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The Power Of A Facebook Store

April 8th, 2012

It’s a big announcement, and though you’re reading this here and now, it was first announced on our Facebook page.. Why you may ask? Well this announcement has to do with the power of SHARING and the persuasiveness and advocacy in brand marketing. It was only fair to divulge this first on Facebook.. For those of you who haven’t heard..

Our newly designed and SOCIALLY loaded Facebook store is now out!

The New Design
With the new Timeline for business pages, the area allows for more space, so we had to take advantage of this, and allow for more categories per page view. Add the search ability for easier browsing, as well as a clear layout for custom pages so you’re sure your offerings are clearly visible to help you sell on Facebook. We’re pretty proud of this new look, but this is just a little taste..

The Shopping Experience
In line with our mission to keep customers engaged within your website and brand, the new Facebook store, allows your customers to browse products for sale, share their favorites with friends, and complete a purchase within the Facebook shopping cart. Yes the entire process can be completed without leaving your Facebook page! Using payment gateways like PayPal Payments Pro and Authorize.net, the customer pays and is never directed elsewhere. And now the payment gateway PayPal Express, brings them back to your Facebook page to confirm the transaction. We hope this decreases the number of abandoned carts and gives you a boost in sales.. But wait that’s not all…

The Capitalization of Sharing
Facebook is all about sharing, and now your customer can become your advocate. After a purchase is made, customers can share their excitement with a single click and post their purchase to their own Timeline and share with friends. This is done without authorizing an app, just a simple share button that we’re all used to. Your customers can now become your own marketing tool. Yes this is all about REACH.. If you like the sound of reach and fcommerce advocacy, we’ve got more for you..

More features with the Facebook store include the ability to preview audio before purchase, allowing musicians and artists to showcase their tunes and sell music directly to fans within Facebook. They can sell songs, sell CD’s or even autographed prints! Looking for more? Well how about multiple language support, zoomed picture view, sharing to social platforms like Twitter and Want, and include related products for cross selling.

We mentioned it’s a big release, and we must say, we’re not finished yet! Stay tuned for more exciting releases from Wazala coming very soon!

Promoting Your Store With Love

January 15th, 2012

Ooooooh something is in the air! Can you smell it? I can’t, because I’m stuffed up as a turkey right now, but I’m sure it smells super romantic! Lovers and lonely hearts be warned, Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching! So how can your eccomerce site take advantage of the big day? Here are a few tips to help your business feel the love.

Email Your Customers Now
Get ahead of the ball. Give your customers the heads up that they better get something now before they’re significant other is left empty handed and broken hearted. Convince them that your store is the way to go. Let them know of any special promotions you might be having.

On That Note, Offer Promotions
Everyone wants to get a great Valentines day gift for their other half, but nobody wants to break the bank doing so. Offer special discounts on your products exclusively for Valentines day, especially those items that you think would make a fine V-day gift. Create a vDay coupon code and spread the word. Send it to your customers to send to their valentine’s as well. “Savings have never been sweeter”

If you really want to show your customers you <3 them, create a shipping coupon and send it out. Most people are not huge fans of shipping costs, so if you waive those fees, your bound to make your customers feel all warm inside.

Get Your Site In The Spirit
Making tweaks to your site to highlight V-day can go a long way in attracting customers. It could be as big an entire design overhaul, or as small as sticking a little heart in site header. Just do something to make sure people know your aware of the holiday.

Don’t Leave Out The Lone Wolves
Single people sort of get the shaft on Valentines day. So make sure you include them by offering products that they can get for themselves. Feb 14th is the day of love, but make sure not to alienate those who come to your site with the intention of gifting themselves.

Timing Is Everything
As with any holiday that involves the giving of gives, keeping your customers informed about shipping dates and times is a MUST. If they aren’t sure that you will be able to get a product to them on time, they are much less likely to take a chance on your product. Let them know the cut off day for V-day delivery.

Put A Bow On Top
Make your customers loves a little easier by offering to gift wrap their gifts for them. Also, let them know that you’ll be able to deliver the gifts straight to their loved ones on the big day. Valentines day is nerve-racking enough, and revealing some of that stress is a really loving gesture.

Happy Valentines day wishes from everyone here at Wazala! WE LOVE YOU!

Using Twitter as a Support Desk of Sorts

November 9th, 2011

Twitter users love to do two things most: gossip and air their complaints. More and more, people are are logging on to twitter every day to engage brands. This is really cool because it provides an open forum in which conversations can happen about your products. But what do you do if someone complains about your brand in a tweet? How do you respond? Do you respond at all?

