Better than affiliate links

gift wrap+Shopping cart=£££?

I tried out some affiliate links and reviews on this blog before and even just a couple of reviews had click thru’s that ended in purchases. My review of my Three Skype Phone has generated 30 quid in commission so far (60 USD) and my Tefal Quick Cup Review had 7 purchases. Google adsense isn’t very prevalent, I put a block on some of the popular posts and a small banner below the related links on a single post. That’s not brought in very much at all so I think I’ll chuck that out eventually.

Instead of affiliate links, I’ve decided to start selling some items on this blog, it’s getting a fair bit of UK traffic and I have a good source of stock from an auction and a ‘job-lot’ selection of electronic things. Some were a bit useless but there are some good portable speakers and headphones in there that should sell. My missus wants to try selling some items too, she does some wonderful Chinese characters for good luck sayings and traditional charms which look wicked good in a wooden frame.

I’m going to use the Wordpress shopping cart plugin from Instinct because it allows you to start small. You don’t have to go to great lengths to setup an entire themed site like you would with ZenCart or oScommerce scripts. I can set up the plugin and add just one product within a couple of hours. Probably even quicker but I’m such a tweaker that I can’t help try every combination of option!

I think it’s worth a go, I’ve got a company that I could use the stock for but I think seeing as I bought this myself and not through my company, I can have an experiment to see if any of it can move through here, I’d be interested to hear about any of your experiences if you have sold items direct from your own blog or site. (a chance to plug your site in the comments if you do!)

My blog name kind of works nicely into this idea it’s a nice memorable name just on it’s own but to add a memory hook to it I am pretty sure I’ll be doing UK postage at FiddyP (50p) for any item regardless of size, this makes it much easier for a buyer to know how much they’ll pay at the checkout as well as being the theme of the site. oh how convenient! 8-)

Of course, all the regular stuff will be going on as well like the AJAX tutorials, other hand step throughs and whatever else happens in my head which I think is worth sharing..

I’m working all weekend so I’ll get on with it and see if I can’t have my first product on sale by Tuesday.. yey!

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This entry was written by Andy Bailey, posted on January 12, 2008 at 5:36 pm, filed under Blog News, Making / Made Money, ecommerce and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

21 Comments

  1. clairec23 (8 comments.)
    Posted January 13, 2008 at 5:28 am | Permalink

    Good luck with all of that, I love the 50p postage idea, that would definitely stick.

    clairec23’s last blog post..Art Constellation Contest

  2. Scott (12 comments.)
    Posted January 13, 2008 at 2:02 pm | Permalink

    Will watch this with interest, might even have a look at doing something similar myself.

    Scott’s last blog post..How To Stop PhotoBooth Flash From Firing

  3. witchypoo (37 comments.)
    Posted January 13, 2008 at 4:46 pm | Permalink

    I have a purple plates site that got two good sized orders since I have started my blog in November. I had to implement the PayPal shipping fees for USD transactions because it wasn’t in the original code. My readings site has got a number of hits, but so far, only one reading from it. I solved the shipping fee thing by only taking CND for readings, or other things. I only included the one link so that Akismet wouldn’t think I was spamming it :)
    witchypoo’s last blog post..Something I Said I Would Never Do

  4. sokrates (1 comments.)
    Posted January 13, 2008 at 6:03 pm | Permalink

    yeah! the 50p postage idea is great.

    sokrates’s last blog post..Autotuning - Der Ausdruck des persönlichen Geschmacks

  5. Andy Bailey
    Posted January 13, 2008 at 6:23 pm | Permalink
    Claire: thanks! I thought it was a good idea
    Scott: Keep coming back to see the results, good luck if you do it yourself
    Witchypoo: thanks for letting me know. I’ve decided against using the plugin now and have switched to an AJAX version provided by E-junkie Shopping Cart and Digital Delivery. I’ll give it a trial with some paypal and google checkout buttons to see how it goes.
    Sokrates: thanks!
  6. Bobby Revell (34 comments.)
    Posted January 14, 2008 at 7:52 pm | Permalink

    If you sell a big gaudy FiddyP bling-bling gold chain…I’ll consider buying it…haha:)

    Bobby Revell’s last blog post..Wordpress Ping Warning

  7. Andy Bailey
    Posted January 14, 2008 at 8:34 pm | Permalink
    bobby: haha! I’m on the phone to Bling Ltd now! :-)
  8. http://www.shootexperience.com/ (1 comments.)
    Posted January 15, 2008 at 11:30 pm | Permalink

    I have had absolutely no luck with affiliate links, very little luck with adsense, but fairly good luck with selling from a blog when combined with Ebay. I think the Ebay name added to the trust factor. I set up a ebay store, and made posts about my store on my blog. It went fairly well this way, but I am sure it would depend on what you are selling as well.

