ShopLocket is the easiest way to sell directly from any website and WordPress.com is the world’s largest publishing platform, powering over 62 million sites. It’s only natural that the two companies would come together to bring the ability to sell professionally online to WordPress.com users.
Now, WordPress.com users on Enterprise and VIP tiers will be able to sell directly from their WordPress site in minutes through the new ShopLocket integration. Prior to today’s announcement, e-commerce functionality was limited to self-hosted WordPress sites through third party plugins.
The ShopLocket integration for WordPress.com will allow users to easily select from products created on ShopLocket to embed them in posts, pages and sidebars. Buyers will be able to checkout without ever leaving the WordPress site.
Existing Enterprise and VIP customers will find the ShopLocket plugin in their plugin directory available in their dashboard.
Not on VIP or Enterprise? To get started, head over to WordPress.com Enterprise or WordPress.com VIP to see if they’re right for you. The ShopLocket plugin is also available for self hosted WordPress.org sites.
Read more about the ShopLocket plugin here.
April 1, 2013
Telling a customer no is easy. Well, maybe not easy, but it isn’t the hardest thing in the world. Customers will often ask for unreasonable things that you just can’t deliver. They’ll ask for price reductions that you can’t afford, for features that you can’t do or features that you won’t do. Saying no to those things, with a proper explanation, isn’t that hard. You’ll actually be surprised at how often customers will be alright with it if you properly explain yourself. That, or maybe they aren’t the customers you want anyways.
The hardest thing is to tell a customer, “not right now.”
Maybe it’s that you’re making a product and you need to prioritize development. Or maybe your business just doesn’t have the capital right now to add something. That’s really where the hardest part comes in. Essentially you’re saying that you agree with the customer that you’re missing something, but saying that you’re not going to do it right now. That is usually more frustrating for a customer than just saying no.
Just saying no is a difference in ideologies. Saying, “not right now” is a difference in the value of a customer’s problems. At least in their eyes. It’s tough because they’re often the customers that you really want to keep. A customer who thinks your price is too high probably doesn’t fully appreciate the value of your product and will just leave you when a cheaper product comes along. But a customer who sees a feature that you both agree needs to be there is someone you’re aligned with. Getting a “no” most people can deal with. It’s, “not right now” where you really get in trouble.
Dan Kalmar is the Community Manager at ShopLocket. He also makes a mean cup of tea.
March 7, 2013
1) Set a goal for the day, early on
Ask yourself, what’s one (or two or three) things that I can do today where I can say to myself it’s a productive day if I get these done. If you can, do these things first. After that, you’ll feel on top of the world and will get so much more accomplished because of the momentum.
2) Talk to an existing customer
Like I mentioned in my blog post on checking in with your customers, this could be the best ten minutes that you spend every day. Whether it’s to check in to see how things are going, to see if they’re happy with your company or just to even thank them for their business. Every day that you spend not checking in with a customer is a dangerous one.
3) Tell an employee that you appreciate them
Most people think that their employees know that they appreciate them. After all, if you haven’t fired them, you must like them. The reality is, you need to tell them. You don’t have to give them an award every time that they send an email, but they do need to hear that they’re doing good work. Every day, you should be telling at least one employee that they’re doing a good job on one thing or another. And make sure it’s genuine — people can spot BS.
4) Use social media
Think tweeting is all about taking pictures of your food? Wrong. Social media has so many uses for you as a business person: lead generation, customer service, but also for learning from leaders in your industry. So do something to increase your social media profile.
5) Do one thing to make your day tomorrow easier
You need to think about the future you. Think of one thing, big or small, that will make tomorrow easier. Whether that’s planning, organizing or whatever else. Do something that is going to make your day tomorrow easier and therefore more productive.
6) Work on something you’ve been putting off, at least a little bit
We all have things that we put off. These things usually don’t go away just because we don’t do them; they linger and too often get far worse. Chipping away at these things every day will help you get them done for good.
7) Take a break — a serious one
Working hard is great — any very much needed. But you also need to take a break. And by a break, I don’t mean that you should eat a granola bar while responding to emails. I mean you should take a real break. For at least twenty minutes every day (ideally a little longer) you should do something that lets you take a break. A break with no emails, no calls and nothing work related. It will rejuvenate you for the rest of the day — trust me.
