1. Magento

Magento is at the top of every online retailer’s wish list, when looking at ecommerce platforms. They are by far the most popular choice of ecommerce software platforms, and currently the most rapidly growing software for online stores over the past six months, with a phenomenal growth record of over 20%. While this might not sound very impressive, consider that there are hundreds of competitive platforms available. Magento is unique in that it built on a modular system that offers maximum flexibility. With a wide range of options like built-in shopping cart software, SEO, and product browsing, it is very comprehensive. One unique feature is the ability to optimize your site for mobile access, knowing that most people will shop via their Smartphones in the coming years.

2. Zen Cart

While Zen Cart started out very strong and at first appeared to be a strong competitor for Magento, their growth has slowed recently, with less than a 10% increase over the last six months. Zen Cart focuses mainly on the payment methods of your ecommerce site, making many options available to you. They have also integrated PayPal into their software to make for an easier experience for your customers. Having PayPal available means less missed sales due to people who do not use credit cards to shop online, but prefer the safety of PayPal. Zen Cart has a few other positive points—it is free, open-source software, and very user-friendly for those with limited technical savvy.

3. VirtueMart

VirtueMart makes the short list because it is more customizable than most of the other ecommerce platforms available. All of the features that you would expect to see in any ecommerce platform are here, but also there are several features that are unique that set them apart. One of those features is the ability to feature certain products on your site by setting them to “on special”. It also has a built in shipping calculator and allows customers the chance to use your site in different languages or make payments with foreign currency if the site owner chooses to allow it. The flexibility of this site is remarkable, with additional customization available through several modules, templates and plug-ins.

Like any other business decision, thorough research into the different ecommerce platforms is wise. Review other ecommerce sites, especially those that are in your general niche to check out their presentations and get ideas. Check for the features that are most vital to you before deciding which platform is best. Remember that being paid for your services or products is one of the most important aspects of a business, so this is one aspect you need to get exactly right.

A further enhancement is Magento Integration, proprietary software that incorporates accounting software with your Magento storefront. You can find out more about it at http://www.webninjamagento.com/tour/.

1. One of the best and easiest things is also probably the simplest; have your kids play outside instead of sitting in front of the television or playing video games. This is not only good for the environment by cutting down on energy consumption, but will keep your children physically fit and active.
2. Have your kids go through their video games or toys that they no longer play with, and you and they can take them to a consignment shop and sell them. If more children did this it would obviously cut down on the amount of toys and video games manufactured, and when you take into account the millions of both of these produced every day this would be a big help.
3. An alternative to selling things at a consignment shop is having your kids donate the video games, toys and even old clothes to charity. There are many charities willing to except these items–Goodwill, Salvation Army, homeless shelters, or even most local churches are glad to get these things.
4. As far as video games go, why buy them when your kids will likely just let all but one of the many games they have sit on the shelf. Companies like GameFly and NetFlix allow you to rent the games your children want online, saving you not only money but gas for a trip to the store. It would also cut down on the materials used to produce the packaging and the cartridges and disks.
5. Have the kids take shorter showers; make a game of it by timing them. This saves both water and the energy to heat the water as well.
6. Have them turn off the faucet while brushing their teeth, maybe put some water in a small reusable cup on the sink for rinsing their mouths instead of leaving the water running.
7. Make them understand how important turning off lights and televisions when they leave a room is for conserving energy.
8. Be sure they know to close doors when they come in to the house or go out, and why they should keep the refrigerator door closed.
9. Recycling cans, paper, and plastic is important, and they will love to help sort things if you give them separate bins or bags.
10. You can have them help plant trees, and let them know how much that helps our air.
11. They can also make many craft projects out of recycled materials like paper towel and toilet paper rolls, and cereal boxes.

Children love to help, and if you explain to them how they can make an impact on the environment and help keep their planet healthy, they will be happy to help.

Testimonials are “social proof” that can give your business an awesome boost and add to revenues and profits. You can tell people you are great, but it means so much more coming from others. So how do you get your customers to provide the sort of testimonials that will make potential customers come to your business or website and buy? Here are some ideas that will help.

