Tahoe Web Service

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The break down on E Commerce Shopping Carts

The break down on E Commerce Shopping Carts, Cost associated when you choose some carts and the small print that you might not see when you order a cart using other companies.

When our user interface was launched our programmer that wrote all programs in house was not only on the ball but did a lot of investigation when it came time to use the shopping cart feature.

We offer a full E commerce service when it comes time to build your own website. When we say full E Commerce we are speaking of “Every website comes with a cart, weather you choose to use it or not”. For the flat fee of hosting you have the option of using the cart.

We thought we would share some information we gathered when shopping around for carts. Sure we did this to compare ours to theirs, after all they advertise online, so we wanted to see just what they have to offer.When we did this comparison it made it real easy to launch our program. We are in no way saying the other carts are cheap or a rip off or company A is better then company B. We will let you be the judge when it comes time to decide what program is better. After all it is about your business and what works for you, if you do not mind paying more for a cart, paying transaction fees per sale, etc. and the carts works for you! Then we recommend by all costs that you stay with or choose the one that works for you.As I have mentioned above, you be the judge on the findings. Below is what we found.

1.     Company Y:  offers a full e commerce solution, when we looked into this program for the shopping cart, we found the following charges and costs associated when using Company Y’s Service. Company Y offers three plans. It looks as if they base this plan off of three levels of sales by calling them Starter, Standard and Professional. Each cart is able to hold 50,000 items 

The Starter Plan: This plan is charged as follows-If you expect sales of 12K per month. This will cost you $25.97 for the first two months. After the first two months of service you pay $39.95 per month with a 1.5% transaction fee. (see the table below) 

The Standard Plan: This plan is charged as follows-If you expect sales of $12K-$80K per month. This will cost you $64.97 for the first two months. After the first two months of service you will pay $99.95 with a 1.0% transaction fee. (See table below) 

The Professional Plan: This plan is charged as follows;-         If you expect sales of more than $80K per month. This will cost you $194.97 for the first two months. After the first two months of service you will pay $299.95 with a 0.75% transaction fee. (see table below)Company Y’s Cart Table with Transaction Fee Included

Total Monthly Cost*
if you have sales of		 Starter Plan Standard Plan Professional Plan

*these examples do not include the one time set up fee of $50.00 or any fees that you pay for your merchant account.
$0 $39.95 $99.95 $299.95
$100 $41.49 $100.99 $300.74
$1,000 $54.99 $109.99 $307.49
$5,000 $114.95 $149.95 $337.45
$10,000 $189.95 $199.95 $374.95
$50,000 $789.95 $599.95 $674.95
$100,000 $1,539.95 $1,099.95 $1,049.95

Company GO DA: offers a full e commerce solution, when we looked into this program for the shopping cart, we found the following charges and costs associated when using Company GO DA’s Service. Company GO DA. offers three plans. Company GO DA’s three plans does not include hosting service. So when choosing company GO DA’s cart add hosting to the price of the cart per month (company GO’s offers hosting at three stages of hosting Stage

1 $4.99 a month you get 5 pages.

Stage 2 $8.99 a month you get 10 pages.

Stage 3 $12.99 a month you get unlimited pages (but they have a discloser as follows).

2Performance may begin to slow at varying numbers of pages depending on potential physical and practical constraints, including (but not limited to): system architecture, system capacity, system load, end-user Internet connectivity and end-user computer configurations.“Unlimited Pages” does not apply to Premium versions prior to 3.0. These earlier versions have a 20-page limitation and are also limited to the Disk Space and Bandwidth allocated at the time of purchase.If you are unsure what version you own, set up/launch your site from My Account. Version 2.7 users will find their version number above ‘Current Page’ near the top/left side of the page. Version 3.0 and higher users will find this information directly below. 

If you forgot we said we would read the small print (well above is the small print!!).

Now onto Company GO’s shopping cart price. 

