How to Start Selling on eCrater

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Ranked #33 in Work At Home, #3,059 overall

Creating a Store on eCrater is Easy and Fun

eCrater.com is a free webstore service that is easy to set up and charges no fees for standard services. ECrater is easy to learn and is a perfect solution for anyone brand new to selling online but is also robust and efficient for experienced online sellers.

New eCrater Features
Introduction
US Government Small Business Links

more...

About eCrater

ECrater is a 100% free online marketplace and a free ecommerce website builder. Sellers get a customizable online store and can list an unlimited number of items which are shown both in their own individual store and in eCrater's marketplace.

ECrater was founded by Dimitri Slavov and first launched on September 27, 2004.

The History of eCRATER.com

Frequently Asked Questions

These are questions I frequently seen asked by those new to selling online or coming from eBay and other auction site.

Q: How much to it cost to list? Is there a final value fee?
A: Listing and selling on eCrater is absolutely free. There are no fees for standard features (there are fees to be listed on the eCrater.com front page or to have your URL changed).

Q: How can I add a link, text formatting, or other HTML?
A: You can't at the moment, HTML is not supported in eCrater listings.

Q: How can I list an auction?
A: ECrater is a fixed price store, there are no auctions. You also can't list "Make an Offer" items. All items must have a real set price.

Q: Can I leave a buyer feedback?
A: No, you can't. Buyers don't have to register as users on eCrater so you can't leave them feedback. They can leave you feedback only if they pay instantly online through PayPal or Google Checkout. If you think feedback was unfair you can petition eCrater to have it removed.

Q: Can I transfer my feedback from eBay or another site?
A: Unfortunately, you can't. You will have to build feedback on eCrater from scratch. However feedback is not as prominent or important on eCrater as it is on eBay so it's less of a problem.

Q: Will my products show up on Google Shopping?
A: Yes they will. However it can take several days (3 on average) for your products to show up and if you are selling common items you are less likely to show up on the first or second page just due to the volume of similar products.

New eCrater Features

Some great new changes have been released for eCrater recently.

Widgets - Javascript and Flash widgets to display your products on other sites. Check out my Guide to Using Widgets.

Copy Button - If you have multiple similar items (say diferent sizes or colors) there is now a copy button to let you copy an item and then change only what you need.

Google Attributes Button - To make using attributes easier they've added a new Google Attributes button has been to make listing them simpler. Before you had to put attributes at the bottom of listings, now it has it's own tab in the product editing. Check out here for the new format.

Tabs - New tabs make editing products much easier. In the past once you edited a product if you wanted to add more pictures you had to go back to the products page and select the camera icon to get to photos, now Edit, Google Attributes, and Photos all have tabs to quickly move to the other editing areas.

Introduction

What this lens is for.

This lens is about how to set up your store on eCrater. It can be a little overwhelming at first but it's really simple once you get going.

Remember that easy to use doesn't mean no work. Running a business is a lot of work, you need to be prepared to spend a lot of time on your store.

What this lens isn't about:
I assume that if you are here you have products to sell, if you don't go find some then come back.

I also can't give you any help with the legal and/or tax aspects of running a business in your state or country. You should contact your local government, small business administration, or chamber of commerce.

US Government Small Business Links

Small Business Administration: Small Business Administration, sba.gov, About SBA, Newsroom, Services, Small Business Planner, SBA Programs, E-Newaletters, Administrator, Local Resources, FAQ
Small Business and Self-Employed One-Stop Resource: IRS Resources.
Business.gov - Official Business Link to the U.S. Government: Business.gov provides information and resources that help small businesses comply with federal, state and local business laws and government regulations.

Get Organized!

Before you start setting up your store gather everything you need together.

1. Create a new folder on your computer somewhere easy to find. Name it eCrater or something similar. Inside this folder create new folders for the following: product descriptions, product photos, texts, banners.
2. Have the products you are planning to add prepared ahead of time.
3. Do some research. Make sure your products are priced competitively.
4. Get good photos. Do not use photos which are out of focus, grainy, or lit badly.

Basic Selling Online Links

Small Business Planner: Manage your business from start to finish. Careful planning is fundamental to success. The Small Business Planner includes information and resources that will help you at any stage of the business lifecycle.
10-step Tutorial for Starting an Internet Business: Free online tutorial on starting and managing a successful online business.
ABC's of Small Business--Small Business Basics & Advice: ABC's of Small Business offers helpful information on starting up your own business, finding money, marketing your business and even business jokes in a welcoming easy-to-navigate format! We welcome your visit.

