Support Live Chat. You may also call 801-434-8582.

As always, we are grateful to have you on board as a merchant with StoresOnline! See you next month!

Robert Schow
VP of Customer Relations
StoresOnline, Inc.

Handle Complaints and Keep Customers - wikiHow

Handle Complaints and Keep Customers - wikiHow

May 2008 StoresOnline Merchant Newsletter

Greetings from Robert Schow, VP of Customer Relations

IMPORTANT NOTE: Phone support will be closed on Monday May 26th in observance of the Memorial Day holiday. Chat and e-mail support will still be available on May 26th.

It is May! Wow, seems like we were just in January yesterday. Hopefully all of you are doing fantastic on your websites. Last month we learned about Inbound Links. This month we will broaden our horizons by learning about Social Networking.

Social Networking via Blogs
Promoting anything online boils down to one thing: getting links. You submit articles to either A) get quality inbound links, or B) get your link in front of your (human) target market. You exchange links for the same reason - for traffic and search engine benefits. You pay for advertising so that you can put your links in front of people who are searching for products/information you offer on your site.

But with a blog, it comes much easier - and for the most part, naturally. You’ll find that you get a large number of unsolicited natural links, and that those links will be posted in places that get seen by a large number of potential visitors and readers.

Why is this? The blogosphere is made up of information hubs, grouped by topic and style by both individual readers and authority sites, which creates a natural breeding ground for super-networking between information publishers.

This group, as a whole, links very freely to sources that relate to their own - or, simply put, to ‘bloggers that they like’. In the end this creates an entire network of related information for each niche, and even micro-niche, within the blogosphere.

Don’t set out to be “The Lone Blogger”!

Previous teachings may have left you thinking that “linking out” is a bad thing. You may leak “Page Rank”. Or worse, lose your visitors by sending them to someone else’s link. But when it comes to blogging, you will actually increase your readership dramatically by getting involved… and by linking out freely.

Here are 7 ways that you can get involved:

1) First and foremost, if you are currently using Blogger.com – you may want to try using a WordPress blog on your own domain. There are other solutions out there (such as type pad, for example), but you’ll find WordPress super easy to use and an endless source of help and information on it across the web. This is important, because WordPress has TONS of ‘perks’ to blogging that you won’t find elsewhere.

2) Second and equally important, if you have a “splog” (a “spam blog”), it’s time to trade that in and start publishing quality content. In order to truly do well with a blog long-term, you need to post useful information on a particular topic on a frequent basis.

3) Having your personal style shine through in your posts is a big plus. Even if you’re quirky, because your readers love ‘real’ and that’s why they’ll keep coming back. The winning combination in your actual writing is: Quality Content + Personal Style. You might be funny, geeky, outrageous, dry - whatever. But this tends to be a big ‘attraction factor’ with blogs.

4) Make use of your Blogroll and link out to related blogs, or blogs that you frequent yourself. Wordpress has a feature that will automatically alert the bloggers that you link to, and most of them will check out your site - and add you to their blogroll if they like what they see.

5) Include Tags in each of your posts. Try using the plug-in here: http://www.broobles.com/scripts/simpletags/, which allows you to include tags at the end of each individual post. This is VERY easy to do - not as complicated as it sounds. Simply put the code at the bottom of each of your posts with relevant words that pertain to that post.

Once you publish your post, check out the hyperlinked tags at the bottom. Click on each one and you will see a listing at Technorati of posts on other blogs that are also tagged for that particular word. Check those out, and if they are interesting and related… leave a comment! When you are given the option to put in your URL, link back to your individual blog post on the same topic (not your “home page”).

6) Frequent blogs that you like, or that are on similar topics as your own, by subscribing to them through a feed reader. Check ‘your favorites’ no less than once a week, and post comments on any interesting new posts you find there. You can find active, popular blogs on just about any topic in some of the major blog directories.

7) When you find posts of particular interest (while going through the steps above), mention them in your own blog posts. In WordPress, when you link out to an individual blog post on another blog, it shows up in the comments section of that post as a “trackback”. It’s automatic, and it’s that simple: you link to a post and an excerpt from YOUR post shows up in their comments.

When their regular visitors and new readers are finished reading the article, they will notice your excerpt and link at the bottom. Many of those readers will click through to see your comments on this post, or to continue their research of the topic. It’s a great “traffic sharing” method - highly encouraged in the blogosphere!

