Kurt's Comments

I’ve been looking for better ways to sell stuff online, and today I came across Vendio. They are an e-Commerce hosting site, and their main claim to fame is that items hosted there can be sold through eBay, Amazon, and Google Checkout simultaneously. And on your own website.

It basically gives you a single place to manage inventory being sold through multiple channels.

The reviews I’ve seen have been mixed, which is in part because of the history and multiple versions of the service. The current version was launched this past summer – earlier versions apparently had numerous problems.

Their fee structure is the most confusing aspect of their service. Their pricing page starts out saying:

The Vendio Platform lets you manage items, orders, buyer communication, and your very own store all through one integrated Platform. Best of all, selling from your store with the Vendio Platform is FREE! When we say free, we mean it. There are no sign-up fees, no insertion fees, no image fees, no final value fees, and no subscription fees.

Then they go on with their “Marketplace Pricing” fees and talk about a 60 day free trial. Marketplace Pricing fees range from 1% to 1.95% of the selling price, depending on monthly volume (higher volume, lower percentage).

Another way they make their money is by selling added services. For instance, image hosting starts at $3 a month (although you can host your images elsewhere, such as on your own website). They have research services starting at $20 a month, and some tracking and reporting services cost extra.

Anyway, I’ve decided to give it a try. So far the set-up has been pretty easy. They have a variety of templates to use – which you can customize – or you can write your own. Setting up such things as automatic sales tax calculations and shipping preferences is also pretty easy. I’m currently working on uploading items. They support uploading multiple items via CSV files as well as importing them from eBay and Amazon stores, and of course you can always enter them by hand. I have about 500 to do, so I’m working the CSV route. We’ll see how that goes in the next few days.

I’m also interested in what others have to say about the service. Do you have any experience with Vendio? If so, could you please share it?

Thanks!

WordPress 2.9 is now available for download here:

http://wordpress.org/download/

In addition to the usual slug of bug fixes, the following key features have been included:

• Global undo/trash – You can now restore post, pages, and comments that might have been accidentally deleted.
• Built-in image editor – You now have the ability to edit (ok, crop and resize) an image after it’s been uploaded.
• Batch upgrades – Instead of upgrading plugins one by one you can do all of them at once, simplifying this administrative chore.
• Plugin compatibility checker – I haven’t tried this, but apparently WordPress will tell you whether or not a plugin will work with your version of the software.
• Easier embeds – It’s now easier than ever to insert video, photo galleries, etc. into your pages and posts. This works with many of the media hosting services, with more being added!

You can read all about it and watch a handy intro video here:

http://wordpress.org/development/2009/12/wordpress-2-9/

Go and get yours today!

P.S. I understand that version 3.0 will have a new default theme, better upgrades, dynamic image resizing, and more.

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I’m starting to notice polls everywhere. Perhaps this is because I’m spending more time on Facebook, where I’m encountering polls ranging from “should we have single payer health care” to “which Simpsons character are you” .

Another place I’m seeing them is on some of the blogs I read. Bnet, in particular, has a collection of articles on sales techniques that always start with a sales scenario followed by a “what would you do” poll. The author then chimes in on the results page with what the “best” practice is, which often stimulates a lively discussion in the comments about why this is or isn’t so.

What do you think?

(Please note that I’m assuming you have some experience editing your WordPress templates before you read this article.)

While creating the KurtSchweitzer.com website/blog I wanted to have sidebars that were both dynamic (meaning I can edit them via the control panel without writing any code) and different for different portions of the site. Why? Well, for one thing I wanted the home page to be relatively advertising free, but the posts need to have ads on them so I can make some money from my writing.

WordPress provides a mechanism to do this, but I found the documentation somewhat confusing. This post is my attempt to document what I did that actually works. (more…)

I’ve been looking into ways to make money through my website. Here’s a list of a dozen tools or approaches I’ve come up with: (more…)