I seem to be stuck on finding exactly what I want for the Search on our Catalog. What I am using now is a refined Google Base Search, but that is on a separate Google page, and not part of our own website. It also, since it is a Google page, has links to other sellers. That's not a good idea, but will have to do until I can find better.
Something else I have realized I need to do is to put a bookmark link to each of the photos on a given catalog page, so when someone does click on the search item it will take them straight to that item, not just the page it is on. Again, a website designer would have already done that to begin with, but I am learning all this the hard way, by trial and error. More error - it seems like! LOL!!
But, we are making sales from the Catalog, so for that I am grateful.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Continuing to Add to Catalog
The SingleFeed spreadsheet continues to work well, so I can update Google Base each day. I decided on Mal's Shopping Cart, and I am pleased with the ease of use for a free program. There were a few mistakes I made in the Cart setup, but it only took the first few customers to find what needed to be fixed. They do provide an easy way to see and test the cart while you are working on it.
I don't have to send any information to Mal's, because the code goes in each item listing in the Catalog, and even lets me tell the Shopping Cart where to send the buyer when they finish.
The only real flaw I have found with it is I cannot LIMIT the quantity available. I ended up putting a large warning sign on each page of the catalog, telling people that we only had one of each item in most cases. This flaw showed up when someone ordered 4 of an item. It's free, and even paid software usually has a few parts that don't fit someone's particular situation, so I am satisfied with its performance.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
I don't have to send any information to Mal's, because the code goes in each item listing in the Catalog, and even lets me tell the Shopping Cart where to send the buyer when they finish.
The only real flaw I have found with it is I cannot LIMIT the quantity available. I ended up putting a large warning sign on each page of the catalog, telling people that we only had one of each item in most cases. This flaw showed up when someone ordered 4 of an item. It's free, and even paid software usually has a few parts that don't fit someone's particular situation, so I am satisfied with its performance.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Working on Adding our Catalog Blog to Directories
I started our other blogs so long ago that I had forgotten just how many little steps there are to get a blog properly setup on the internet.
I started last night adding this blog to the Directories that will help get traffic, and thus the catalog. I added this blog to our Dirty Butter MyBlogLog Community today.
There's much more to do, but that's all I have time for right now. We usually go to some of our favorite close to home toy hunt places on Monday afternoons, so maybe we will find one of the lovies our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service readers have asked us to find.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
I started last night adding this blog to the Directories that will help get traffic, and thus the catalog. I added this blog to our Dirty Butter MyBlogLog Community today.
There's much more to do, but that's all I have time for right now. We usually go to some of our favorite close to home toy hunt places on Monday afternoons, so maybe we will find one of the lovies our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service readers have asked us to find.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Waiting on Google to Index our Catalog
OK, I have the beginnings of our products Searchable on Google Base now, thanks to the free trial of SingleFeed I'm using. It costs $4.99 a month, but they fix the mistakes in the data feed so it does not get denied by Google.
You may ask why I'm paying someone to send the feed to Google Base.
The answer is simple.
I never could figure out what I was doing wrong, and Google is no help at all.
You can pay more at SingleFeed and use one form to submit to lots of different shopping search engines like Shopping.com, but Google will be enough for our needs. I have already sent three feeds to them, and it was not hard at all, as I already had most of what they wanted in an Excel file already, thanks to my attempts to send the data feed to Google on my own.
Now my problem is that our subdomain has not been Indexed by Google yet, so I can't create a working Custom Search Engine to put on our catalog pages yet. I have sent a Site Map of the subdomain to Google, so all I can do now is wait. As I add items to the catalog I will send a new SingleFeed upload, update the Site Map, and keep on waiting.
It's that wait that prompted me to start this blog about the process of starting our own website sales. Google is good about indexing blogs pretty quickly, but puts new websites in what is called the sandbox. Basically it means they hold onto new sites for awhile before they acknowledge their existence, in an attempt to discourage spammers from flooding their searches with fake sites. I understand why they do it, but it is very frustrating for those legitimate sellers like us who are trying to get a place in the search engine.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
You may ask why I'm paying someone to send the feed to Google Base.
The answer is simple.
I never could figure out what I was doing wrong, and Google is no help at all.