The answer to this is actually pretty straightforward. Yes, you should try your very darndest to respond all the time, and you should respond in an extremely helpful manner. Most people expect you to respond, and if you don’t then you’re not meeting their expectations, and that’s just horribly unprofessional of you. According to Maritz Research, (some big customer experience research company), people view Brands who respond to tweeted complaints very positively. People are surprised and delighted to know that there is actually someone on the other side listening, someone that represents your brand who is concerned about their concerns.

And you should be genuinely concerned. Or at the very least, act concerned. These are your customers, and this is a public arena. All eyes are on you. We believe you should always try to be kind and understanding towards your clients, but even if you can’t stand your customers, your brands twitter page is not the place to show your true colors. Your business is your baby, and responding to a tweet that says “your products suck” with an expletive laden rant that mentions Ghandi and a Porto-potty in the same sentence won’t win you any points (unless it’s really, really funny!). Be the bigger man. Or at least direct them to customer support where your exchange will be (slightly) more private. Just remember, the customer is always right, especially on twitter. So treat them as such, and you may get a few treats in return. On a side note, we have a bunch of left over candy from a productive Halloween night that we’re looking to sell in bulk/trade for the 6th Harry Potter DVD. Hit up Wazala on twitter if you’re interested PEACE.

Creating An Online Holiday Pop Up Store

October 23rd, 2011

With the Holiday season just around the corner, more businesses are catching onto the idea of a Holiday Pop Up Shop. These little businesses open around the Holidays spreading their marketing hard, then simply disappearing once the season is over. Halloween shops are found in strip malls, while Christmas gifts and gift wrapping businesses take advantage of this in small mall carts and little huts. They pop up out of nowhere, make a quick profit during the holidays then close shop.

Lately the same idea is becoming popular online. Ecommerce sites, and businesses are also taking advantage of this by creating limited time holiday pop up stores for specific merchandise of the season, or even marketing there goods as featured gift ideas in a separate Holiday store.

Thinking of creating one this season? Well Wazala would be a perfect fit!

Easiest Holiday Ecommerce Setup
The simple and easy to use store manager of Wazala allows you to add products easily for sale. Whether you wish to offer digital products with digital delivery or shippable products, it is effortless to create a product, upload a few pictures, set shipping rates (as well as express shipping to meet the holiday deadline) and list your products for sale. We truly mean it when we say easy!

Spread The Joy Of Shopping
A quick way to market your new store is to publish it on your site immediately. Wazala’s viral features allows you to add your store to multiple websites, social profiles and especially Facebook for added marketing and sales push. You can create the store with the true functionality of a pop up light box. The Wazala red button, looks great with a Christmas theme (you can also create your own), and you can customize it to be clear with a title of “Holiday Gifts”. Add it to your Holiday specials page on your website, as well as our Facebook business page for a fully functional Facebook store, and you’re ready to take orders anywhere your customer is.

Holiday Discounts & Special Offers
Coupons, sales and special discounts are also easy to create with Wazala. Your ecommerce platform comes pre-configured to give out discount codes on specific products or store wide deals, and customers are always on the look out to save more during the Holidays. Place your on sale products in a category, offer coupon codes on social networks or for returning customers via email marketing. A proven way to close deals is to also offer free shipping, or at least discounted shipping. While some care to get their shipment on a discount, many also look for express shipping that you can set up with Wazala for an extra fee that your customer can pay.

Socially Drive Your Pop Up Store
The purpose is to attract those looking for deals and special promotions, and using the Wazala social promoter with discount codes, this time of year would prove helpful in gaining new customers. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter can be configured to your Wazala store to post out your special deals, Holiday products and shipping rates. With a simple password configuration, you will be ready to ring those bells and shout out your offerings.

With only a few weeks left for the Holidays starting early is important. Many try to finish their shopping early enough to relax and enjoy the season, while marketing may take time to work, putting in your efforts early will prove big. A big tip we hope you would take advantage of is to send out a coupon code to all your customers, allow them to redeem and also send it out to a friend.

Share a little this Holiday season and reap the rewards on the New Year.

Selling Your Music Online

September 5th, 2011

If your reading this, you’re probably a musician, a band manager, or something in between, and you want to make money selling music online. This article will give you a few ideas on how to make that happen.
The first thing you have to know about selling your music online is that its VERY COMPETITIVE and you need to be vocally smarter not loader!
Ready to put some BASS into your sales? Read on..