-Plan Economy Edition is charged at $8.99 a month (plus hosting of $4.99, $8.99 or $12.99 per month) this plan allows you to list 20 items only. 

-Plan Deluxe Edition is charged at $29.99 a month (plus hosting o f$4.99, $8.99 or $12.99 per month) this plan allows you to list 100 items only. 

-Plan Premium Edition is charged at $49.99 a month (plus hosting of $4.99, $8.99 or $12.99 per month) this plan allows you to list a unlimited number of items.

When we called to ask about the unlimited number of items we were told that they needed to transfer us to business support as we would need some extra bandwidth usage. So since I was told I will need some extra bandwidth (we are talking thousands of dollars per month) and we all know I would like to sale things online and would not like to be limited I will use the premium edition as a example for a break down on price.

I will use this example on what we have to offer should I choose to sale 2500 items (that really is a lot of items). I will pay $12.99 a month for hosting plus the $49.99 for the cart (after all I would like to sale 2500 items) for a grand total of $62.98 per month. 

So with that being said with the above examples. I invite you to contact us about our shopping carts ($20.00 a month that holds 2500 items) we take NO percentage of sales and hide no fees. You be the judge… 

Len Cavanaugh

Owner

Tahoe Web Service

www.tahoewebservice.com

1-877-720-3012  

January 31, 2008 Posted by tahoewebservice | General Business Information | | No Comments

20 Simple Ways To Get Massive Traffic To Your Web Site

Good Evening,

 

We had the pleasure of reading an article by Penny  Sansevieri CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc.

Since we like to pass on information to our clients that we feel are terrific ways to get more traffic to the websites you are working on we thought we would pass this on for your reading enjoyment.  Now I cannot tell you much about the program or books they offer. I can tell you that after reading the article I was impressed enough to pass it on to Len Cavanaugh owner of Tahoe Web Service. Len then contacted Penny to see if we can pass this news along to all of you. In the brief conversation Len had with Penny I can tell you I received two thumbs up to post the information. With that said I would like to thank Penny for allowing me to use the information, any CEO or founder of a company that will take time out of a busy day to help others shows they hold the same standards as us. I for one am sure to look into this service Penny has to offer further. If any of you look into this prior to me! Then please let me know what you thought. Till then good luck and enjoy…..

Matt R.

Tahoe Web Service Designer

Matt@tahoewebservice.com

www.tahoewebservice.com

Embarking on an Internet marketing campaign doesn’t have to be difficult, tricky, or complicated. Here are a few simple ways (twenty in fact) that you can easily implement to get tons of traffic to your site right now!

1) Write articles: believe it or not this is an incredible tool for driving traffic. Well-written, relevant articles can net quite a bit of activity to your web site. Don’t forget to add your URL in your byline. Articles should be 500 to 2,000 words in length. You can send articles to sites like: Article City, GoArticles, Submit Your Articles and Ezine Articles.

2) Social bookmark *everything* - and I do mean everything - you can bookmark each page of your site and each blog entry you post. While this might seem tedious, it’s worth it. You’ll see a strong increase in traffic if you social bookmark each page on your site and each of your blog entries.

3) List yourself in the best directories – you’ll have to pay for this but since most people don’t do this (since everyone’s looking for a freebie) you could really enhance your traffic by getting a listing: dir dot yahoo dot com, business dot org, botw dot org.

4) Get yourself listed at: DMOZ dot org – it’s not easy to get listed there, but worth the effort.

5) Review: if you can review hot new products or books within your market, head on over to Amazon and start positioning yourself as an expert. In order to do this effectively you’ll want to create an Amazon profile and make sure and sign each review with a reference to your URL (your web site). You can also go to Epinions and Revoo to review products as well.

6) Offer a freebie on Craig’s List: you’ll be amazed at how much traffic you get from a single Craig’s List ad. The key here is to send people to a page on your site and make sure they have to sign up for something (like your email newsletter) before they can grab their freebie. That way you’re not just getting traffic, you’re also building your list.