You can pay more at SingleFeed and use one form to submit to lots of different shopping search engines like Shopping.com, but Google will be enough for our needs. I have already sent three feeds to them, and it was not hard at all, as I already had most of what they wanted in an Excel file already, thanks to my attempts to send the data feed to Google on my own.
Now my problem is that our subdomain has not been Indexed by Google yet, so I can't create a working Custom Search Engine to put on our catalog pages yet. I have sent a Site Map of the subdomain to Google, so all I can do now is wait. As I add items to the catalog I will send a new SingleFeed upload, update the Site Map, and keep on waiting.
It's that wait that prompted me to start this blog about the process of starting our own website sales. Google is good about indexing blogs pretty quickly, but puts new websites in what is called the sandbox. Basically it means they hold onto new sites for awhile before they acknowledge their existence, in an attempt to discourage spammers from flooding their searches with fake sites. I understand why they do it, but it is very frustrating for those legitimate sellers like us who are trying to get a place in the search engine.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Are All the Catalog Links Accurate?
I've changed my mind several times about what the URL of our catalog should be, because I was having problems getting the Google Base Product Search to ignore all the posts on our Lost Toy Search Service blog. So, in the process of creating the links one way, then changing them to something else, and then making a final decision for try number three, I'm having to correct lots of wrong links. I found one today that was caused by using Find/Replace All, when I did not think through what I needed to type in the blanks. So, now I am searching through all our site URL's to change plushplush to just plush!
At least I learned a long time ago how to make custom 404 Not Found pages that would allow the reader to find what they wanted. Hopefully, the links on those error pages are correct. Guess I'd better go be sure of that!
This is a perfect example of learning from my mistakes, but it's still aggravating. Of course, people who make websites for a living would have long ago figured out the best navigation configuration for a product catalog. And I think I have a good arrangement now, but who knows?????
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
At least I learned a long time ago how to make custom 404 Not Found pages that would allow the reader to find what they wanted. Hopefully, the links on those error pages are correct. Guess I'd better go be sure of that!
This is a perfect example of learning from my mistakes, but it's still aggravating. Of course, people who make websites for a living would have long ago figured out the best navigation configuration for a product catalog. And I think I have a good arrangement now, but who knows?????
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
Starting Our Online CATALOG of Plush Toys
We have been selling online now for almost six years, mostly on our Dirty Butter Store and as dirty_butter on eBay, although we did try the original Wagglepop until it disappeared. Every once in awhile we would make a direct sale to someone who wrote us wanting help.
But we really didn't start selling much from our own site until we started our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service.
We quickly reached the point, partly thanks to the MSNBC article we were featured in, that people were emailing us wanting to know where they could look at our toys online. So, back in February, I started taking photos of our Baby Animals and Baby Dolls and putting them in our own Catalog.
I have always envisioned a fun place to look at lots of adorable toys, almost like window shopping, with an easy way to buy them. Hopefully, I have succeeded in making buying from us an easy and enjoyable experience for you. If you see any problems on our site, please let me know. I am still learning, and I'm sure I have made mistakes and some poor design choices.
I have learned a lot while starting the catalog, but there is still a lot more to be learned. This blog will give me a place to share not only what we sell, but also what is involved in the process of selling directly from our own website.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
But we really didn't start selling much from our own site until we started our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service.
We quickly reached the point, partly thanks to the MSNBC article we were featured in, that people were emailing us wanting to know where they could look at our toys online. So, back in February, I started taking photos of our Baby Animals and Baby Dolls and putting them in our own Catalog.
I have always envisioned a fun place to look at lots of adorable toys, almost like window shopping, with an easy way to buy them. Hopefully, I have succeeded in making buying from us an easy and enjoyable experience for you. If you see any problems on our site, please let me know. I am still learning, and I'm sure I have made mistakes and some poor design choices.
I have learned a lot while starting the catalog, but there is still a lot more to be learned. This blog will give me a place to share not only what we sell, but also what is involved in the process of selling directly from our own website.
We hope you will find the lovie you are looking for in our DIRTY BUTTER Plush Animal Shoppe CATALOG. But we have many more toys in stock than we have listed, so please Contact Us if you don't see what you are looking for. If we don't have it in stock, we will search the Internet for it. If we still can't find it, we will post your request on our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service Facebook Page.
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