Online Selling Books

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In the News

This tutorial was recently featured in BookThink's review and guide to selling on eCrater.

Selling on Alternate Venues: Selling on eCrater

Setting Up your eCrater Account

First Steps

Open the eCrater Login page and click on the "Sign Up Now" button.

The following form is easy to fill out but there are some important things to consider.

eCRATER Store ID: This is very important, the ID you choose will be part of your eCrater url in the form of http://storeid.ecrater.com. So take your time and pick an id that you like because if you change your mind eCrater will charge you $10 to change it.

Contact Person, Address, Phone Number, etc: These must be real for eCrater to be able to contact you. I'm also pretty sure most places require you to provide accurate information about your business or it's considered fraud.

Contact Email and Email for Orders: These can (and probably should) be the same. These are the email addresses that eCrater will use to contact you about account details and orders so it should be an email you use on a regular basis not a junk address.

Customizing Your Store Appearance

Give it some style.

Pick a Template: Click on the Color Template link in the left menu. Pick the color theme you would like by clicking the little circle under the image and then clicking update.

Upload a Store Image: After you've selected the color template you want click on the image of that template. This will take you to the form to upload your store image.

Your Store Image must be 175x196 pixels.

Upload a banner: Click the link in the menu on the left of the screen that says Upload Logo.

This banner must be 250x68 pixels and should have the name of your store in it.

Banner and Logo Making Links

How to design an awesome logo: Learn how to design great looking logos by watching 5 step by step, from start to finish video logo tutorials.
Professional Banner Tutorial - Best Adobe Photoshop Tutorials On Tutorial Guide: As a designer, many people may request an awesome, yet professional looking banner for their website. Here is a walkthrough of how I do mine.
Banner Tutorial for Paint Shop Pro: This is a banner tutorial on how I made my banner for my homepage in PSP (Paint Shop Pro). I use all sorts of effects found in seperate tutorials, so this is an example of what everything can do also. In this tutorial, you can learn to make cool backgrounds, sigs (signatures), banners, and wallpapers. Learn effects such as transparent lines and shapes, clouds filter in Paint Shop Pro (PSP), and scanlines and grids.
Cool Text: Logo and Graphics Generator: Cool Text is a free graphics generator for web pages and anywhere else you need an impressive logo without a lot of design work. Â Simply choose what kind of image you would like. Â Then fill out a form and you'll have your own custom
Free Logo Design ? Logo Maker: Free logo maker software. Vector logo design tool
BannerBreak.com - Free Banner Maker - Free Banners: BannerBreak is a free banner maker where you can quickly and easily generate free banners. Free banners, Banner Maker, Banner Generator, Free banner, Banner designs, Banners, Banner ads, Banner advertisements, Web banners
Free Banner Maker | Home: BannerSketch.com is a 100% free web Banner maker where you can generate free design web banners, headers, avatars and much more without watermarks.

Setting Up Payment Options

Every payment method has it's risks and benefits. None are 100% safe it's one of the risks of running a business that you need to accept and take the appropriate precautions to protect yourself and your business.

To choose what payment options to accept click the Payment Options link in the menu on the left.

Google Checkout: Fairly new option by Google for processing payments, lower processing fees than Paypal but it requires buyers to have a Checkout account which may turn off some customers. Also if you choose this option eCrater will show all other payment options in a separate link to comply with Google terms.

Paypal: The most popular site for paying by credit card or e-check. You need a Business or Premier account for selling online, as a Personal account only allows you to do a small number of transactions per year. The downside to Paypal is higher processing fees and limited seller protection.

Money Order: Money orders are pre-paid payment orders for mailing in. However they are sometimes forged so I would only accept US Postal Orders from a Post Office and should always be cashed at a Post Office (they can more easily spot a fake than a bank).

Cashier's Check: This is a check drawn on a bank and guaranteed by the bank to be payed. Counterfeit cashier's checks are a risk of this method.

Personal Check: This is a check drawn on a customer's personal bank account. The benefit of accepting checks is that most every adult in the US has a checking account. If you accept personal checks I recommend waiting until the check clears with your bank before shipping out an order to make sure it doesn't bounce.

