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!

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.

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?

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.

First I needed to edit functions.php in my template. The default template has this file, but some others don’t. (I created my own template by copying the default into an new directory and then editing it.) Near the top of the file is this code:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
 register_sidebar(array(
 'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
 'after_widget' => '</li>',
 'before_title' => '<h2>',
 'after_title' => '</h2>',
 ));
}

I changed it to this:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
 register_sidebar(array(
 'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
 'after_widget' => '</li>',
 'before_title' => '<h2>',
 'after_title' => '</h2>',
 ));

 register_sidebar(array(
 'name' => 'posts',
 'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
 'after_widget' => '</li>',
 'before_title' => '<h2>',
 'after_title' => '</h2>',
 ));
 register_sidebar(array(
 'name' => 'pages',
 'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
 'after_widget' => '</li>',
 'before_title' => '<h2>',
 'after_title' => '</h2>',
 ));
}

What this does is tell WordPress that I want three sidebars. They will be in the files sidebar.php, sidebar-posts.php, and sidebar-pages.php. (The only parameter that’s really important is the ‘name’ parameter. It determines which files to use.)

Next I made copies of sidebar.php and called them sidebar-posts.php and sidebar-pages.php.

The third step is to edit sidebar-posts.php. Change this:

<?php     /* Widgetized sidebar, if you have the plugin installed. */
 if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar() ) : ?>

into this:

<?php     /* Widgetized sidebar, if you have the plugin installed. */
 if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('posts') ) : ?>

What you are doing is adding the name of the sidebar (‘posts’) to the dynamic_sidebar() function call. Do the same thing (with ‘pages’ instead of ‘posts’) to sidebar-pages.php.

Two more steps.

Next you need to edit the various page and post templates. Change

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

to

<?php get_sidebar('pages'); ?>

in those you want to use the ‘pages’ sidebar, and to

<?php get_sidebar('posts'); ?>

in those you want to use the ‘posts’ sidebar.

(I left the default sidebar so that I don’t need to change every template, just the ones that use one of the special sidebars.)

After you’ve saved the edited files (functions.php, sidebar-pages.php, sidebar-posts.php, and the changed page and post templates) in the template directory, fire up your WordPress control panel and go to the Widget control panel. You’ll now see three sidebars – Sidebar 1, pages, and posts – on the right side. Drag and drop the widgets to configure each one, and then check your site and see how your pages and posts look!

1. Google AdSense ads (both graphic and text-only)
2. Other programs similar to Google AdSense
3. Donations (I already have this, via PayPal. The button’s on the right. Please donate!)
4. Affiliate programs like Amazon or ClickBank
5. Site sponsors (advertising you arrange yourself)
6. CafePress (I’m not sure what to category to put this in)
7. Product downloads (eBooks, software, templates, etc.)
8. Product catalogs (i.e. osCommerce and similar ways to sell tangible goods online)
9. eBay auction links
10. Auctions on your own website (either manual or automated)
11. MLM programs
12. Membership subscriptions

I know there are more, but I wanted to capture and share this list while I was thinking of it.

What am I missing?