Problems: Too Many Sales! Need Solution!

[Ellen C Braun]

Hello Warriors

Haven't stopped by in ages, been too busy working, and last week I put a physical product of mine on sale and had several hundred orders. HURRAY!

HOWEVER, I've been sitting for HOURS, printing shipping labels via Paypal. Each label requires me to select the mail class, the type of package, the weight, the mailing date, authorize payment for the postage, etc.

I also want to start accepting credit cards, not just Paypal, via Authorize.net right away.

So, what's a good solution to print labels in batches?

Customers order different quantities, and International orders have different rates, etc, so it has to be a smart system?

All you small-biz owners who sell physical products- what's your solution?

Thanks!

Ellen

[matthewd]

Is it something that can be taken care of by a fulfillment center or whatever they are called?

[Success_Gal]

Hi Ellen

Stamps.com used to be a pretty good solution for me when I shipped all kinds of physical items that or Pitney Bowes.

Usually have a 30 t...60....90 day trials


Anyway, worked great for me but hundreds of orders can always be consuming if you don't have label printer with your shipping setup.

I liked stamps.com a lot more than paypal shipping.

I believe what you seek is automation and that usually cost in equipment though or service since you can only lease things that produce postage.

Search for postage printing and find any trial or free equipment included if you sign up is probably best way... BUT this will not help you out right now. Have to wait on the darn label machine or mail station stuff to be shipped.

Pitney Bowes sometimes has good deals. Usually a 60...90 trial and the machine to do postage weighing and printing.

I would have to research to find out more...not up to date enough anymore.

Hope a little of this helped.

Congratulations on the orders though and Happy Holidays to you Ellen

[Debbie Songster]

Ellen
I have a few suggestions on my blog post
Create Your Infastructure : The Marketing Educator

I ship 90% of my own products so I know your frustration. I don't process any of my shipments via Paypal even when Paypal is the payment method used.
I have a couple payment options available to my customers - Paypal and credit card.
If they select credit card then I process that manually through my Quickbooks software which is connected to my merchant account.

I have an authorize.net account but haven't used it much. I find manual CC processing better for me because it goes right into my accounting software AND I am able to monitor potential fraud better as well as having less fees from failed online verifications.
If I have to ship via any other method besides USPS then I do that through my Quickbooks software too and it automatically posts my expenses to the correct account.

For my USPS processing I use the endicia - they have a 30 day free trial right now. I believe the rate is less through them then if you go through Paypal.

Good luck


Hope that helps

PS - as stated by Success-gal - if you don't have a label printer, get one. I have a Zebra printer that I bought off ebay (used) which is a lot cheaper than buying new. Its a work horse as I have been torturing that thing every day for the last 3 years and its still going strong.

[Ellen C Braun]

Thank you, all!

This product is a book, I suggested my subscribers buy it as a holiday gift- would you give your kid's teacher a digital holiday gift, lol?

Here's the book, if you're curious: Animal School Book

I also want to re-do my shopping cart system, and get my customers into my aweber (or new system) list. Currently, I ask them to subscribe via aweber, but many do not!

I use stamps.com, but for hundreds of orders, it's very time consuming.

I've looked at Endicia, but it seems that all they'll do for me is label-printing, saving me scotch-taping labels onto envelopes- I REALLY want to be able to "batch-print" hundreds of orders at a click.

Do you know where I ought to be looking for a solution?

Thanks,

Ellen

[Debbie Songster]

Actually you can batch print with Endica
If you are able to download a list of your buyers then you can up load that to Endica.

You still need to go through each one to make sure weight is correct, etc. I don't think there is a true one click solution

Customers order different quantities, and International orders have different rates, etc, so it has to be a smart system?

This is the reality of physical product sales.

My own orders take me 2.5 min to process (yes I timed it) and in that time I :

• Enter the customer in my Quickbooks system.
• Paste the customer info into my shipping software ( I could batch load the information and just pull it up in the window when I'm ready to do the label but I work with several different stores so I find it just as fast to copy and paste at the time I need the label)
• Create the sales receipt in Quickbooks (so my bookkeeping is already done - no double entries)
• Charge the credit card - inside my QuickBooks system so no double entries. (For Paypal orders this step is skipped)
• print a copy of the CC receipt on the back of the order (I keep hard copies of all orders) (or a copy of the Paypal payment)
• Print a copy of the sales receipt or packing slip for the customer to be included with the order
• Print the shipping label - it automatically creates an email for my customer
• Copy and paste the shipping information into the customers account in my store
• Mark the order paid in the customers account in my store
• Close the customers order in the store

It takes me longer to pull product and stuff the envelop then it does to process the order.

My friend Bob used to sell books online. His daily orders were between 200 and 300 orders. He's the one who turned me onto Endica.
My system is more fine tuned than his was. He still had a lot of bookkeeping to do at the end of the day.

He researched all the systems as he had 20,000 books so time was important.

Good luck

[davebo]

Oh I feel your pain BIG TIME!

Yes, if you are getting that volume of orders than I would get going on a 'proper' shopping cart asap. If you just have a few products, then you don't need anything fancy...1shoppingcart or shopsite are good. If you DO have a lot of products (over 30) then I would try something like yahoo store or xcart. There is no perfect shopping cart and they all have their little pluses and minuses. Personally for me, I like shopsite for smaller sites and yahoo stores for bigger sites. Shopsite allows you to input the order tags anywhere in an existing website and intergrates pretty seamlessly. Yahoo Stores require some help because it's in RTML, but it's not too bad once you get the initial design/programming done.

As far as payment options, I personally like paypal pro (shopsite and yahoo are both compatible with this). It's user friendly, charges a bit higher rate, but you can accept all credit cards and paypal.

Now to your shipping problem. I had the same issue...I went from doing it by hand, to UPS online, to a program called TrueShip, and then to this....

ShipWorks Shipping Software for Your Online Business

This works with a lot of carts (paypal included). After the initial setup, all you have to do is hit one-button to download all your orders. And then after that, highlight all the orders you want to ship and then do a batch print. I use shopsite and can download 100 orders in a minute and then print off the labels in another minute.

I did A LOT of research into this....there are some ok options, but this is the most powerful in my view. Saved us probably 10 hours of work per week.

[AverageGuy]

goto craigslist, hire some local people to work for you. or go to local high school, hire some students for part time.



david

[davebo]

I don't think Endicia is a very good tool. Personally, I think most people use primarily one carrier (UPS, Fedex, etc)..you're much better off finding which software works with that carrier than using a solution like Endicia. Endicia will often recommend that you use a tool like Shipworks in addition to their monthly service too. Using the same carrier will get you better rates in the long run as you can negotitate lower when you have some volume.

And also, aweber integrates with yahoo stores so there is no need for verification if you add a customer to your customer list.