A perfect ecommerce partner, Ashop Commerce

Thinking of starting an online business?

For a start, a reliable ecommerce software is important.

Ashop Commerce offers perfect solution.

First of all, it's a web-based application and you can manage your store and organize your sales data from anywhere, so long internet access is available.

Setting up
With its easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor, fully customizable built-in design themes, you can setup your online storefront hassle free, be it starting from scratch or adding shopping cart function to your existing site. You don't need technical knowledge of web designing or programming.

Ashop Commerce also offers tutorial movies and a comprehensive step-by-step user manual to guide you through the process.

What’s next?
It’s your daily operation and sales figures.

With Ashop Commerce, these data are just clicks away.

The software offers a very user-friendly store admin panel, where you can keep tracks of site visitors and their activities, customers’ info, daily order and shipping, payment transactions, inventory, and so on. For example, you’ll get SMS alert when there’s new order.

Also, you can export and import these data to and from external spreadsheet. It allows you to have better control of your everyday business operation.

Meanwhile the software is designed with a secure checkout system to prevent issues like orders fraud, abandoned shopping carts and so on. For instance, all credit card transactions are secured and protected by Ashop Commerce’s free 128 bit Secure Socket Layer protection, the highest industry-standard encryption.

It’s designed to protect your business and your customers.

As for payment methods, Ashop Commerce offers wide integration with major banks, gateways and third party processors including PayPal and WorldPay.

Every business needs promotions.
You can too design and customize your own monthly newsletters to be sent out to your customers, to inform them about the latest products or services that you’re offering. Newsletters subscription management is as easy as ABC with Ashop Commerce.

Affordable starter's package.
Every business owner wants maximum return on investment with minimum capital. Therefore, Ashop Commerce offers basic package with straight forward monthly fees, which you can start with 500 products and 10-day no obligations free trial, before you commit yourself.

Try it and let the ecommerce software speak for itself.

Now, I’m off to think about what I want to sell in my online store.

How to improve your blog traffic, blog rush it!

Just saw this BlogRush thing from JohnChow's site. I've signed up for it instantly:) and thought of sharing it here with my fellow blog friends. I also sent out an invitation to some of you; Vien, Mumsgather and...

Another blog stat's tool? Something like that but more. But it's not a money making tool, but traffic generator.

Almost real-time blog traffic stat
First it provides close to real-time stat, with perhaps a few minutes delay.

The moment you sign up, it'll take a 12-24 hours before your stat can be actually displayed in the Dashboard. So I haven't been able to see my Dolphinitis' and Life is a Darling's stat figure.

At the moment I'm using Google Analytic and MyBlogLog to keep track of my daily blog stat. However, neither of them are real-time. That's why I'm trying out BlogRush.

More than just stat...
Here's another advantage of BlogRush , it doesn't allow you to keep track your blog stat, but it helps to generate more traffic, the RIGHT traffic, and bring in more readers to your blog.

How? You ask. By adding the widget BlogRush widget into your blog *image*

When our blog page is loaded, the BlogRush widget on our blog will load with a set of 5 links. They called this the syndication credits.

Meanwhile you'll also have one of your recent post titles loaded inside of a BlogRush widget on other blogs, which are in the same category of yours.

Here's the math: if your blog gets 50 total pages a day, and you'll have one of your recent post titles showed across BlogRush network 50 times a day. The math doesn't stop here...

More...
If BloggerA click on one of those 2 links (see left image, one of the red dots), then sign up with BlogRush and start hosting the widget on his blog, they'll signed up as your referral.

So when Blogger B goes to A's blog that has the widget, you also get one of your post titles showed across B's network which share the same category. This will increase the exposure of your blog.... and the math goes on, up to 10th generation referrals.

And all the referrals information, and the traffic they brings are all available in BlogRush Dashboard, so you can keep track of where your traffic from, who brings them and so on. Sounds cool eh?

Can be better
Well, the things which I don't like about the widget are, its category option, and I can't customise the widget to suit my blog layout. Hopefully they'll improve that in future.

Readers and traffic are bloggers' inspiration. Increase of readership in your blog is very encouraging.

Also, I think it's a useful tool for bloggers who do paid posts, it can help to improve your Page Rank.

Not to forget those who have Advertlets or Nuffnangs ad on their blog/s, as it also help generate more pageviews to your blog.

Just give it a try. And see for yourself.

And Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! everyone. :)

Get Smorty! Get paid to blog.

Like I've said, one of my reasons to blog again is to make some extra money out of blogging. However, I have not been really working on it, other than writing for pleasure.

But now, I think I have got the gist of blogging and can churn out stuff faster. So I think my blog and I are both ready to take the challenge and make some extra cash.

To start the ball rolling, I choose Smorty, a service that connects us, bloggers with the advertisers. It gives us a chance to earn some income by sharing our opinions on peoples products, services or websites on our blog.