Be Everywhere
Don’t be shy. If you want to actually sell your songs online, your going to have to get your butt out of your cozy cocoon of solitude and become an annoyingly social butterfly. Sign up for every music service, forum and blog in existence. Create awesome profiles with pictures of your band in badass poses. If the regular band profile is a shy, acne ridden nerd sulking in the back of class, your profile should be the popular jock with a heart of gold and perfect SAT scores. Not every profile you make is going to be a home run. Some of them will get no attention whatsoever. The key is to be in front of every pitch, swinging like a freaking madman.

Make It Easy to Find
There’s no point being crazy cool if people have no clue where to go to witness your awesomeness. In order to make your presence known, you should tag your music with specific keywords that are relevant to the music your putting out. Just to give an example, my brother is in a band. I would best describe what him and his band “play” as a highly delicate mix of jazz fusion, electro-acoustic pop, and horrifyingly awful garbage. So if he wanted to make sure that people found his music (I don’t know why he would), he would tag his music with the words “indie, jazz fusion, electro acoustic pop, horrifyingly, awful, garbage. That way, if someone was in the mood to take a dive into the musical equivalent of a dumpster, the incomprehensible heap of noise that his band calls music would be right there to aptly accommodate them. (sorry brother!)

Sell Anywhere
So your a pretty big deal, and easier to find than an senior citizen in miami. Now its time to start printing the money. Wazala and the Benjamins go way back, and we’re always down to arrange an introduction. We make it scary easy to start selling your music online, so that making bank doesn’t make you crazy. Another great feature that makes Wazala so incredibly amazing is that it allows you embed your store everywhere. Your Facebook, your blogs, your tumblr, your website, your mom’s website, it doesn’t matter. Long story short, anywhere you show your “I live to rock” mug, people will be able to buy your “I live to rock” mugs.

Stay Social
Talk with your fans. Engage them. Let them know whats going on with your band. This goes hand in hand in hand with being everywhere. A social media presence online is imperative in spreading the word about your band, as well as retaining fans and keeping them informed. Basically, people expect to hear from you. With Wazala’s social promoter, this is a breeze. The social promoter recommends and publishes messages to your twitter and facebook account, making it much more simple and efficient

Offer Something Different
Don’t be boring. Offer more than just music. Selling your merch is a great way to make extra money and raise awareness about your band. You can sell posters, CD covers, t-shirts, unreleased songs, tickets to shows…..the list goes on and on. You could also sell signed merch for your hardcore supporters. Wazala allows makes selling all these things easy. You can also sell the physical version of your album, in addition to the digital version.

Cut The Middle Man
Cut out the middle man! Make sure that everything you sell is revenue to you! Wazala does not take a transaction fee. Just a minimum subscription, & there is also a free store where you can sell up to five products to start with until you can afford more.

Show Your Best
Make great music. Music that gets a reaction. When it comes down to it, if your music isn’t good, no amount of marketing is going to be able to sell it. Remember you may only get one chance to make an impression on a listener, so you better make it count.

Interview – The Taylor’s Gift Foundation

August 28th, 2011

Are you an organ donor? 90% of Americans say they would donate an organ, but a few really do. In an effort to raise awareness, The Taylor’s Storch Foundation helps you ReGift Life.

The story of Taylor Storch caught our hearts and more importantly the positive empowerment that her Foundation creates! We got in touch with Todd Storch, Taylor’s father and one of the founders of Taylor’s Gift and we wanted you to hear their story..

Tell us about Taylor’s Gift and what it is you do?
Taylor’s Gift Foundation’s purpose and mission is increasing organ donation to regift life, renew health and restore families. We work every day to accomplish a number of items: Increase each state’s official organ donation registration database.
Be a resource to those that need information about organ donation.
Help support and bring help to those that are waiting to receive a donation.
And soon to provide resources to those families that have lost a child suddenly.

How easy is it to become a donor?
Easier and quicker than typing most emails! In almost every state in the USA, you can become a donor. If you spend 90 seconds at www.TaylorsGift.org and click “Become a Donor”, you can register with your state’s official registry.

What programs or opportunities do you offer for others that want to get involved?
Our Foundation is built on amazing volunteers that support us in a number of ways. We have opportunities and need that stretch from computer work to developing and running specific programs. Anyone can learn more and reach us at http://www.taylorsgift.org/get-involved

How does the sales of your online store help in expanding your mission?
We have a number of items available on our online store. The dollars we raise helps us with our Mission, develop programs and keep our Foundation running. Thank you Wazala for making this easy!

Any upcoming events that you wish to spread the word about?
We have a number of upcoming events from golf and sporting clay tournaments, to speaking engagements and fundraising events. Check out www.TaylorsGift.org/events for everything upcoming! A number of our events are in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area as well as the New York City area. We also have a number of people that help our Mission with Grassroots events across the country. Please contact us at getinvolved@taylorsgift.org for more information.