Cash on Delivery: I DO NOT recommend this option. In my opinion if someone can't pay in advance for your product there's something shady about them.

Resources about Payments

Google Checkout: Google Checkout is a fast, convenient checkout process that brings you more customers and allows them to buy from you with a single login
Paypal: PayPal lets you send money to anyone with email
USPS - Domestic Money Orders: Postal Money Orders are a safe, convenient, and economical alternative to sending cash through the mail. They can be purchased from any Post Office locations in the United States as well as from any rural route carrier, available up to $1,000 each
Cashier's check - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A cashier's check (also known as a cashier's cheque, bank check, official check, teller's check, bank draft or treasurer's check) is a check guaranteed by a bank.
Cashier's Checks May Not Always Be As Good As Cash - Financial Services: Cashier's Checks May Not Always Be As Good As Cash by Susan N. LeDuc - Financial Services
Online Fraud - Warning Signs: Protect your online business by learning the common characteristics of fraudulent orders. Most fraudulent orders have one or more of these warning signs.
Fraud Signs and Prevention: The fraud triangle involves opportunity, pressure, and rationalization. Similar to the fire triangle: oxygen, heat, and fuel, all three must be present for a fraud to occur.
eCRATER.com :: View topic - What is Cash On Delivery: CASH ON DELIVERY is a specific term and I believe UPS is the only company that still does it.

The Shipping Matrix

How to make it work.

For more information on shipping options check out my lens on Setting Up eCrater Shipping

The Shipping Matrix is a way to set up a shipping scale. For example if you set products weighing 1 pound ship for $2 and 2 pounds ships for $3 and a customer buys two 1 pound items they pay $3 shipping.

Many people find this system confusing because it doesn't allow you to charge the exact amount it costs to ship. I find it to be the exact opposite, I have shipping based on the average cost of shipping for each weight plus an estimate of packaging cost. Some orders will go over the actual shipping and packaging costs, some come in under, but it evens out.

Step 1: Select a weight scale, the available weight scales for eCrater are:
Small - 1 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 16+
Medium - 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 90+
Large - 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 900+
Jumbo - 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 9,000+

Step 3: Select Shipping Zones. All eCrater stores must ship to mainland US, but if you ship to Hawaii, Alaska, and other countries select those in this area.

Step 3: Fill in the Shipping Matrix. Insert the shipping price you would like to charge for each weight, except for the last entry which is the amount you would like to charge for each increment over the max weight. In the example it's an extra $2.25 per 2lbs over 16lbs.

Category Tip

Make it easy for your customers to view all your items by creating a root category for them. Create all your product categories as subcategories of this root.

Adding Categories

And Sub-Categories!

Adding New Categories:
You can add unlimited categories and subcategories.

Warning, do not delete categories without first moving the products in them or they will be deleted as well.

Product Tip

I save copies of all my product descriptions as text files. This saves time for similar items such as those which are the same except for size or color, the descriptions can be copied and pasted from the text file.

Adding Products

Adding a New Product:
Click the Products link in the left menu. At the bottom of the page click Add New Product. The Following form will come up.

Editing your Products:
You can add up to 10 images to each product listing. Click the camera icon to start adding more images.

Product Description Help

Writing Descriptions that Sell Product: How can you increase your sales? Well, how do you describe your merchandise? It's a fact that on-line merchandise with a good description has a better chance of being found and sold, than merchandise with a bad description. This is a basic tutorial on how to write descriptions that will (hopefully) help you improve your on-line sales.
How to Write a Product Description on eHow: How to Write a Product Description. A well-written product description must be appealing and informative. Follow these steps to create prose that will attract buyers to your product and service.. Business > Marketing & PR > Ma...
Why you should really write better product descriptions: Generic product descriptions can harm you search engine position and at worst can send your pages into the supplemental results. Can you afford not to rewrite you products content?
Google Keyword Tool: Help pick keywords related to your product.

Miscellaneous Tips

Google Attributes:
ECrater submits all products to Google Shopping automatically, adding Google attributes helps customers searching Google Shopping find your products. Enter them in the Google Attributes tab.

Click here for a full list of attributes supported by eCrater.

US Sales Tax:
If you are licensed in your state to charge sales tax add that in this area. For more information on sales tax and whether you need to collect it contact your local state government or chamber of commerce.