As you get more involved, and become ‘known’ in your particular niche, you will find that others link as freely to you as you are linking out… which improves your overall exposure, your readership, and your search engine rankings.

What kind of results can you expect?
Try tracking your results. The goal is to see the number of unique visitors and an increase to the number of inbound links showing up daily!

iMergent Inc., parent company of StoresOnline, launched our mortgage and financial services division November 17, 2007 under a Federal Bank Charter Home Savings of America. This new division will continue the tradition of outstanding customer service and innovation that you have come to depend on from StoresOnline. The timing is great as fixed rates are near historic lows-15 Year fixed rate is available today of 5.125%!! iMergent Financial Services is currently able to provide residential and commercial real estate lending, credit enhancement services, and equipment leasing. Make sure to check out future additions of the newsletter for more details on each of these exciting new services.

Product Spotlight: Prime rate is now 5.0% and just recently we have seen a rally in Mortgage Bonds. What does this mean? 30 year mortgage rates have dipped down again. Currently a 30% fixed mortgage is available at 5.625%--Don't hesitate to call us for a FREE, NO OBLIGATION RATE QUOTE. We also offer FHA financing which enables customers to refinance for cashout to 95% of the homes value.

Our financial specialists are standing by to help you with any of your financial needs.
Call: 866.918.8866 OR Email: contact@imergentfinancialservices.com

We are happy to announce that you can now get your logo designed directly through us. We are pleased to offer this new service to you in addition to our websites.

We want to help you attract the right customers for your business. First and foremost, your logo should look great and serve a functional purpose. A quality logo design should be distinctive, polished and memorable.

Average Competitor's Basic Package: $300 - $600

StoresOnline Logos Basic Package: $185

Our designers are some of the industry's best! Giving you a quality logo is the most important thing to us. We will provide you with a variety of fresh, unique logo concepts, customized specifically for your business needs, while communicating with you throughout the process.

Example Logos: Let our work speak for itself. Below are some actual logos created by StoresOnline Logo

Get Your Logo Started Now! WWW.STORESONLINELOGO.COM

New StoresOnline Pro Features

Product Export: "Delete" and "Product URL" are new columns being added to the Product Export in pro for Tab and Excel formats.

The delete column will allow for a mass product delete. The Product URL column is the "Example URL" found in the product edit screen of the builder providing the full web path to the product.

Essence and Zepher Color Scheme: Essence and Zephyr both had their site elements color based on the primary color, when they should have been based on Link or Navigation. We have changed the color that the site elements are based on. In Essence they will be based on Link color and in Zephyr, the Navigation color.

Page Element: A new page element, Recently Viewed Products, has been added to Pro. The new element displays a list of products recently viewed by a site visitor. "Recently viewed" can be found under the Navigation group of elements to add to a page.

New Design: Cologne is now available. Please make sure that you check it out.

Avail: We have added an explicit column for sorting by first name and last name and added the labels back into the person edit screen.

New feature in the Store Builder: If you get an error at the top of the page and it is related to a field not being filled in or the data being invalid, the corresponding field will be highlighted and if you put your mouse over the highlighted field, it will give you the details of the error.

For example, if you add a Standard Product and instead of filling in the SKU and Product Name fields you hit the "Done" button, you will get 2 errors: "SKU is Required" and "Product Name is required". The SKU and Product Name fields will be highlighted. If you put your mouse of the highlighted field, it will show you the error for that field.

Introducing the Avail 24/7 Communication System from StoresOnline. Make Your Small Business Look, Sound, and Feel Like a Big Business! Get your own Toll Free Number now by calling customer support at 801-434-8582. Manage your account online and view your voicemail, email and faxes in one location. Talk to your customer support representative today!.

Featured Testimonial

"[My manager] just told me I was done...It devastated me. It turned me off on the corporate world and everything else. But now they're supplying my products...I think in the grand scheme of things, I think them letting me go was the best thing that ever happened to me."

Jerry Lillie
www.tanks-to-pans.com
www.yourautocoolingsource.com
Click Here to read Jerry's story >>

Our customer service and programming departments are committed to providing the best possible service to our merchants by listening and responding to their needs. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for our customer service department, you may visit us at www.myquickresponse.com for 24/7 Customer Support Live Chat. You may also call 801-434-8582.

