How Good Customer Service Can Boost Your Sales

If you want to increase your sales dramatically you should definitely shift your focus to your customer service. While attracting new customers to purchase your digital downloads is important, enticing proven customers to buy again might be a challenge. In retail (and most other industries) the best sales prospect is one that has already been converted. In other words, your current customers are your best bet. So, how can you do this?

First of all, getting your past customers to return to you will save you a ton of money in the marketing department. Take a few minutes and think of all the customers who have purchased your products in the past, but haven’t come back since. You probably made the most common mistake that business owners do – assuming that once they have purchased from you, they’ll continue to do so loyally. But if you don’t maintain and nurture that relationship, you might as well have never had their business in the first place.

You should think about the reasons a customer might leave you. Although there are quite a few, there are some of the most common:

• Unfair pricing
• Unresolved complaints
• Better deal from competitors
• They felt you didn’t care

These reasons are all easily dealt with and they make perfect sense. Business owners want to avoid inactive clients at all costs. Just think about it – customers often make purchases from a particular vendor because they have built up a relationship with that provider. If you don’t nurture that relationship from the start, you can basically kiss that customer goodbye.

While you should definitely seek new clients, your existing customers are incredibly important. When you consider the fact that repeat customers spend almost 40% more than new customers, referrals from repeat customers are more frequent than non-customers, and it costs a lot more to sell something to a potential customer than to a returning customer. You’ll want to take a closer look at your customer service.

Boost your sales with good customer service. It isn’t going to be hard at all. Treating your customers with respect and as if they are your strategic business partners can go a long way. Clients and customers who feel satisfied and cared for are going to spend more money on your products and make more recommendations to their friends, family, and colleagues. This also means that you should offer returning customers special deals, free samples, and other perks. The more you give, the more you are going to get in return.

The bottom line is that the better your customer service, the better sales you will enjoy. Do your best to attract new customers, but once you have them, keep them! Keeping this in mind will only boost your sales and your overall business.

A Little Bit about the “Share this Product” Feature

As an online retailer and seller of virtual goods, you probably already know that word of mouth is one of the best ways to get people to learn about your business or products. At PayLoadz, we know just how important the word of mouth phenomenon is, which is why we have recently implemented our “Share this Product” feature on PayLoadz listings.

Before we get into the facts about “Share this Product”, let’s talk a little bit about word of mouth advertising and marketing. By and far, recommendations in the form of word of mouth are really one of the most effective marketing tools out there. Just think about it – when you’re thinking about grabbing a bite to eat, what do you do? You probably ask your friends, family, or neighbors where they like to go and then try it out. The same principle applies to online shopping and just about everything else!

With that in mind, we’ve introduced “Share this Product” to the PayLoadz platform. You can find it on any listing in PayLoadz Store in the Seller section in the sidebar. It’s a simple link that allows customers to share a particular product listing with the rest of the world. It is a virtual word of mouth tool that quickly and effectively expands your product’s reach.

When a customer clicks “Share this Product” a convenient pop-up box will appear. The feature allows customers to not only share the product with whomever they choose, but to bookmark it as well. The innovation of “Share this Product” feature is great for both our PayLoadz sellers and customers shopping online. With this tool, it is possible to bookmark and share any item listed. And this isn’t just limited to email as many similar tools are – the reach of “Share this Product” tool spans out to email, instant messaging, social networks, and wish lists.

The “Share this Product” tool is a great social sharing tool that allows people to share a product anytime with their social network. With just a simple click, the word can be spread about your products in a matter of seconds. It allows for flexibility, so that your customers can get the word out about your product in their preferred style. Virtually every platform and option is available – and if you don’t see it, you can search for it easily!

Remember, word of mouth is the best (and cheapest) way to expand the reach of your product. When customers recommend something to their friends, those new prospects are bound to check it out. With “Share this Product” your customers can share your virtual goods with their friends, family, and colleagues quickly and easily. With more than 200 options ranging from AIM, Digg, Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, Tumblr, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo, Gmail, and so much more, how can you go wrong?