We urge you all to visit the Taylor’s Gift website – www.TaylorsGift.org – and get involved, become a donor or simply support this cause with a purchase from their online store.

Using Twitter to Market Your Online Store

August 18th, 2011

A Twitter presence for a business can vary based on your goals. As an online business, your main focus should be acquiring new customers, supporting those you captured and building upon your brand’s image.
Today we will discuss the available resources Twitter offers to boost your online sales, keeping your followers happy and develop a good strategy to follow through.
Know Your Keywords
Twitter allows you to search tweets using any keyword. Your customers are probably searching for your product, but may simply be using a different word, than what you normally use. Take the time and search through Twitter for your common keywords and make a list of those terms. Compile different tweets using these keywords and start testing. It may take time to see results, but in the long run, you will find that your exposure relies on a certain few.
Hashtags play a role here as well. The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. This became an easier way to categorize a tweet, and clicking on a hashtag shows you more tweets in this category. Let’s say you’re having a sale on your overstocked t-shirts. Tweeting out the message “Big #sale on our awesome #tshirt” will boost your chances in getting seen.

Tip: Always link when tweeting out a message with a call to action. Simply stating you’re having a sale, and not providing a direct link to your store is a poor strategy.

Spread Out Your Tweets
No one wants to follow a spammer. Even if your tweets have beneficial content, tweeting out a handful at once clogs your followers stream, and they are more likely to unfollow. Use a tool like Hootsuite (our favorite and has great analytics) to schedule your tweets. This also allows you to capture your audience at different times of the day.
Make sure to tweet out engaging and relevant content to your audience between your marketing tweets, so you’re not just broadcasting noise.

Tip: Remember international customers are on a different time zone, so if you’re targeting them, making sure your tweeting when they are online.

Start A Conversation
You’ll see this stated in every article, blog or Twitter strategy ever written. Sure it’s easy to say, but staying engaged is hard. You do need to put in the effort to interact and converse. Reply back to a tweet you found interesting, re-tweet it with a nice message or simply ask a question. Think of what would make you happy. If someone re-tweeted you with a nice message or replied back, you’d be thrilled for this positive response and engage back. Go ahead give a try, karma is usually on your side here.

Tip: Use the @ symbol when mentioning someone or another product even if it was not directed to them. this increases your chances of being heard and shows trustworthiness. Eg: “@PotentialCustomer We ship next day through @FedEx to be sure your shipment gets there on time.”

Listen In On Your Competitors
Twitter gives you the power to stay in the know and ahead of your competitors. Create a competitor list, using Twitter Lists and listen in on their conversations. Learning from what others are doing can give you ideas on capturing new leads and keeping your customers happy. Learning from others mistakes allows you to jump a step ahead.

Tip: You don’t have to follow them to do this, just make sure the list you create is private so your not being obvious!

Stay Active
Our best advice is to stay active and present. Long absences or reply time shows poor support. Keep tweeting and reply back quickly. Never ignore negative remarks and handle them with grace and kindness. You never know who is listening, and even if your customer leaves unhappy, you at least did your best to help, and others can see that. A good way to stay in the know, is to to activate Twitter emails, or use a phone app to get notified.

Tip: Wazala’s social promoter, helps you remember to tweet out announcements based on actions you take in your store. Added a new coupon code? Simply tweet it out with a click.

Twitter can truly broaden your reach. Just start slowly and learn the basics. Once you dive in, you’re sure to stumble upon inspirational ideas to better your business. Just remember to share back and engage. Want to know more? Take a look at our promote page on more tips to market your online store.

Happy Tweeting and don’t forget to follow us for news, tips and promos!

Brass Monki – An interview with the artist

August 8th, 2011

Daniel Reese, is the artist behind the creative brand Brass Monki. From a small town called Runcorn, just outside of Liverpool, Daniel, decided against university and started Brass Monki alongside a full-time job at a local sports store. Now at the age of 23, he is self employed and running a successful business.

We recently had a chat with Daniel to find out more about this creative idea.

How did the idea of BrassMonki come about?
Brass Monki was originally ‘Customized Pumpz’. I began drawing on plain white plimsolls and selling them through a Myspace profile. It was in July 2009 that I decided to start a blog promoting new designs on Nike Dunks. It was quite slow for the first few months, but more people started to visit the blog and other websites began to run features on it. It was then I decided to make a real go at it. I changed the name to Brass Monki (because I am a Beastie Boys fan), opened an online store and to my surprise…people began to buy them.