As always, we are grateful to have you on board as a merchant with StoresOnline! See you next month!

Robert Schow

VP of Customer Relations
StoresOnline, Inc.

April 2008 StoresOnline Merchant Newsletter

Greetings from Robert Schow, VP of Customer Relations
Happy Spring time! I hope all of you have had some time to enjoy some good weather and finally say good bye to your heavy coats and sweaters. This month we will be learning about building inbound links.

Link Building
Link building is the process of getting other sites to link back to your site. This is one of the biggest factors that plays into ranking high in search engines. Although link building takes a decent amount of time and effort initially, the payoff is well worth it. In most cases, these back links will stay in place permanently which means once it’s done, it’s done. Below we will discuss a few methods that can help you build more quality inbound links.

Method #1: Live Directories
This is one of the easiest and most effective ways of building links. Like with any other method, it does involve time but after submitting to a few directories, you will get a pattern down to make it a little easier as you continue submitting to more and more directories. Some live directories have a cost but there are literally thousands that are free. Review the Merchant Services tutorial called “Submitting to Live Directories” found in the section called “Getting Traffic (visitors) – Basic”

Method #2: Manual Link Exchanges
Link exchanges, or link swapping, is an industry standard way of building incoming links. Very simply, you agree to link to site XYZ and site XYZ agrees to link to you.

It may be helpful to use link management software to organize your links and to ensure that all of your link partners continue linking to you. One option would be SolvoLink, which you can download for free at http://www.free-link-exchange-software.com. StoresOnline Pro users can take advantage of the built in link monitoring tool which helps organize and monitor your reciprocal links.

To start obtaining links manually, you will need to find webmasters with sites related to yours that want to swap links. Here are a few free tools that you can use to locate other webmasters to exchange links with:

• http://value-exchange.sitesell.com
• http://www.linkalizer.com
• http://www.addurldirectory.com

Method #3: Articles
Writing a theme specific article is an excellent way of getting free, high-quality links pointing back to your site. Here's how it works: You write an informative article sharing your expertise in an area. Include a signature in your article that includes links to your site. Then submit it to various article distribution directories. Other webmasters will use your article as content for their site which would include links back to your site.

To get a list of directories that you can submit your articles to, go to http://www.internetsuccesskey.com/submit-article.html.

We are happy to announce that you can now get your logo designed directly through us. We are pleased to offer this new service to you in addition to our other services.
We want to help you attract the right customers for your business. First and foremost, your logo should look great and serve a functional purpose. A quality logo design should be distinctive, polished and memorable.

Average Competitor's Basic Package: $300 - $600
StoresOnline Logo's Basic Package: $185

Our designers are some of the industry's best! Giving you a quality logo is the most important thing to us. We will provide you with a variety of fresh, unique logo concepts, customized specifically for your business needs, while communicating with you throughout the process.
Example Logos: Let our work speak for itself.

StoresOnlineLogo.com - Get Your Logo Started Now!

New StoresOnline Pro Features
New Design: Two new Store Builder designs, Cologne and Nouveau,are now available in StoresOnline Pro. Check them out by clicking on the Site tab in the Pro Store Builder.

New Warehouses: New warehouses continue to be integrated for StoresOnline Platinum users. The newest one is called Movies 4 Wholesale. They offer new and used movies (DVD & VHS), CD's, and games (PC & console).

Default Categories: You can now turn on and off the default category using the Set Default and Remove Default buttons. Selecting a Default Category can save you time while adding new products to your website. For example, if you know that the next several products that you add are going to be in your “Summer Collection” category, select that as the default category. As you add these products, you won’t need to manually assign each product to the “Summer Collection” category, it will be done automatically. Then, when you start adding products that belong in another category, you can switch the default category to that one. If you are adding a variety of products that are all in different categories, then you might want to click the Remove Default button so that you can assign them to their correct category one by one.

New Tutorials
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is becoming more and more prominent as a new marketing channel online.

One of the many social networks is Facebook. For information on how you can utilize Facebook as part of your overall marketing strategy, check out the new tutorial called “Social Media Strategies: Facebook” found in the “Getting Traffic (visitors) – Basic” section of Merchant Services.

The newest Google Adwords tutorial is now available as well. Look for “Keyword Matching Options” found in the “Google Adwords” section of Merchant Services.