Why Smorty?
Besides earning extra cash. I can make my blog content more dynamic with Smorty's campaigns. I can get ideas, choose to write stuffs within my interest and share my opinions with you.

You won't miss out
Smorty also send out email to notify me if any new opportunities available.

For people, like me, who always keep their email account or instant messenger login 24/7, this feature is very useful.

It keeps me aware of any new opportunities, before they are taken. Remember, opportunities await no man.

The best, Weekly Payout
There is no minimum payout. It means I get paid my article is approved, which normally takes about 5 days.

I have control over how much you can earn on a weekly basis. The minimum is US$6 per post, and can go up to a maximum of $100 per post, depending on your Page Rank along with a high Smorty smart score.

Well, the more you write, the more you earn. Tempting huh?

More than opinions blogging...
You can also sign up as an Smorty advertiser to get your blog, your product or services to be reviewed by other bloggers.

Or become a Smorty affiliate and get paid for referring bloggers who signs up for Smorty Blog Advertising. Huge potential in generating more income for professional blogger.

Last but not least,
Smorty also provides very useful tips and links on how to optimise your blog/s. It is worth reading up, if you're serious about building your blogs'Page Rank.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up now and get paid to blog!

And, I'm off to set up my Paypal account. :)

I wish it was Google not Yahoo!

MyBlogLog is now a member of the Yahoo! family.

Just like Google, Yahoo! is also expanding their services by acquiring other potential web services.

This morning when I went to one of my favourite blogs and saw that my MyBlogLog(MBL) screen id has been replaced by my Yahoo! user id. I was shocked.

Quickly I logged on to my MBL account to see what happened, and I was asked to merge my Yahoo! account with my MBL account. (The last time I logged in to my MBL account was last night, so the changes were made when I was sleeping.)

Google Vs Yahoo!
Well, all these while I've been keeping my Yahoo! account identity and Google identity for different usages and privacy purpose. For blogging, I use Google with a different screen name. To my surprise, Yahoo! replaced my MBL id with my Yahoo! profile id without my consent. Frankly I lost my respect for Yahoo! as I have been their long time user since they started back in 1995. It has been one of my favourite web services provider, other than Google.

Google has, by far, never done such a thing without my consent. I was already a Blogger user with Dolphine as my screen id, before Google acquired it. After Blogger has officially became part of Google, I was offered an gmail account with Dolphine as the login id.

Later, when they rolled out Blogger Beta, and I created 3 new blogs again early this year, they still keep my old blogs and new blogs separated. Goolge didn't mess things up without my consent.

I know the changing profile information and switching account information can sometimes be a hassle, some people hated it. But the respective service provider should at least gives users a choice before making any changes. It's a respect to users who want privacy. The best part was neither Yahoo! or MBL bothered to send out any notify email to their users.

Profile image
Besides, Yahoo! also changed my original MBL profile image. Now when I want to upload my old profile image to replace image, it gave some ERROR message. Now I can only temporarily use the ugly anonymous image.

Not all users affected
Not all MBL users are affected. It was only those, like me, who own a Yahoo! account and MBL account. However, I'm still don't understand how and why they could change someone's screen id without confirming it with the user.

I DID NOT use my Yahoo! email in my MBL account, instead it was my Google email account as my MBL correspondence email. Could they be so sure that it was the same person? Or they were just trying to tell everyone that their system is smart enough to track and match all the users' data? Gosh!*roll eyes*

Identity = Brand
Dolphine is my blog id, and also my brand name for blogging. My blog friends know me as Dolphine, which is different from my Yahoo! id.

Privacy
To Yahoo!, it might seem NO Biggie, and it was for the sake of user's convenience. But I believe there are users who want privacy, and will be annoyed and offended to see the change.

I certainly hope someone from Yahoo! would see this article, and reflect it to their system integration team, so it would not happen again in their future acquired project. And please Do Not assume that users would not mind. At least I mind.

Don't get me wrong, I welcome the merging of Yahoo! and MBL and I think it's cool. I still love their services, and will continue using their services.

But I just thought for a big corporation like Yahoo!, protecting users' privacy should be their main priority and obligation. Hope they will look into it seriously.

Just no more surprises, please. Or at least a notify email.

So what do you think you of it?

Nice Matters Blog Award

I'm very happy to receive this award from Mumsgather. Thanks MG.

Sorry with delay. I’ve been figuring out how to write this. :)

This award was created by Genevieve Olsen, owner of Bella-Enchanted to be given to "the nice people, good blog friends and those that inspire good feelings and inspiration! Those who care about others and alway be there to lend support, and those who have a positive influence in our blogging world!"

Since MG is the person who tagged me, I can't tag her again, though I love her blogs for they offer interesting references for mothes and inspiring thoughts as well. This is one of the reasons why I blog again. And now I addicted. Ha ha ha...

Hence, I shall pass this award on to them;
Vien,
Mee Ling (chinese blog),
湘绣蜻蜓 (chinese blog),
and... I'll add some more later.