Why List Your Products in the PayLoadz Store?

Sure, you use PayLoadz as a payment gateway to sell your virtual goods online, but have you ever thought about listing your products in our e-store? If not, you definitely should. As you know, the craze of online shopping is definitely catching up and it is quickly becoming the norm. As a virtual goods seller, you know that buying your products online is the best (and often only) way to go.

Online shopping through the PayLoadz Store is safe, easy, and convenient. The store offers the same security as any other online transactions that customers use to purchase your digital goods. The payment methods are also the same, so there’s no extra work for you. Listing your products in the PayLoadz Store means you’re getting the same reliable security and ease-of-use while offering your customers another option when it comes to finding and buying your products online.

The PayLoadz Store is really simple to use for both sellers and customers. The basic idea is similar to many other online stores you’ve probably visited. We’ve got all the goods separated into relevant categories, offer a search feature, and checkout process. Anyone who knows how to use a computer and shop online can handle the PayLoadz Store. As a seller, you don’t have to do anything extra – if you’re already a member, all you have to do is submit your store listings via your account.

We’ve got a number of features that makes listing your products in the PayLoadz Store even more rewarding. Right on the product page, we offer a Seller section that can help you maintain customers. They can view other items that you sell through the PayLoadz Store. There is also a “Contact Seller” option which allows your customers to reach you directly with any questions about your digital goods. Furthermore, “Notify Me When Seller Adds New Items” is incredibly beneficial when it comes to keeping previous customers abreast of any new products you may offer. Lastly, our “Share This Product” allows a customer to share your product page with their friends and family via email as well as any of the popular social networks.

Listing your products in the PayLoadz Store can definitely help you increase your overall sales. And to really boost sales, you should take advantage of all the features we offer sellers when submitting their products. Consider using our Featured Listing, which is a PPC (pay-per-click) option that helps your products appear at the top of relevant categories. You’ll also want to make sure that you use relevant keywords, descriptive titles, product images, and succinct product descriptions when listing your products to ensure that customers are able to find them quickly and easily.

To check out our online store, visit http://store.payloadz.com/ anytime. If you have any questions about how our store works, simply contact us!

Increase Your Sales with Descriptive Titles

Using PayLoadz to sell your digital products and virtual goods is an excellent way to get in touch with both returning and potential buyers. Sitting from the comfort of your own home or office, you can list your goods easily (and free!) with us and watch the dollars roll in. But, that success doesn’t come all by itself. You do have to think about how you list your products and the descriptions you offer. In today’s economy, who wants to spend their hard-earned money without knowing what they’re actually getting? The answer is: not many people.

This is where descriptive titles make you a stronger seller. Using PayLoadz is easy enough, virtually stress-free. But, you do want to encourage new buyers to lay their money down and take your product home. Descriptive titles help enhance your product listing in the PayLoadz Store. Sure, you already have a product image, bold lettering, and have invested in featured listings for your products, but there’s more you can do. Try these tips out and see if your sales don’t increase noticeably.

So what makes a title descriptive enough!

First of all, you should know by now that selling products online is all about search. Potential buyers look for products using search engines as well as the search on PayLoadz store. Make sure that the product titles have just the right keywords so that they appear in the results when shoppers search for them. Think of yourself searching for the same product on the Internet and the keyword or phrase that you would enter in the search box to find that product. That keyword should be a part of your title.

Secondly, the title should explain what the product is all about. While using right keywords may help show your product in search engines; people may still not click on the link because the title may not be telling the whole story about the product. For eg: the titles ‘How to stop snoring’ and ‘How to stop snoring without surgery’ use the appropriate keyword ‘stop snoring’; however, the latter explains the content of the ebook better. This is what makes it a more descriptive title. Use the space we allow for a good title! Remember, the more descriptive and accurate the title, the more potential the listing has for buyers to click it and check out your product.