Introducing the Avail 24/7 Communication System from StoresOnline. Make Your Small Business Look, Sound, and Feel Like a Big Business! Get your own Toll Free Number now by calling customer support at 801-434-8582. Manage your account online and view your voicemail, email and faxes in one location.

Avail247.com - The Communication Solution System for Entrpreneurs

Featured Testimonial
"My supplier is pretty happy with the amount of sales I'm bringing to them through the website...Every time they pull up my account, they always seem to be surprised at the amount of sales I'm doing."
David Brown
www.thetapestryshop.com

Our customer service and programming departments are committed to providing the best possible service to our merchants by listening and responding to their needs. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for our customer service department, you may visit us at www.myquickresponse.com for 24/7 Customer Support Live Chat. You may also call 801-434-8582 Monday - Friday 6:00am - 7:00 pm MST..

As always, we are grateful to have you on board as a merchant with StoresOnline! See you next month!

Robert Schow
VP of Customer Relations
StoresOnline, Inc.

Other StoresOnline Links

Avail247.com

BuyStoresonlinePro.com

ImergentInc.com

MyCorporateBrochure.com

MyQuickDevelopment.com

StoresOnline Press Release Blog

StoresOnline.com

StoresOnlineCustomerDevelopment.com

StoresOnlineDomestic.com

StoresOnlineExpress.com

StoresOnlineHelp.com

StoresOnlineInc.com

StoresOnlineMerchant.com

StoresOnlinePro.com

StoresOnlineQuickSite.com

StoresOnlineResources.com

StoresOnlineSite.com

StoresOnlineSuccess.com

StoresOnlineSupport.com

StoresOnlineTutorial.com

StoresOnlineUSA.com

StoresOnlineWebsite.com

StoresOnlineWorldwide.com

March 2008 StoresOnline Merchant Newsletter

Greetings from Robert Schow, VP of Customer Relations

Important Note: The Keyword Analysis Tool has been changed. To use the new version, log into one of your StoresOnline Pro websites and click on the Pages tab. Edit your Home page and click the Analyze button. Select Keyword Analysis from the Tool drop down menu. Enter the keyword or keyword phrase that you want to analyze in the field provided and click the Run button. Additional features and functionality will be added to this tool in the near future.

Website Real Estate
This month we will discuss some very important tips about the Real-estate on your website and how you can better use different areas to help convert visitors into customers.

One of the Prime Real-estate areas of your website is your Header. The content included in your header is importannt because it is usually the first thing that a visitor sees and it will appear at the top of every page on your website. You want your visitors to be able to see at a glance who you are and what you offer. Other important things to include are credit card logos for the payments you accept, a phone number if you accept phone orders and any other short tag lines to make your customers feel comfortable ordering from you. An example from http://www.wheatgrasskits.com/

• Over 10 years in business


• #1 Wheatgrass Destination Online


• Over 45,000 Happy customers

Your home page is your window display for your website to draw customers into your store. This is often the first page your customers will see. Make sure that you are giving your customers a reason to purchase from your site. The opening paragraph on your home page should be roughly 25 to 30 words and should leave no question as to what your site offers. Use the 15 second rule to explain what you are selling and what the benefits are for purchasing from you. Below is the opening paragraph from the home page of http://www.wheatgrasskits.com/.

Grow your own wheatgrass, barleygrass, sunflower greens, sprouts or herbs for pennies a day! WheatgrassKits.com offers you nature's most perfect living foods.

If you offer something like free shipping for orders over a certain amount, make that clear and visible in the openeing paragraph, the header, or both. If you are highlighting a specific product or category page from the text on your home page, be sure to create text links from the paragraph to the appropriate page.

When a customer comes to your website, they know that your goal is to sell them your products. Don't be afraid to do exactly that.

Some of the other key pages on your website are the About Us, Privacy Policy, Contact Us, and Frequently Asked Questions pages. When you receive a call or email from a customer with questions that might be common to other customer, add their question with the corresponding answer to your FAQs page.

For additional information on this topic, take some time to re-visit the Dialing In Your Website Tutorial found in the Initial Website & Product Research section of Merchant Services.

New StoresOnline Pro Features

New Warehouses/Drop Shippers:


11 new dropshippers have been added to the warehouses section under the Products tab. This will offer you a larger variety of drop shipping. Many of these new drop shippers have no activation fees or monthly fees.