Promoting Your Shop

While eCrater does have a central search that lets you browse through every shop's listing that's only a small trickle of traffic. The best way is to promote your shop yourself using basic internet marketing strategies. This means writing good item descriptions full of keywords, building backlinks, and advertising.

Internet Marketing Directory: This lens is the yellow-pages of Internet Marketing, where you'll find links to Internet Marketing lenses and websites on the various topics.If you have an Internet Marketing Squidoo lens or website, you may want to add them here as well, to get more website exposure.Please take note that NO direct
Small business marketing ideas and strategies | Duct Tape Marketing: Small business marketing ideas and strategies that are simple, effective and affordable.
Seth's Blog: Seth Godin's riffs on marketing, respect, and the ways ideas spread.

Books to Help You Promote Your Shop

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eCrater Resources

Free Online Marketplace & Free Ecommerce Website Builder - get a Free Online Store at eCRATER.com: What is eCrater.com? eCrater.com is both a free web store builder and a free online marketplace. Sellers can easily create their own free online store in minutes. Buyers can easily browse and compare between thousands of products.
eCRATER.com :: View Forum - FAQs and Solutions: FAQs and Solutions for eCrater
eCrater Community Forums: Helpful and friendly forums. Share ideas and help with other eCrater users.
10 Tips when Using eCrater.com - Associated Content: 10 tips to help you improve your eCrater store and give your customers a better shopping experience.
Selling on the Moon, the eCRATER eXPERIENCE: PDF booklet about selling on ecrater. Great read with lots of tips. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Tired of Ebay? Try Ecrater. Make Money without the Costs!: Why Ecrater? With the sudden changes over at Ebay, many sellers are looking for a viable alternative. I believe that alternative is Ecrater. Ecrater is fast and an easy setup and go. It can take you only a couple of hours to set up a store. Ebay has gotten so costly, for many of the smaller sellers.
Shop Blossom: Helping small online merchants network and grow their business.
The Best Stores and Online Selling Sites: We are excited to be selling online, especially in lieu of the market shift from eBaY as the only game in town. 2BOYSandTOYS and many great sellers have departed from eBaY and ventured out to lower cost or free sites to pass savings along to shoppers. An item selling on eBaY for $10 can most likely

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Lensmaster

aj2008 wrote...

Good helpful info, very well laid out. OMG (that's Oh My Gosh) you have just been Blessed by a SquidAngel!

Posted June 07, 2009

Lensmaster

OrganicGiftsByDiana wrote...

Such an informative lens - Thank You !

I just might have to look into this option now in addition to my other store.

If only there were more hours in a day - LOL

Organically Yours,
Diana

Posted March 17, 2009

Lensmaster

grannydaisy wrote...

Great Lens! Was a tremendous help to me. Thanks so much

Posted March 10, 2009

Lensmaster

Jamie2258 wrote...

Very helpful, great lens! Thank you! :)

Posted February 23, 2009

Lensmaster

ImperialDesigns wrote...

Great lens!

Posted February 17, 2009

Lensmaster

Jlyn12 wrote...

Hi, this was news to me. I love the way you provide all the diagrams and visuals. I want to let me blog readers know about this and when I do will provide a link to your lens. Great job!

Posted January 29, 2009

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Latest eCrater New from Google

Online Marketplace News: Bonanzle, eBid, eCrater, Wigix: (Link) eCrater said it has added an additional seller information section in the main marketplace product's pages, and added view all product in the product ...

eCrater Links

Add links to your ecrater store here!

Please only add your store link, not links to individual products.

How to Start Selling on eCrater

Creating a Store on eCrater is Easy and Fun

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

About eCrater

Other eCrater Tutorials

Frequently Asked Questions

New eCrater Features

Introduction

What this lens is for.

US Government Small Business Links

Get Organized!

Basic Selling Online Links

Online Selling Books

In the News

Setting Up your eCrater Account

First Steps

Customizing Your Store Appearance

Give it some style.

Banner and Logo Making Links

Setting Up Payment Options

Resources about Payments

The Shipping Matrix

How to make it work.

Category Tip

Adding Categories

And Sub-Categories!

Product Tip

Adding Products

Product Description Help

Miscellaneous Tips

Promoting Your Shop

Books to Help You Promote Your Shop

eCrater Resources

Love This Lens?

Reader Feedback

Leave your comments and questions here.

Latest eCrater New from Google

eCrater Links

Add links to your ecrater store here!

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