Another thing to remember is that spelling counts! While we won’t be giving you a spelling test anytime soon, misspelled words can make you lose out on sales. Spelling is so important because as buyers search for your products they will be typing particular keywords and phrases into the search tool. This means that if your product’s title contains misspelled words, your listing may not be displayed! Always double check the spelling before you list an item. If you think any of your titles may have misspelled words, go back and make edits!

Click here to check out a sample product description to see how we display the title and description that you provide.

Just remember, the more descriptive you are in your product title, the more clicks you will receive. A higher number of clicks to your listing will translate into a higher number of sales, which always helps your bottom line and profits! Using descriptive and accurate titles gives shoppers an idea of what they are purchasing. No smart shopper spends their money blindly – remember that and you’re on your way to lots of success with PayLoadz and your online sales!

Another Storefront Option – PayLoadz

Whether you are brand new to the virtual goods industry or an old pro, PayLoadz can definitely be of use to you when it comes to selling digital files and other e-products. But what PayLoadz does best is offer you another storefront option to feature your products. And we all know that the more options you provide, the farther your reach will span.

A virtual storefront can help expand your business in many different ways. Without the overhead of having to rent a space, pay utilities, and man the staff, you are immediately getting ahead of the game. Additionally, by featuring your products online, shoppers don’t have to travel to your place of business – they can simply log onto the Internet and visit your store.

But remember, just because your online store doesn’t have a physical location it doesn’t mean you don’t have to work at it everyday. This means you have to keep the business going – looking for new methods to bring in customers and spread the word about your products is your main goal. That’s where having as many different options is key – and PayLoadz can help you realize this goal. Our innovative payment gateway and e-store platform is what every e-retailer needs.

PayLoadz makes it easy for you to sell digital files. Whether your products are images, e-books, music, or movies you will have no problem whatsoever. You simply sign up, list your products, and set your prices. Customers will pay you via PayPal or Google Checkout. Once payment is confirmed, the PayLoadz system takes care of the rest via file delivery. It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s cost-effective. To top it off, everything is done automatically with very little overhead. The alternative to this process is to manually send out digital files for each purchase, which would end up costing you more time and money than you might be willing to spare.

You may already have your own website, and that’s great! Your website is essentially your virtual storefront – customers visit, check out your products, and then decide to make a purchase or not. But, what if your website is so new that it hasn’t started ranking yet? Remember, the more places that feature your product for sale, the better. So, in addition to your own website, you will definitely want to feature your products in different venues such as online auctions, forums, e-stores, and payment platforms like PayLoadz.

Our payment gateway and e-store platform can be used to deliver just about any digital good. It doesn’t matter if you specialize in software, movies, ringtones, music files, movie files, art, e-books, or other digital media. PayLoadz Store has several cateogries such as Music, Videos, Software, Books, Audio Books and Other that can be used to list almost all types of virtual goods under subjects ranging from chidren's books to self-help videos. If it can be downloaded, it can also be sold through PayLoadz. We offer plenty of tracking, payment options, and protection when it comes to hosting your files for sale. And what’s even better is that we can help build your business and expand your bottom line.

Why Do People Buy Virtual Goods?

As a payment gateway and virtual store, we have definitely thought about the many different reasons behind why people would even want to buy virtual goods. As a PayLoadz member, you’ve probably given the topic a little bit of thought yourself. The purpose of this post is to delve a little deeper into the virtual goods market. Who knows, perhaps you’ll learn a little something that might help you reach out to your customers a little more successfully.

There are different reasons why people buy virtual goods through PayLoadz, or any other e-store or platform. The virtual goods market is broadening and therefore the availability, features, and attributes, in addition to the types of products being offered, is constantly changing. Virtual goods have functional attributes, hedonic attributes, and social attributes. Who your customers are will determine their shopping patterns. This is true for any industry, not just virtual goods.

Virtual goods with functional attributes typically include digital files such as business software, educational e-books, and instruction manuals. These types of products may help the performance levels of a buyer’s job, business, or education. Buyers interested in functional virtual goods are those looking for something that will help achieve a certain goal either in daily life or business. Many PayLoadz clients and customers are interested in functional goods.