8) Learn
If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. Every single day you should make an effort to learn something that you didn’t know the day before. You can do this by reading, by listening, by asking questions, by doing. It doesn’t matter how, just make sure you’re learning.
9) Do one thing truly distraction free
We’re always doing multiple things at once. Not only does it let us not truly focus on one thing (which leads to compromises) but it also makes us not appreciate things. Try to do one thing every day without letting your mind wander or getting distracted by anything else. It’s a surprisingly peaceful experience.
10) Get rejected
Getting rejected does two amazing things. The first is that it makes you stop being afraid to ask for things. When you aren’t afraid to ask for things, you’re going to take more chances and get a lot more opportunities. The second thing that is that it will surprise you what you can actually get if you only ask. There are so many things that are right in our grasp if we’d only ask for them. By risking being rejected and going for it, you’ll be surprised what you can obtain.
Dan Kalmar is the Community Manager at ShopLocket. He also makes a mean cup of tea.
February 28, 2013
Recently I had to call a 1-800 number because I was having problems with a service that I use (that will remain nameless). The last time I had to call it was excruciating. I had spent ten minutes on the phone before I was even able to talk to someone (but it’s ok, because there were ‘higher than normal call volumes’). Then, I spent five minutes verifying that I was who I said I was (which is actually fine, I’d rather be safe than sorry). Then after another ten minutes on the phone, the woman I had been talking to informed me that she wouldn’t be able to help me with the problem and I had to wait on hold again to talk to someone who did. Once I talked to this person, it was a breeze. This person actually knew my problem and was able to help me in minutes.
After solving my problem, I asked how I could talk to someone like him again the next time I had this issue as I didn’t want to have to go through the same traumatizing experience that I did before. He gave me a number that he said went right to his department. Perfect.
Then yesterday, I had a similar problem. I thought this time, because I now had a direct number to the department, would be different. I called this number and learned that it still went to the same voice prompts. I had to go through the same show as before—waiting and voice prompts and talking to someone who couldn’t help me—until I was finally able to get through to someone who could help me.
After he was able to help me, I told him what happened to me last time and how I was given a number that was supposed to go ‘directly’ to his department. He informed me that there was no direct number to his department, but told me the exact numbers to press to get through the voice prompts and get to his department. I was happy to have him give me this little hack to get right to the person I need to talk to should the issue arise again, but it made me think, “Why should I need a hack to get to talk to someone I need to?”
I understand that there is often a need for voice prompts. I also get that not everyone knows how to do everything, especially when it’s a very large company. What I don’t understand is why I need to be MacGyver in order to talk to someone that I need to.
So if your business has a 1-800 number or a complex contact form, lower the barrier for your customer to talk to someone that they need. Because a lot of people aren’t going to sit there and fight a battle just to talk to you, they’re just going to leave. And they don’t need to be MacGyver to figure out how to do that.
Dan Kalmar is the Community Manager at ShopLocket. He also makes a mean cup of tea.
February 21, 2013
There are tons of blog posts and infographics that will tell you the time when tweets get retweeted the most or the times when it’s best to share on Facebook to increase sharing. They’re all wrong. Well, not technically wrong, but the information they give you might not be applicable to you at all. I have a secret that I want to share with you about the absolute best time to share on social networks:
There is no best time.
At least not for everyone. There are general guidelines you can follow, but there is no “best” time for everyone. So how can you find the best time for you to share on social networks? By trying out things and testing. It’s really that simple.
There are a bunch of different applications that you can use to see when is best for you to be tweeting based on your own followers. Tweriod is a great one that will analyze both your tweets and your follower’s tweets to determine when the most effective time to tweet is. From there, you can use automation apps like Buffer to Tweet at those times for maximum exposure. You can use various guides that you find online about optimal times to share, but use them as a starting point. If you find that you’re getting more engagement at other times, then screw the guides and go with what works best for you.
Dan Kalmar is the Community Manager at ShopLocket. He also makes a mean cup of tea.
February 14, 2013
