Power Sellers Unite

The*elite · Joined: 04 Jun 2007 Posts: 189

drats,
I mentioned in another forum about GC not working and having to send the person to PP.
The only reason I knew about the sales is because the customer called me. I went to help her and only to find (4) order sitting in my ecrater account. I was like O, sh_t :oops: I scrambled to help her and then scrambled to figure out why I didn't know that I had 3 other orders, paid for and everything. No emails, nothing from ecrater, nothing from GC ziltch. Funny thing though, I did receive an email from the current buyer (from ecrater and PP)

what went wrong? I've got it all set up accordingly. I've got to go back and figure out what's wrong. I lost 2 sales because the item sold out so I had to cancel the orders. I hate to look bad like that :cry: that's not good for business. I'm not blaming ecrater (it has to be something I did, I dunno!)
On the flip side, I was able to fill 2 orders (phew) it feels sooooo gooood not to pay outrageous fees!

People, please keep adding stuff to your stores. I am shopping and so are others. I went to ebay to see if I could get some deals, the deals aren't there anymore! I Googled what I was looking for and I have shopped at 10 or 12 independent sites and have been so satisfied! Got great deals, and great service!

purple_reading_giraffe · Joined: 04 Feb 2008 Posts: 5485 Location: Indiana, USA

I love your Holly Cow - all decked out for Christmas! :twisted:

It *might* have been related to a server change. It *might* have been sent to spam filters for some reason. It *might* have been related to Google Base changes. It *might* have been user error. One may never know.

However, this is a good lesson in making time to check ones online stores on a regular basis and not to just rely on email alerts. I know it could be hard to change ones habits. I know how heavily I relied on my eBay search alerts. It's great when a system works, but... I have had the problem of sending a question to a seller by various methods on various sites and never getting a reply - it seems to be a widespread problem. I'd guess that logging in and checking regularly is the best chance to catch a problem.

Thanks for sharing, elite!

hotnana · Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 875

I offer both GCO and PP in my eCrater stores. When a buyer pays with GCO I do not get a notice from eCrater but I get the notice from GCO. You should have received a notice from GCO. Are you sure the buyer actually paid and their CC was approved for the full amount?
It is nice to know eCrater is hopping again...last month was slow but this month is already looking good!
:lol: Congrats on your sales

AtomicMall.com · Joined: 20 Jun 2008 Posts: 970 Location: Yakima, WA

Elite, when this happens at Atomic Mall, the most common reason is an incorrect API callback URL setting within the seller's GCO account. If it's set incorrectly, or set to another venue's url, Google won't be able to communicate sale data to eCrater, and you won't get a sale notice. In fact, our servers have occasionally gotten sale data from Google for transactions that happened at eCrater because the member had accounts at both sites, and was using our callback URL. Google only allows one GCO account per level II venue.

You'll want to check your "integration" settings at Google and make sure your callback url is set per eCrater's requirements. Also check the "cart method" and "digitally signed cart" settings to make sure they match EC's guidelines. A fourth potential problem area are the advanced settings. On our site, all these must be unchecked, but I'm not sure if that's the case with EC.

Good luck,
Mike

hotnana · Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 875

You are right on the money there AM! My sales at BISI don't have invoices because my call back url is set for eCrater. I do however still get the notice of a sale from GCO. In either case, there should have been a notice from GCO if the customers card was successfully charged. :confused:

2BOYSandTOYS · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 10095 Location: Kansas

When I took GCO on eCrater, I also only got the GCO notice. Not sure why, but did know something was up and to go and look.

Gr8 Information Mike! I stopped using GCO - am waiting for them to refine the process/tools....I might be back there one day! :D :D

The*elite · Joined: 04 Jun 2007 Posts: 189

OK, I feel pretty dumb! :oops: The reason I didn't receive the notification was because I had it all set up on another email! I know I know :shock: OK, everybody stop going duhhhh! :roll:

I had to have a new email addy because I already had one GCO with an email addy and I had to open two. I spent the day, figuring out how to incorporate both without the usual problems.

I updated me email in GC to notify me at my main email address when a sales comes in.

I added my main email address to each GC account to be notified of specific issues.

I added my main email address to the GC account as an authorize user of that account but for some reason, its read only.

I installed email notifier so when I get an email at the other email addy, I can be notified by a pop that mail was sent to that mail server.

I think that covers everything.

I am so glad the light bulb finally went on :idea: Geez. talk about having senior moments! :roll:

Thanks all for your help

hotnana · Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 875

:confused: Erin do you have separate GCO accounts for each store? With BISI I don't even get a store invoice because GCO manually added it to my store because I am simple and didn't want another account to deal with, although I do get the payment notifications from GCO, just nothing from BISI. With eCrater I get the GCO notification, but no notice from eCrater, but there is an invoice at eCrater for me to refer back to. Does this make sense? LOL Perhaps it would have been easier to set up two accounts! My sales have really improved since adding GCO...you might reconsider using it again.

2BOYSandTOYS · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 10095 Location: Kansas

I have put GCO on hold because of the 'need' for separate email accounts for different sites. I also was 'put off' as I had to do a couple refunds and GCO keeps a portion of their fee. That just doesn't sit well with me - if they intend to truly be around a long while.