If shoppers are interested in virtual goods with hedonic attributes, they are looking for something with entertainment value. For example, online gamers may shop for virtual currency for their game of choice to progress through the game levels. Other hedonic attributes might include digital items that are simply aesthetically pleasing (like screen savers and art), fictionalized e-books, movies, and music. These types of digital products are for fun and may not have any real value as far as functionality goes. If you surf through the PayLoadz Store you’ll see your fair share of such virtual goods.

Some shoppers are interested in virtual goods with social attributes. With the advent of social networking sites and communities like MySpace, FaceBook, and Twitter, virtual goods with social functions have become quite popular. Such virtual goods might include those that make cultural references (for holidays, social groups, etc.), digital products offered for branding by real-world companies, and other applications. Many smart-phone and computer applications are virtual goods with purely social purposes. Many clients offer such products through our platform as well.

While we haven’t given you an exhaustive list of reasons why people buy virtual goods, we hope we’ve given you a good overview. As you can see, the reasons go beyond just useful or fun, and can meet needs in between. Customers will shop for different virtual goods based on their personal finance, social interests, and functional needs. And they can find just about any type of digital product on PayLoadz!

Why You Should Have a Featured Listing

Listing your virtual goods on PayLoadz for sale is a great way to expand your bottom line, increase your sales, and reach more customers, but is that all you can do to boost your profit margins? Absolutely not! You can achieve even more success by using our Featured Listing feature. Let us tell you a little bit more about what Featured Listings are on PayLoadz and how they can help you.

A Featured Listing, or a featured product, will provide your product, or line of products if you choose to feature all of them, much more exposure than just the regular listing. Featured Listings appear on the PayLoadz Store home page as well in each digital goods category. In most cases, a Featured Listing will outperform and outsell those products listed normally by up to three times. We’d say that’s pretty significant! So, overall, your investment in listing products as Featured Listings definitely pays for itself.

If you are in the business of selling virtual goods, it is likely that you are also interested in making money doing so. A Featured Listing can definitely help you make a better profit. Such listings are placed above normal listings in their respective categories, which make them the first items shoppers will see. We know that first impressions really do make a difference, which is why we are offering this service.

Getting a Featured Listing is a piece of cake, really. You simply choose to make a product a Featured Listing when you add it to your roster, or even at a later time. Once you decide to feature a product, get ready for more exposure in our eStore! However, as we mentioned, there is a small investment when it comes to featuring your products. There is a $0.10 per click charge that is applied to any Featured Listing when a shopper finds your product through our Featured Listing placements.

We are so confident that you will benefit exponentially from using Featured Listings, that we are offering a bonus for all new users. Right now, we will match the amount you deposit into your Featured Listing account. So, for example, if you put in $20, we will throw in $20 making $40 available to you for the service. (Once you make that first payment, we’ll automatically credit your account.)

If you’d like to see a little more about out Featured Listing services, go ahead and check out the page in our demo account that outlines the service. Simply check out https://www.payloadz.com/sell/listing_overview.asp to get a better idea of how a Featured Listing can be placed and what your Featured Listing account will look like. Remember, if you have any questions, we are always happy to help! We do suggest that sellers take advantage of this service and at least try it out!

Who Buys Virtual Goods on PayLoadz

So you’ve heard us talk about selling virtual goods on PayLoadz and how it can help your business, but do you actually know what kind of people actually make these purchases? It’s a good idea to understand the buyers in your market so that you can make the most of our services and platform. First and foremost, it is important to understand that virtual goods are not bought solely by teenagers and kids. Furthermore, it isn’t just tech-savvy geeks that purchase digital goods, either. In actuality, the virtual goods market is comprised of just about any age, demographic, and culture. The virtual economy appeals to everyone.