Always ask for feedback. Most people are comfortable providing feedback immediately after the sale or delivery of the product or service. After they have committed to you, they most likely are sure of their decision and happy. Capture that happiness in a few lines of feedback that can help drive more customers to you.

Ask the right way. Phrasing your questions to elicit the most positive responses is wise. Think about it—you can say, “Hey, write a testimonial for me” or you can specifically ask the customer “How did my service help with your business needs?” Which do you think would get a better response? Not to mention, you are asking the customer a specific question that they can more easily answer with their experience working with you. Also, ask the customer what they would tell a friend or colleague about you, your product, or your service. You will get some interesting, and probably glowing, responses. Finally, ask for a testimonial if they feel your product or service was good enough. Obviously, when you ask several different ways, surely you have thrilled them enough to rave about you in at least one of their answers.

Testimonials that are succinct and to the point are traffic magnets. Most people will not read long and rambling testimonials but will check out the sound bites. Think in terms of those, and highlight certain parts of a testimonial, or use smaller sections on your marketing pieces and website.

Get permission to use. You might be tempted to take the raving reviews and slap them online, but hold off for just a second. You do not want to make a happy customer unhappy, do you? Give them a call, and say, “I was so glad to see how happy you were with my work. Do you mind if I use it as a testimonial on my website?” You can also send an email asking the same thing, and could include the quote you are planning to run so they can verify or adjust anything they want at that point.

Be sure to thank them. A great way to use those promotional items you buy is to give or send one to your customers for allowing you to use their great testimonials. Even if it is just a pen or a water bottle, it is a pleasant surprise to them and helps to enhance the relationship even further.

Of course, it goes without saying that your product or your service must be good to get the testimonials you want, so be sure that you under promise and over deliver. The idea is to thrill them so much they will be glad to write rave reviews for you.

This post written by Denise Gabbard, who blogs regularly about home loans Australia and other personal finance and business issues.

To facilitate this, many software tools are now in use, and are available for vendors of all sizes. Facebook Store applications or apps, as they are most widely known, give the needed interface to present the features and images of your products to the world right on the pages of Facebook. Most of these apps provide an easy means of presenting the product in a very short period.

Some storefront apps offer development tools that help you to get your products and services to the attention of millions of users on Facebook by offering tools to impress your fans and enable sharing among their wider circle of friends. You will get the online equivalent of “word-of-mouth” marketing by sharing and liking of the products. You can give exclusive offers to loyal fans and motivate them to talk more, spread the good word, and come back for more. These apps offer a complete marketing strategy and what you are establishing is a fully qualified e-commerce site with the advantage of a social media format, which offers unparalleled marketing potential.

Other storefront apps offer the ability for users to create Facebook fan page stores. In simple to use procedures, the users set their welcome page, set up the product details, and catalog along with some images of the products. The purchasers shop on Facebook but complete the purchase on a different page—a company website or third party site like Ebay or Amazon. Many storefronts on Facebook allow browsing of the product catalogs, but do not yet have full e-commerce integration.  1-800- FLOWERS was the first fully functional e-commerce storefront on Facebook, and it was soon followed by Delta Airlines, which allowed users the ability to book flights right on the Facebook platform. More companies are integrating this technology into their storefront pages daily, and it has opened many new opportunities for vendors and customers to connect easily.

If you are a vendor, or have the desire to be one, look into how to sell online to learn about the free apps available for Facebook e-commerce.

If you’ve checked out Facebook at all in the last few days, and since there are now more than 500 million users, chances are you may have) you know that Facebook rolled out some changes to the format that have created some excitement in the cyber world. However, it seems that excitement is mostly users rejecting the latest changes as unnecessary. The mantra around most Facebook walls seems to be “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

Competition

The recent launch of Google+ is surely some of the motivation for these changes, and more that will be coming quickly. Facebook must view Google’s social networking site as real competition, especially now that it has surpassed the 25 million mark for users in just a few months. Unlike the thousands of other social sites that have been around for years but failed to gain any ground, the internet behemoth itself created Google+. One funny fact is that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is the top user on Google+, even above Google’s Larry Page. That has to make you wonder what the future holds.