I have no issue paying for services rendered. However, without a professional invoice, an easy to use refund process, and the whole back end call-back confusion - I just stuck with PP. Yes - I pay a small bit more, but it's convenient and easy to use - so worth it.

Make sense?

The*elite - that's exactly what would happen to me - I've got too much going on to track various emails. And - yes - I know they can all be channeled into one account - but....I like my one account!! So sorry for your lost sales!

Moonwishes · Joined: 05 Mar 2009 Posts: 67

It is very easy to have a professional invoice for sales at ecrater. I do this for both PP & GCO sales. I go into my orders at ecrater and copy the order from the top down to where it says how paid and copy it onto an already set up 'invoice' in my MSWORD program, thanking them for the order, etc. and print it out. Then close the program and it asks do you want to save and I say no and so my 'invoice format' is saved and each time I need to send one, I just copy the order out of ecrater onto the top of that document. Hope that makes sense.

This is what I show (currently) at the bottom of my invoices:

Quote: › docWrite("quote")Thank you for shopping at Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts. We are still working at listing the many patterns we have, so please be sure to visit again at http://MoonwishesStore.ecrater.com . We also sell books at Moonwishes Books (http://MoonwishesBooks.ecrater.com) . We have now closed our ebay store and have approximately 8000 patterns to list on ecrater, so if you can’t find it in our ecrater store, please email us at xxxxx@hotmail.com with SEWING PATTERNS in the subject line to enquire about other patterns availability.

Moonwishes

I also have a saved thank you note that is sent in reply to all Paypal payments and to all Google payments assuming they have said YES to emails which tells them their item is in the mail and to please bookmark us so they can find us again.

It is very simple to do these things and you have the same invoice/packing slip for everyone.

GCO while it requires another email address will send all correspondence to your main email so there isn't any reason to lose a sale due to not getting an email. It happened to me once, thankfully I found it within a day or two and got the item sent and figured out what was going on, BUT until you have had sales and KNOW everything is functioning, take a minute or two daily to double check right on ecrater if a sale has gone through. Also always double check that the item has been paid for--it will have a green checkmark next to it on your running order sheet and you will see that fees have been taken out at PP or GCO.

Ecrater is having sales. Mine were up last month and for the last few days, I've been getting 2-3 a day, almost like the olden days at ebay. :D

Moonwishes · Joined: 05 Mar 2009 Posts: 67

One more quick note. 4/5 of my sales are currently being paid for via Google. I think it is essential to have GCO up and open as an option as Google itself has ways that people can search for sellers that have GCO available. If you don't, you are going to be losing lots of business. Refunds are simple and so they cost 20 cents. Not much in the whole scheme of things.

Juliartz · Joined: 29 Jan 2007 Posts: 570

hotnana wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")You are right on the money there AM! My sales at BISI don't have invoices because my call back url is set for eCrater. I do however still get the notice of a sale from GCO. In either case, there should have been a notice from GCO if the customers card was successfully charged. :confused:

You have to have a *seperate* GC account for each site you use/accept it on. If you are using the same API call back on all sites will result in you not getting notified by that site. Not sure how it would affect GC though. I have like a *dozen* :roll: GC accounts because I accept it, and prefere it over PP anyday.

purple_reading_giraffe · Joined: 04 Feb 2008 Posts: 5485 Location: Indiana, USA

I would think that for GCO using free gmail accounts would be the easiest for the multiple GCOs. I would be inclined to name my accounts (if I had them), for instance, purple_reading_giraffe.ecrater @ gmail.com and/or PRG.bisi @ gmail.com so that I could tell where each order came from very easily. Then I would have a central gmail account that I would instruct (using the settings) to fetch all gmail from those other accounts, AND I would make filters and labels like this... To: PRG.bisi label BISI, From: PRG.bisi label BISI. I might even use these separate accounts at my separate selling venues (if I had them) to help keep things organized. I love gmail labels, as I can put more than one label on an email and can search for (for instance) label:*forum label:PSU subject:holly - makes it very easy to find things. It's also easy to set up gmail to automatically label incoming mail. You can also set each "fetched" email account so that you can reply from that fetched account (even though you are actually using the central account to answer) OR from the central account, as you prefer, and you can also change the address you use to reply on the fly. Hope this helps someone.

2BOYSandTOYS · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 10095 Location: Kansas

I am happy for those having success with GCO! And - yes - $.20 is not much if you have to make a refund, but $.20 is $$ and it does add up. I can not say that offering GCO did anything for my sales volume.

As far as invoicing, I do realize I can create an invoice outside of the system. However, for record keeping, and streamlining, I do like the whole look/feel of the Paypal process. It is working well for me, and with the sync with USPS/UPS - I save even more time not doing mailing labels.

Each of us have to work with what makes sense for their business. I don't want multi-accounts, multi-emails and manual processes - but that's my personal preference. :lol: :lol:

Moonwishes · Joined: 05 Mar 2009 Posts: 67

I understand personal choice. Mine is that I want to keep as much of my business away from the paypal/ebay conglomerate as possible. I use endicia for postage so the only thing paypal does for me is collect money. I've never liked their invoices, packing slips. Over the years I have sold through many venues and had to find my own way to keep things streamlined.