You may be surprised to learn that almost a quarter of the population has spent real money on virtual goods. For many people, this may come as a shock as virtual goods are thought to be things like Facebook favors, virtual weapons, and video game hints. Initially, such products were limited to online games, social networks, and virtual worlds, but that is no longer the case. The industry has come along in strides with virtual goods expanding to music, movies, books, software, and more.

Consumers interested in virtual goods span across just about every demographic and subset you can imagine. That’s why it is so important to have a strong platform, like PayLoadz, on which to feature your products. Whether you’re selling digital goods for virtual worlds, online games, or even smart-phone applications, you can feature your products and sell them through our store and payment gateway.

Now that you know just who is in the market for virtual goods, it probably makes a little more sense to start offering digital goods if you aren’t already. Chances are if you’re reading this post, you do! Remember, kids, business owners, and everyone in between will be interested in one type of virtual good or another, so join our program today and expand your reach.

Customers in search of most types of digital files can be found perusing the store at PayLoadz. We allow sellers to feature products in our store in addition to using our payment gateway as a payment method for customers. We have everything from ebooks, games, software, motivational mp3s, and even art offered by members of our community. The wide selection of what we offer in addition to the growing market for virtual goods ensures that your sales will increase significantly once you obtain a PayLoadz account.

If you do not have products of your own to sell on PayLoadz, you can still benefit by becoming PayLoadz reseller or affiliate and promoting PayLoadz and/or products sold by others. PayLoadz has a full-fledged reward system for website owners/publishers who send visitors and buyers to PayLoadz website and PayLoadz store.

So, if you want to set up a PayLoadz account to reach the thousands of potential customers in the virtual goods market, go ahead – what’s stopping you? If you want to see how a PayLoadz account works, why not check out our demo account.

How to Use PayLoadz without a Website

Chances are if you have digital goods that you would like to sell you probably have a website or online store. If you don’t already have your own website, how can you sell digital goods online? You may find the answer surprisingly simple – PayLoadz. PayLoadz can be used to sell digital goods without the seller having a site of their own. The PayLoadz Store makes this possible – and easy.

Using PayLoadz to sell digital goods is quite easy, even without a website. One way that many sellers take advantage of the system is to feature their products on eBay and other online auction sites. By far, eBay is the most popular among auction sites that are compatible with PayLoadz and it can also be considered quite a powerful marketing tool as well as a simple selling platform. You can use either an eBay auction or eBay store to feature your products sold through PayLoadz.

In addition to eBay, there are other ways to use PayLoadz without a website. The PayLoadz Store is probably the most direct way to achieve this. You can simply list your items in our store which allows customers to locate and purchase your products directly from our platform. This is simple, direct, and efficient. The PayLoadz store works just like any other shopping platform you’ve ever visited online.

If the PayLoadz Store and eBay isn’t your cup of tea, why not consider using affiliates to sell your products from their respective websites? Affiliate marketing is a truly invaluable tool, especially for companies selling digital goods and services. Affiliates feature your products on their sites, newsletters, and emails and drive traffic to your product. You simply pay them a percentage of your sales each time one is referred by your affiliate. Our most selling products have Affiliate Commission (% ) varying from 10 – 50%

When you use PayLoadz to sell virtual goods, we generate a unique URL, known as a GoLink, for your product. This link can be placed just about anywhere – on your digital signature, in emails, in forums, and even in chat rooms. This means you can place the link anywhere to expand your reach and generate sales.

We are so confident that even without a website PayLoadz can boost your revenue and increase sales that we will make you a guarantee. If the PayLoadz service doesn’t help sell more of your product, we will pay you 150% of the first month’s fee if you do not have any sales at all. How many online gateways and platforms can claim the same? If you’re interested in learning more about how to use PayLoadz without a website of your own, you can download and view the free demo.

PayLoadz offers plenty of opportunity to boost sales. Remember, in order to succeed in any type of business, the more options you provide your customers, the better. If you don’t already have your own website to feature your digital products, PayLoadz can help.