  9. Andy Bailey
    Posted January 15, 2008 at 11:36 pm | Permalink
    Thanks for your input, I have opened an ebay account for my company so I’ll post on there too and cross promote from each site to get maximum exposure. I have put some small money into adwords for the listing selling the speakers but after multiple clicks there haven’t been sales yet so you’re right, I guess it will have to go to ebay before anything moves.

    thanks for letting me know your experience!

  10. London Photo treasure hunt (1 comments.)
    Posted January 16, 2008 at 12:24 am | Permalink

    Let me know how it works out for you!

  11. Dan (1 comments.)
    Posted January 16, 2008 at 6:17 am | Permalink

    That Instinct e-commerce plugin is pretty nice- as long as the items you sell have few variations and are just plain items. I’ve done quite a bit of rewrites to the code and my boss sent some of it back to them. I guess they were suppose to implement some of it, but I’m not sure if they did, as a new version hasn’t come out for a short while. The pay-per-download is also a nice feature.

    My boss (Brian) interviewed the CEO of the company: http://nowsourcing.com/blog/2007/10/12/interview-developer-of-wordpress-secret-e-commerce-weapon/

    Dan’s last blog post..Thoughts from the throne

  12. Andy Bailey
    Posted January 16, 2008 at 9:28 am | Permalink
    LPT: will do!

    Dan: it does seem nice at first (when I wrote the tutorial for the cart) but I have since found it to have small issues where I can’t edit a product after it’s been entered and the lightbox code for the stock photos isn’t always working. I decided to use a buy now type of shopping cart instead seeing as I don’t have oodles of products. If I was to have a lot of products I think it would be more convenient to get a similar looking template made for one of the open source carts and use that instead.

    thanks for visiting!

  13. Snowlark (8 comments.)
    Posted January 16, 2008 at 9:16 pm | Permalink

    Great idea to get benefit in two forms, a two-fer, by using your own site to sell!

    Oh, and I got the whole “FiddyP” the first moment I landed on your site. :) I told my Dad about it and he chuckled! My Dad spent many a 50 P in his day … you can guess why I suspect?

    I’ve spent some too in my travels to King’s Lynn - RAF Sculthorpe to be exact.

    :)

    Take care,

    Steve

    Snowlark’s last blog post..Hiring Needs Objectivity (II) - Phone Screens

  14. Andy Bailey
    Posted January 17, 2008 at 12:27 pm | Permalink
    I think it’s worth giving it a go, I am pretty sure I’ll add some ebay listings with the same products to give them more exposure.
    aha flyboy I was a navyboy!
  15. sokrates (1 comments.)
    Posted January 18, 2008 at 1:45 pm | Permalink

    i dont think it exist in germany like that, or?

  16. trendygirl (1 comments.)
    Posted January 19, 2008 at 5:24 pm | Permalink

    no sokrates i believe not

  17. Opal Tribble - Vegan Momma (35 comments.)
    Posted January 21, 2008 at 2:33 am | Permalink

    You’re on a roll.

    I have done well with affiliate marketing and selling on ebay. I’m currently working on an ebook which I’ll be marketing on a few of my websites along with other websites.

    I’ll have to check out the WP Plug In.

    Opal Tribble - Vegan Momma’s last blog post..Fun Art For Daughter, Nightmare For Mommy

  18. Andy Bailey
    Posted January 21, 2008 at 10:38 am | Permalink
    opal: I’ll look out for your ebook, nice to know so many people are able to do something with ebay and their own blog
  19. PuReWebDev (1 comments.)
    Posted April 17, 2008 at 2:42 am | Permalink

    Great e-commerce post. I actually work with Amazon Associates setting up retail websites. Your blog is good research for my e-commerce podcast series I’m working on
    http://www.youtube.com/user/PuReWebDev

    thank you,
    PuReWebDev

  20. Dimson (1 comments.)
    Posted April 21, 2008 at 2:00 pm | Permalink

    You can also use integration Wordpress with oscommerce (for example). In this way your shop will have more functions..

  21. Andy Bailey
    Posted April 21, 2008 at 5:12 pm | Permalink
    Dimson: I didn’t know you could integrate oscommerce sites into wordpress, I’ll have a look into that thanks!

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