Yesterday’s morning surprise for users when they logged in was that everything was moved around, nothing was easy to find, and it was not quick and simple to get answers on any of it. Most users have come to embrace previous Facebook changes, but this is the most radical by far. Springing sweeping changes on users without warning, and without explaining adequately how to navigate the new platform, are horrible customer service plays.  Yes, Facebook is free to use. However, Facebook makes money based on the number of users it has and its ability to engage people on the site. Hamper those two things, which these changes certainly have, and your profit shrinks.

NewsFeed

The biggest issue people seem to have is the Newsfeed. Facebook says it is like the front page of your newspaper, and that they are sorting things for you depending on your usage. They say they are offering more of what you are looking for at the top of the feed. For the 175 million or so users who log in daily, Recent News should be up top with a little blue tag in the corner of all stories that are new. There is also a scrolling ticker on the right side that shows recent activity of all your friends.

More Changes

A few other changes made by Facebook recently have slipped by without much discussion or ire:

• Business Page owners will no longer have the ability to message their fans as of September 30^th.
• There is no minimum number of fans for a custom URL for your page anymore. (Previously, you needed 25 fans.)
• They have added list capabilities that mimic Google+ Circles. You can sort your Facebook friends any way you want.
• There is now a View Shares button, so you can see where content is going around Facebook.
• At first glance, it seems the Poke button is gone…but it is just hiding. Go to the dropdown menu at the top of your profile to Poke people.
• The one hit seems to be the new and larger pictures!

Love it or hate it, it seems this new layout is here to stay. Additional rumors abound on coming changes: a social commerce focus, a Facebook app store, and partnerships with music and media platforms to bring content from around the web into the Facebook fold. We can only wait and see what Facebook future holds. One thing is for sure—they will surprise us with it!

Author: Denise Gabbard has been writing all her life and blogging for the last five years. She writes on a wide range of topics, from travel to Twitter, farms to Facebook, and drama to drink driving insurance.

There are literally billions of users spread out among all of the social media outlets and celebrities are wise to take advantage of the largest outlets to connect with their fans. At the moment, that means Facebook and Twitter, but with the rocket launch of Google+, it would also be wise not to ignore this newcomer. Fans love conversing with their favorite celebrities in this type of fun and safe environment. They can ask their favorites questions or find out about shows they’ll be doing. Celebrities can also get a lot out of the sites by seeing what their fan base is interested in and playing to those interests.

Celebrities, regardless if they are the latest craze or a blast from the past, use social media in many ways. Those who have not been in the news lately can use social media to create some interest and get people talking about them again. It is much easier to renew the social buzz today, whereas twenty years ago these celebrities might have just faded away and we would never hear of them again.

Thanks to social media, they can quickly and simply get their face and name back out in the public eye and re-energize their careers for the most part. This allows celebrities to make sure everyone knows they are still around and interested in being in the public eye; this might lead to a director or producer seeing their profile and having one of those “Ah ha!” moments when they realize they’d be perfect for their next project.

Celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to President Obama are using social outlets to reach out and get their message to as many people as they can; and the social media sites love the fact that when a celebrity creates a profile, their many fans will create profiles so that they can follow along on their life path. One example is when Oprah started tweeting, within the first week there was a 43% growth on her profile over the previous week. Those are amazing numbers and they just reinforce the fact that social media is not only a slam dunk, but a very necessary tool for the celebrity.

On Twitter, it is common for a celebrity to pop into the site, say hello, and start a chat with their followers. They often tweet when they are at a restaurant, a night club or even at the hair dresser. This offers their followers a peak into their everyday lives, which they love. I have seen celebrities, such as Kelly Monaco, tweet while she is in the makeup chair on the set of General Hospital. Many celebs also post pictures of various things they are doing, which make their followers feel like they are one of their friends. More celebrities are joining these sites daily, as it is a smart way to engage their fans, and keep them interested.

Please retweet this article and also check out car and taxi insurance quotes, Twitter about it and post it on Facebook and Google+ for all of your online friends.