Using PayLoadz To Sell Digital Files On eBay

Even though eBay changed their policy on their Digital Goods listing flow, you can still use this popular site to sell your digital files. We offer you the option of listing your product through our PayLoadz eBay Store if you do not have your own eBay account.

How you list it is up to you as long as you use the normal auction listing process. We recommend that you simply list the order lookup URL from PayLoadz in your listing. The URL will look something like this: http://PayLoadz.com/d1/lookup.asp.

To sell your downloads on eBay:

1. Get the item name for the product you want to sell from your PayLoadz account to enter into the eBay auction. You must use the exact item name that is in the PayLoadz system as your auction name so we know how to track the item you sold.
2. Log into you eBay account – or in the PayLoadz eBay store following the appropriate directions – and select the selling tab in order to create a listing.
3. Choose the type of auction you wish – we suggest ‘Fixed Price Auction’ – and the category your product will go into. Do not use the Digital Item category.
4. Enter your item information and remember to use the name of your PayLoadz product as the auction name. For example, if you name the PayLoadz file ‘My Book’ then you need to name the eBay auction ‘My Book’. Make sure you include a copyright notice in your listing so your customers know that your digital file is authorized for sale.
5. Include the Order Lookup URL in your item description so that your customer knows where to go to get the download.
6. Enter the number of downloads available and the price per each. You should make the number you have available and the price of the item match what you have listed on your PayLoadz account.
7. Set your payment and file delivery options making sure that your payment e-mail and your PayLoadz e-mail match.
8. Confirm your listing and submit it.

As soon as we receive a confirmation that the file has been paid for we will release the download file to your customer.

The process listed above is also good for other auctions sites where you may wish to sell your digital files. The key to having a successful auction using PayLoadz is making sure that the auction name and URLs all match those in your PayLoadz account. If they do not, the system will not be able to allow your customer to download the file they have purchased. If you ensure that everything matches, you will find that this is an effective way of selling your digital files.

How You Can Get Started With PayLoadz

Have you been looking for a way to sell you digital files online but have not been happy with the current services on the Internet? Then you have not tried PayLoadz. Our unique system is very user–friendly and gives you an interface to use to get your digital products out into the market. Getting started with PayLoadz is easy and there are two ways you can get started.

PayLoadz Express is the quick and easy way of getting your files uploaded and for sale quickly. It gives you a three step process that puts your product out there without any advance features such as software registration keys, affiliate systems or multiple file delivery. If you need these features for your files, then we recommend you use our other service, PayLoadz Standard.

The standard process is just as easy as the express process but it offers you more options when it comes to listing your files. It takes five steps instead of three and it allows you to add your PayPal account or Google Checkout account to your profile for easy payment options. Additionally you can set up an API Callback URL if you want to receive additional notification that a purchase has been made. If you use Google Checkout you can setup purchase buttons, links or contact us information for your profile.

Once you have setup your payment options you can start putting together your product line. By selecting the ‘Selling’ tab at the top of your account you can open the screen that allows you to add your product. Each item you plan to add to your inventory must have a unique name and it must be created one at time so that the system can process it. PayLoadz will then provide you with HTML coding that you can place on your website for customers to use to order your product. It will even give you the HTML coding you need for button creation that will work with PayPal.

Copy and paste this code into the appropriate page on your website. Your customers will be able to click on the link and download your goods from the PayLoadz website after they have paid for it. Once you have pasted the code into your website test the links to make sure they work properly and make any adjustments necessary. If everything is working the way it should, you can make your website page live and then wait for the downloads to begin.

PayLoadz offers you a wide variety of features to use when selling your digital products including the option to set up a sample page your customers can download. Feel free to check out the entire system and have fun uploading your inventory and the freedom PayLoadz offers.