7) Create a “recommended by” list on your Delicious page – you can do this by logging on and creating an account and there and then tagging articles, blogs and other content you think is important to your readership. Then offer this page as a resource site. You can add a link to this page in your email signature line or on your web site.

8) And speaking of your email signature line… do you have one? If you don’t, create one. Believe it or not, people do follow these links. You’ll be amazed how many folks read email signature lines. I have one and change it several times a year, depending on what we’re doing or promoting or what books I have coming out.

9) Lend a helping hand: you can be an answer person at Yahoo Answers – you don’t have to spend hours on there, but maybe a few minutes a week. Make sure and include a link back to your site following your answers.

10) Set up a social networking site using Facebook, LinkedIn, or Squidoo. It’s free and easy to do, just don’t forget the all-important link back to your site!

11) Make sure your blog has an RSS feed so if you capture a reader you don’t lose them if they forget to bookmark your site or blog.

12) Join relevant groups at Yahoo groups. You’ll find everything from groups on growing your small business, writing books, finding your passion, even underwater basket weaving. I dare you to find one that isn’t right for what you’re promoting. When you do find the right group, join and participate as you can!

13) Podcasting is another great way to drive traffic. Start a podcast by going to Audio Acrobat. There are other programs you can use, but I love Audio Acrobat. You can record the podcast over the phone quickly and easily and then hit the “send” button on your computer once it’s recorded and the system will syndicate it to 27 podcast directories including iTunes. It’s a great way to let people know about you and your web site!

14) Start a blog and then once you do, start commenting on other people’s blogs, linking to them from your site or adding them to your blogroll.

15) Inbound links: don’t squander your time (or a perfectly good link) on smaller low-traffic sites. Instead spend your time going after high traffic, high quality sites. Good sites should have a PR (page ranking) of 4-6 depending on the market. You can find out what a site’s page ranking is by downloading the Google toolbar which comes with a PR feature built in.

16) Start an email newsletter: while it may not seem like a newsletter that you email can drive traffic to your site you’d be surprised at the effectiveness of this type of promotion. If your newsletter (like your articles) is interesting and relevant to your audience, you’ll find that it has a huge pass-through factor, meaning that it is passed from one email subscriber to another. Also, if you have an email newsletter you should never, ever go to a single event without your handy signup sheet. Yes, you can even use offline events to drive traffic to your web site.

17) And speaking of offline efforts: if you’re ever quoted in a magazine or other publication, make sure and mention your URL as it’s appropriate to the topic. Don’t be too pushy about this, but do not forget to tell folks you have a web site that may be a great resource for the topic of your interview.

1 8) If you have products to sell, why not get a store on eBay? This site gets a tremendous amount of traffic and on your sales page you’re allowed to list your URL. It’s another great way to get an inbound link and a way for people to find you.

19) Load a video on YouTube and 57 other video sites (the rest listed on my Red Hot Internet Publicity blog).

20) While this isn’t a tip per se, it’s still important. If you’re going to go through all the trouble of getting traffic to your site, make sure your site is converting this traffic into something. Get folks to sign up for something, your newsletter, the RSS feed on your blog. Whatever it is, getting their email address will help you remarket to them when the time is right. Studies show that visitors landing on a site often don’t buy the first time. That’s ok! You want to get them into your marketing funnel so you can market to them again and again – not in a way that’s obtrusive, offensive or downright annoying, but in a way that is helping them with their own mission.

An example of this might be an email newsletter. A helpful, informative newsletter is a fantastic funnel. A blog is another great way to keep people in your marketing loop without bombarding them with “please buy my stuff” email messages. Also, make sure you know what your traffic numbers are before you launch into any Internet marketing campaign. By traffic numbers I mean how many people are visiting your site. You want to know this so you can gauge a before and after view of your marketing efforts.

About The Author
Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a book marketing and media relations expert whose company has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. Visit AMarketingExpert.com

January 28, 2008 Posted by tahoewebservice | Marketing Tips & Tricks | | No Comments