Receipt Page Content in PRO: There are now 2 areas of your order form receipt that you can add content to. One is content that is displayed on your confirmation page and the printable PDF version of your receipt that your customer gets when they complete an order. The other is an advanced section used to add code such as Google adWords conversion tracking. To add and edit this content, go to the Pages tab, then click on the Forms tab, edit your order form and then click on the Receipt tab.

New Design: The new design Bistro has been finished and is available for use.

Wish List: A new feature in StoresOnline Pro is the Wish List. The Wish List allows your customer to compile an order that you may not be ready to place that day but it will save it for when they come back to complete it.

New Tutorial - Basic Computer Skills: This tutorial is intended for StoresOnline merchants that are in need of some instruction in basic computer skills. It is divided into two parts; basic desktop computer skills and basic internet computer skills. To watch this video tutorial, go to the Other/Misc section in Merchant Services and click on the Computer Basics link.

Introducing the Avail 24/7 Communication System from StoresOnline. Make Your Small Business Look, Sound, and Feel Like a Big Business! Get your own Toll Free Number now by calling customer support at 801-434-8582. Manage your account online and view your voicemail, email and faxes in one location.

iMergent Inc., parent company of Storesonline, launched our mortgage and financial services division November 17, 2007 under a Federal Bank Charter. This new division will continue the tradition of outstanding customer service and innovation that you have come to depend on from Storesonline. The timing is great as fixed rates are near historic lows—15 Year fixed rate is available today of 4.875%!! iMergent Financial Services is currently able to provide residential and commercial real estate lending, credit enhancement services, and equipment leasing. Make sure to check out future additions of the newsletter for more details on each of these exciting new services.

Product Spotlight: There is a mortgage revolution going on with the Mortgage Accelerator. With the recent lowering of interest rates from the Fed, the rates on this mortgage product are incredible. You can lock in on a rate today as low as 3.87%. The best part about this program is the Mortgage Acceleration component which literally could enable you to pay off your home in 1/3 to ½ the time with virtually no change to your daily spending habits. Please contact us for a FREE, NO OBLIGATION consultation to how this program works. We also are sponsoring a webinar on Wednesday, March 19th at 4 PM PST, 5 PM MST, 6 PM CST, or 7 PM EST. Call in info is:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/464599721

Conference Call: (605) 990-0010, access code 464-599-721

Meeting ID: 464-599-721

Stores Online now offers additional value added shipping services through
Atto Solutions using DHL Express.


Now you can get your products shipped fast, reliably and cost effectively through DHL. All you have to do is select the DHL shipment option and in a few clicks you can have your shipment on the way. If you choose the NAS (Next Afternoon Service) through an exclusive arrangement with Stores Online you can get your package via this air service for just a few pennies more than you would spend on the ground shipment option.

For more than 35 years, DHL has built the world's premier global delivery network by trailblazing express shipping in one country after another. Over 220 countries and territories later, DHL is the global market leader of the international express and logistics industry. DHL specializes in providing customers with innovative and customized transportation solutions from a single source.

Featured Testimonial

"I had about 20 years of retailing...and I’ve seen a lot of people that have no retail experience at all, and they were doing it. If they can do it, you know, I should have a little edge."

Paul and Sharron Savoie

http://www.petfenceworld.com/
http://www.protechcarcovers.com/
Click Here to read their story >>

Our customer service and programming departments are committed to providing the best possible service to our merchants by listening and responding to their needs. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for our customer service department, you may visit us at www.myquickresponse.com for 24/7 Customer Support Live Chat. You may also call 801-434-8582.

As always, we are grateful to have you on board as a merchant with StoresOnline! See you next month!

Robert Schow
VP of Customer Relations
StoresOnline, Inc.

February 2008 StoresOnline Merchant Newsletter

Greetings from Robert Schow, VP of Customer Relations

Now that we are in the second month of 2008, I hope you have started putting your goals to the test and are reaping the rewards of doing so. Last month we went over adding credibility to your site by using Testimonials. This month we will touch on some suggestions for Marketing Offline.

Marketing Offline
Customer acquisition, the process of gaining new customers, can be an ongoing saga for business owners. In a business, customer acquisition is more important than buying office furniture, designing business cards, purchasing computer systems and son on.

