Just a quick note to say I've launched my new Delectably Yours Home Interiors & Decor website and have completed the first two sales. The new site, www.delectably-yours.com was created rather quickly on an AbleCommerce platform due to the problems I was experiencing with www.delectablyyours.com which was built on a ProStores platform. ProStores, an eBay company has been having many serious issues with availability ever since May 2008 which is noted in other blogs I've done on the Selling Beyond eBay forum. You can read them here.
In preperation of going live I installed Google analytics on Aug.4th and submitted the site map at the same time. Product feeds were FTP uploaded to Google on Thursday evening, Aug. 14th. My first sale was for $133 on Saturday Aug. 16th. The second for $430 came in Monday, Aug. 18th. I am thrilled with how fast the SEO is helping the site be found. It's proof for me that optimizing keywords, keyword phrases and their placement pays off.
The site has a long way to go, a lot more product to be added and the design hasn't really been touched other than a few photos. This all will come in time. My main objective was to insure I had a functional live site approaching the Holidays. With the instability of the ProStores site I had to take the summer to work on this one day into night, sometimes working almost around the clock to insure my financial stability. This is why I haven't added very much content to the Selling Beyond eBay network. Once in a while we all do what we must to earn a living. I just wasn't ready to throw in the towel and get a "real job". hmmmm After months of research on shopping carts, SEO, payment gateways, merchant accounts I knew it would all pay off. I am very excited to see what transpires within the next few months. Even more so to see how the ProStores site compares to the AbleCommerce site. Initially I had all intentions of pulling the ProStores site down then reconsidered. The average monthly gross is 7K so it more than pays for itself. I've decided to test the two against each other to see how they perform. It will be close to an even test, same name, same products (ProStores has quite few more products) same keywords and phrases, same photos and product descriptions. I have to add the sitemap to Yahoo as well as the feeds to keep all even.
I'll update this blog and let all know how the race is going.
