"Get More From Your Store"
Edition Two
September 2006
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Hi, welcome to Edition 2 of Attitude's osCommerce Watch newsletter.

Attitude has been working hard on the integration of osCommerce and forum
software PunBB. This will allow creation of a community around your online
store. More on this in our next newsletter...

In this edition:

- Photos and buttons for your osCommerce store
- Two new simple osCommerce guides from Attitude
- Streamlining osCommerce shopping carts
- Google and your store

PHOTOS AND BUTTONS FOR YOUR OSCOMMERCE STORE
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A photo of your product isn't always as exciting as seeing that product in
use. Photos of people can communicate product values and benefits,
potentially allowing the viewer to more easily imagine using your product.

Selling books? How about an image of a woman reading a book?

Selling cellphones? How about a man with a cellphone?

Where can you get images like these? iStockphoto.com provides royalty-free
stock photos, most only $1 for a size suitable for the web. As well as being
amazingly affordable, the powerful search and filter functionality allows
you to find relevant images quickly.

As well as great photographs, the site has sets of web icons or buttons
suitable for creating your own buttons for osCommerce.

Visit iStockphoto to look at the possibilities iStockphoto offers for your online store.
[Yeah, we get some referral income when you sign up by following this link. But we
wouldn't recommend it if we didn't like the site.]


ATTITUDE'S SIMPLE OSCOMMERCE GUIDES:
SENDING CUSTOMER NEWSLETTERS AND CREATING DOWNLOADABLE PRODUCTS
http://www.oscommerce.co.nz/docs/
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Sending Customer Newsletters is the latest in our series of simple guides
explaining essential elements of operating an osCommerce store. This guide
covers use of the default osCommerce Newsletter system. You can use the
newsletter system to send email newsletters to your customers.

Creating Downloadable Products tells you how to create products that
customers can download from your osCommerce store. It covers uploading files
to the store's download folder, changing configuration settings, creating
product attributes, using product attributes to link products with files in
the store's download folder, and testing downloadable products.

Over the last few months, Attitude has released a series of printable,
step-by-step guides designed for osCommerce store owners. The guides
cover some of the essential processes related to running an online
store.

Existing step-by-step guides include:

- Updating Prices
- Retrieving Order Information
- Sending Emails to Customers
- Creating a Backup
- Adding a Product
- Adding a Category
- Changing Customer Details
- Updating Language Files
- Creating Downloadable Products
- Sending Customer Newsletters

All step-by-step guides can be downloaded from
http://www.oscommerce.co.nz/docs/


STREAMLINE OSCOMMERCE SHOPPING CARTS:
UPDATE PRODUCT QUANTITIES WITH THE CHECKOUT BUTTON
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It makes sense to eliminate unnecessary barriers between product selection
and successful checkout. This includes reducing the number of mouse clicks
required to buy your products.

When customers adjust product quantities in their shopping cart, it takes
extra time and sometimes adds confusion for them to click the Update button
before they click 'Checkout'.

For some customers it's not obvious that quantity box changes aren't
accepted without clicking 'Update'. Small details make a difference
when a customer is moving towards a sale, and this distraction can be
frustrating and extend checkout time.

Attitude can modify your cart to bypass the Update button and make product
quantity changes as the customer clicks 'Checkout'.

This is a simple change that improves the customer's shopping experience
and streamlines your checkout process. Contact us if you would like this
applied to your store.



GOOGLE AND YOUR STORE:
GOOGLE ANALYTICS, GOOGLE SITEMAPS, AND GOOGLE ADWORDS
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In August we added three articles to osCommerce Watch to highlight how
osCommerce works with three important Google services. Attitude can assist
you in getting the benefits of each service working in your store.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS
One of the first steps in a successful search engine optimization campaign
is information gathering. This gives you a clear baseline for analyzing
where traffic to your store is originating and how visitors are navigating
your store. It provides the starting point to track your store's
performance over time.

Google Analytics is a free service that gives you access to a range of
site traffic statistics, including how visitors found your site and
how they interact with it.

GOOGLE SITEMAPS
Google's new Google Sitemaps service lets you submit information about
the pages in your website directly to Google, ensuring Google knows about
the content in your website. As well as being able to submit site data,
you also have access to important search statistics related to your site.

We recommend Google Sitemaps for anyone wanting to improve their site's
search engine results.

For osCommerce store owners, the Google XML Sitemap Feed contribution
lets you feed information about your store's products and categories
to the Google Sitemap system. It is very easy to install.

GOOGLE ADWORDS
If you're interested in immediate, measurable, targeted traffic to your
osCommerce store, pay-per-click advertising is definitely one option
to evaluate.

Google Adwords lets you create targeted ads that are displayed alongside
Google's search results. You control what keywords will display each ad
and even who can see the ad (e.g. just people in your country). You pay
each time the ad link is clicked. The Google Adwords system allows you to
track when someone clicking an ad actually buys something from your store,
allowing you to work out how much you spent in advertising per sale.

For more information on Adwords, check out the full osCommerce
Watch post.

Attitude is available if you require someone to help integrate
Google Adwords tracking code, Google Sitemaps, or Google Analytics.
Contact us at http://www.attitude.net.nz/contact.html.


THANKS
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Thanks for reading this edition of the osCommerce Watch newsletter. If you
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subscribe at http://www.oscommerce.co.nz/oscommerce_newsletter.html.

Attitude Group LTD, PO Box 40031, 442 Tuam Street. Christchurch, New Zealand