Importance of Store Listings

This will be a post attempting to stress the need for our sellers to list their item in the PayLoadz Store, even if selling on their own site. The store provides a free way to boost sales of their products. Sales are increased due to the variety of automated marketing functions we have in place for store listings. New sellers as well as experience Internet entrepreneurs benefit from these listings. Here are how the stats break down:

# of Products for Sale in PayLoadz System: 403,494
# of those Products listed in PayLoadz Store: 145,945

# of product sales for the past 30 days: 74,591
# of those products listed in PayLoadz Store: 60,582

We should pause a moment to take in that information. What the above says is that despite there being more than two times the number of unlisted items vs. listed items in our store, the listed items outsell the unlisted items by 600%. That should convey to our sellers the advantage gained by listing their products in our store.

Below is a list of additional statistics in regards to specific listing information itself. I will let you draw your own conclusions based on the data. I hope you will see that store listings that take advantage of all of the listing fields and features get an added benefit in terms of sales increases via better marketing.

# of product sales for the past 30 days: 74,591
# of those products listed in PayLoadz Store: 60,582
# of sold products that have keywords specified: 36,328
# of sold products that have product image: 31,744
# of sold products that have external website: 36,807
# of sold products that have description: 57,905


The above information is for products that have been sold in the past 30 days. When you compare the items sold in the store vs. unsold, the additional listing features really begin to stand out. It shows a complete store listing is the best way to leverage the store. It also shows that almost all of the products sold are the ones with completed store listings:

Total products in store: 145,945
# of sold products that have product image: 44,420
# of sold products that have external website: 70,584
# of sold products that have description: 63,285


This is the first time I ran these stats myself. I thought the items listed in our store should have had an advantage over the unlisted items, but I did not imagine how overwhelming it was in favor of store listings. It definitely gives us something to build upon.

Happy Selling!

Shannon

Product Image Upload for Store Listing

Another small, but much needed enhancement, the ability to upload a product image during product setup for the PayLoadz Store and PayLoadz eBay Store listings has been added to the product setup page.


The previous version of the system required that the seller enter the web URL of an image file they would like to use to be displayed with their product. If the seller did not have a web site, then they couldn't display an image with their product. Sellers that have images with their products in the Store have a much higher sales rate. Using the sellers file storage that they use for their products was not an option as the FTP site is locked down from un-authenticated access.

The solution was to use a file upload component to let the seller select a file on their computer and upload it during the product creation process. Our system then optimizes the file for display in the store. This new system should dramatically increase the number of listings with images in the store and therefore increase the amount of sales for those products.

Shannon

New PayLoadz Site Design Live

I think it is safe to say after a week of squishing bugs and tweaking that the new PayLoadz site design is officially "live". The feedback so far has been positive, so that is cool. The design is a lot better than the old one imho, but that is not a real reason to do a site overhaul.

The hairy part was that the new site now resides on a new server. The specs of the server are pretty hilarious in terms of overkill with loadbalancing and insane amounts of ram and 64-bit processors, etc. The server is now in the same rack as the database servers. That will help as they have a 1GB direct connection to one another. The speed of the site is much improved. I still have to work on the weight of the HTML, but for now, it cruises along.

The trouble with rolling out a new design is always a bit sketchy. However, when the site is staying on the same server, you can roll out in phases and manage the bugs as you go. When moving from a new server, you almost have to do an all or nothing type of switch. I made the change in the DNS admin to flick the switch. That first hour was a bit hectic, but a lot less issues than I had thought.


We've finally caught up on all of the fixes and are rolling out new features at a rate of one per day. The cumulative effect of the new features will be huge. Like a lot of people, we developer, roll out, bug fix, fine tune the interface, and revise. Then start again. Seems to work well for us.

We are focusing on providing sellers with tools to increase their sales. There is a decent amount of competition in our area now and customer acquisition is getting harder. Therefore, we are focusing on increasing revenues by increasing the revenues of our sellers. We can do this using the same techniques we use to promote our own site. It really helps those sellers who do not have the time or expertise in marketing on their own.

A new design for the PayLoadz Store will be rolled out. The Ad Syndication System is going to be upgraded in the next few days along with a ton of behind the scenes improvements.

Thank you all for the support you have shown us over the years, it is appreciated.

Shannon