To make a profit and stay in business, business owner need a reliable way to get more customers in the door that are willing to spend money. One of the best ways to acquire more customers is through a direct response marketing system with the capability of carefully tracking and accounting for the source of the traffic. This simply means that whatever method a business owner chooses to seek out new customers, there should be a built-in way of tracking the response in order to know where the customer came from.

You must tell your potential customers where they can find you and give them a compelling reason for doing business with you. All marketing practices can be boiled down to this one thought. It sounds so simple when you think about it, but this is one of the major stumbling blocks to a successful business. The owner thinks potential customers will spend time and energy searching out a company to do business with. This is simply not the case.

Most potential customers will only shop at places they already know about. If they do not know how to find you, they will not come to you to buy anything. You must find a way to tell potential customers where your business can be found.

You can accomplish this by following a few of these basic steps:

1. Distribute a press release detailing the latest breakthrough in your business field, available only at your place of business. Include a special telephone number for customers to call for more information.

2. Place an ad in your local yellow pages publication. It doesn't have to be huge, elaborate, or expensive. Something modest and consistent will do. Readers become comfortable with ads they have seen before. After your ad runs a few times, you will be surprised how many people begin to feel they can trust giving your ad a try. Additionally, it can be quite an added attraction to couple your local ad with such things as special discount offers in the ad.

3. Send everyone in your zip code a postcard announcing a sale at your place of business. Have them bring in the postcard to receive the discounted price.

4. Become the local expert in your business field by being interviewed on the radio. Include a special phone number for customers to call during the broadcast to get more information.

5. Give a speech at the Chamber of Commerce. Hand out problem solving brochures with your address, phone number and a special code number for customers to use to get a discount.

Many business owners regard marketing only as a necessary evil. They would rather concentrate on their core business activities. But when they use these simple methods to harness the powerful secret to getting more customers, they can eliminate the pain of marketing. Their businesses will then be truly successful in bringing in more customers, more money, and more profits.

New Software Features
Product Reviews: StoresOnline Pro sites now has a Product Review feature that allows visitors to rate and review their products. This feature can be enabled by navigating to the Site menu, then going to the Options tab and clicking the checkbox next to "Show Product Reviews". Below a product will appear a list of reviews as well as a review form that can be filled out and submitted. You can approve, reject and delete submitted reviews.

Introducing the Avail 24/7 Communication System from StoresOnline. Make Your Small Business Look, Sound, and Feel Like a Big Business! Get your own toll free number now by calling customer support at 801-434-8582. Manage your account online and view your voicemail, email and faxes in one location.

iMergent Inc., parent company of Storesonline, launched our mortgage and financial services division November 17, 2007 under a Federal Bank Charter. This new division will continue the tradition of outstanding customer service and innovation that you have come to depend on from Storesonline. The timing is great as fixed rates are near historic lows—15 Year fixed rate is available today of 4.875%!! iMergent Financial Services is currently able to provide residential and commercial real estate lending, credit enhancement services, and equipment leasing. Make sure to check out future additions of the newsletter for more details on each of these exciting new services.

Product Spotlight: What is a 700 FICO worth to you? Whether you are applying for a job, renting an apartment, buying or leasing a vehicle, or applying for a credit card, YOU ARE PART OF THE CREDIT MACHINE. Especially amidst the nations CREDIT CRUNCH, credit scores are as important as ever. 79% of all credit reports contain an error of some kind with 25% of these errors being serious enough to result in the denial of credit. We offer:

• A quality educational program aimed at helping you raise your FICO scores


• A Member Service Center with qualified staff to assist you with your credit needs


• Free credit report and interactive credit score monitoring


• Free auditing and verification of items you believe to be incorrect, erroneous, or otherwise unverifiable


• A monthly newsletter to educate you on the “credit machine”

Our financial specialists are standing by to help you with any of your financial needs.

Call: 866.918.8866 OR Email: contact@imergentfinancialservices.com

Featured Testimonial

"It was the tools, the marketing tools, that make the difference. And StoresOnline exhibited all of the marketing tools that I needed."

Karla with a K

www.proclubgear.com

Click Here to read Karla's story >>

Best of luck in all your endeavors this new year and we'll see you next month.

Robert Schow
VP of Customer Relations
StoresOnline, Inc