Take us through the process of creating one of your pre-designed sneakers.
Well, none of my designs are pre-made. It isn’t as simple as picking a pair off the shelf and shipping them. All of my designs have to be hand painted first. Once an order is received, I pick the relevant size, strip the shoe of its wax coating using acetone and begin painting. I always mask off the areas I don’t want paint on to avoid any dirty finger prints or stray paint. I start by painting the large background areas first and then the detailed areas. Once I am happy with the way things look, I airbrush a clear acrylic all over the shoe in either a matt or glossy finish. Each shoe takes around 4 hours to make. That’s 8 hours a pair!

Do you create custom designs, and how do you work with your buyer in creating that?
I do. I have a section on my website where customers can request a custom design. They pay a £25 fee and supply all the ideas they have for the design in a form. Once I receive the request, I get to work using Photoshop. I take all their ideas and create 3-4 different ideas. I then email them to the customer and we liaise until both parties are happy with the design. We come to an agreement on a price and I get painting. It is really simple and a very personal experience. Sometimes we chat on the phone and there have been times where I have been able to meet them in person.

Do you feel your online store helped push your sales, and why?
Definitely. The thing that originally attracted me to Wazala was the fact I could integrate the store into my website and have the customer be able to shop whilst not technically leaving my website. I think that alone has helped traffic to the store and pushed sales. Also, the help I got from the technical support team to make my own widget was amazing and has given my website a very professional look.

We see you get a lot of traction on Twitter, how do you feel social media helped your business succeed?
Social media is very important to me and my business. Without social media, there would be no Brass Monki and I wouldn’t be where I am today. Twitter is a brilliant tool to help spread the word. I use the new social media feature on Wazala to promote new products. I have found that using it to promote coupon codes has been very successful and it seems every time I tweet a code, I get a sale lately.

Any advice or suggestions to other artists thinking of starting their own business?
My advice is to just do it. I waited 2 years before finally deciding to give it a real go and I wish I had done it sooner. As long as you plan and research well, you will not fail.

Checkout the Brass Monki website to get your own pair or just get inspired!

Win a Wazala Online Store – The winner!

July 3rd, 2011

Winning!
- Charlie Sheen

A few weeks ago we asked all of you to join in and submit a picture of your creative space for a chance to win a Wazala online store for a year.

Our exact words were: “Where do you work out of? A desk in a corner of your home? A little office somewhere? Or even your laptop at a coffee shop? We want to see your personal space. Be it an office, studio, workshop, art gallery, kitchen chemistry lab, digital workstation, recording studio or even your camera! Show us where, how or what you use to create your ideas into wonders of art.”

All you had to do is upload it to our facebook page and promote it so others can like it and comment.. We got a great collection of pictures but at the end you decided who wins a free Wazala account for a year!

Shawn Hesketh owner of the design studio Left Lane, all the way from Houston Texas submitted a picture of his creative space. A very clean looking picture of his office space that got the most like and comments. Ok we have to admit it was on of our favorites as well!

We are happy to welcome Shawn to the Wazala community and looking forward to see what he will be selling online. Congrats!

We’re also looking to start our next promo, have ideas or can think of something cool to give out? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

How to socially promote and market your online store

June 8th, 2011

There’s a cool new feature out in Wazala! Based on actions you take as a store owner while managing your online store, Wazala recommends tweets and Facebook postes for you to push out to your social profiles. It’s easy social marketing!

What is it all about?
The Wazala Social Promoter recommends and publishes messages to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Let’s say you created a new coupon, Wazala will automatically recommend tweets and Facebook links that you can edit to your liking and simply push out to the social sphere. Your followers and others looking for such a promotion, will see this link and are automatically aware of your coupon.

Why you need it?
Your followers expect to hear from you. Your competitors are ruthless in promoting their online store. You can never have too many new customers. You are too busy to keep up with the tedious marketing strategy. You need to spread the word about your online store. And mostly, it helps your brand promote its offerings.

How does it work?
In the new Promote tab within your Store Manager, we request access to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. This access is secure, and we never use it without your permission. Once this is configured, every time you offer something new in your store, such as adding a new product for example, you will notice a bubble, that recommends links for you to share. You can browse through these links until you find one you like. You can also edit the link to your linking and simply click Promote, or you can skip it if you feel this is not news worthy. This link is published under your own social profile, so your brand is promoting your own store. It’s simple! It’s effective! It’s effortless social marketing at your fingertips!

We’re social too!
Follow us on Twitter & “Like” us on Facebook and join the conversation. Our Twitter and Facebook followers get tips and tricks, featured new stores and the latest dish on cool new features first!

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