Site Recipe: Build an Information Product Store
February 16, 2009
Configuring an business web site is much like cooking — the ingredients you choose, and the way you combine them, determines the quality of the end result.
Here we provide the recipe for Get Out Of Credit Prison, a WordPress web site and blog that enables customers to purchase an e-book about credit repair.
To build it “from scratch,” this e-commerce site requires the following components:
Domain
Think of a domain, or DNS, as your web site’s home address. Your web site’s pages will live on a server, and browsers need to know where they can find you. A domain can be a string of letters and numbers, but using one or more words will make it easier for people to remember.
Example - http://getoutofcreditprison.com
If you have not yet registered a domain, you will first need to find out which domains are already taken, and which are still available. Once you find the domain you want, you may purchase it for one or more years. Registering a domain name for one year costs around $10 or $20.
We recommend using Sustainable Domains to search and purchase domains.
Hosting Account
Now that you have an address, you must subscribe to a hosting service. Your hosting provider will charge a monthly fee to give you a certain amount of space on their servers. Most plans also include the ability to create email accounts.
For example, this web site is hosted by our friends at Sustainable Websites (a wind-powered green hosting company.)
Sustainable Web Sites Basic Plan, $10/month
- 1 GB of storage (for pages and posts)
- 10 GB bandwidth (download capacity)
- unlimited email accounts
- unlimited add-on, parked and sub-domains (host more than one site)
- unlimited MySQL databases (manage WordPress accounts)
WordPress Installation
In order to start using WordPress, the software must first be installed on your host server. If you have good technical skills, here are a few videos on the Internet that describe how to install WordPress step-by-step:
Do the words “file transfer protocol” strike fear into your heart? If so, you may want someone else to install WordPress for you. Sustainable Websites has introduced a product for their hosting customers called WordPress Pie (as in, “as easy as pie!”)
For $100, WordPress Pie gives you:
- installation of the latest version of WordPress software on your account on their server
- installation of the top 10 most useful plug-ins
- installation of the top 10 most popular themes
- configuration for search engine-friendly URLs
- and more!
WordPress Web Site And Blog
The Get Out of Credit Prison web site contains two main features: a blog that is designed to drive traffic to the site, and a sales page designed to entice customers to click the Buy Now button.
While there are many terrific free themes out there, we chose to use a premium theme from iThemes. Premium themes have a wide range of features, and some offer customer support.
Shopping Cart
To receive payments from your customers, you need a shopping cart. At a minimum, the shopping cart allows your customer to select the product, calculate tax and/or shipping, send an email confirmation, and track your customers.
This e-book site uses a hosted shopping cart solution called 1ShoppingCart, which is highly customizable and includes an extensive list of tools, like a newsletter and customer database. Once a customer hits the Buy Now button, they are taken to a secure hosted page where they enter their billing, shipping and payment information.
Get Out Of Credit Prison uses 1ShoppingCart’s Professional package, which also provides:
- Newsletter Management Features
- Digital Product/E-Book Download Delivery
- Affiliate Tracking Management System
Merchant Account & Gateway
An Internet merchant account receives funds from credit card sales. Most major banks do not provide this service, but there are many specialty banks who do.
This e-book site uses Dharma Merchant Services, a socially-responsible green business.
As part of their Basic e-Commerce Package, Dharma charges:
- $10 monthly fee
- $15 monthly minimum
- $0.25 per transaction fee
- between 2.19% – 3.19% for most Visa or Mastercard charges
A payment gateway is a service that authorizes payments, much like the point of sale terminal you use in most retail stores. The payment gateway encrypts credit card numbers and other sensitive information to ensure that information passes securely between the customer and the merchant, as well as between merchant and payment processor.
Dharma Merchant Services is also a reseller of Authorize.net, one of the most popular gateway service providers. That means you can set both accounts up at the same time.
Authorize.net gateway account fees include:
- $75 one-time setup fee
- $25 monthly fee
- $0.10 per transaction fee (first 100 items/month free)
Download & Opt-In
The 1ShoppingCart Professional package provides two very important features: the ability for the customer to easily download the e-book, and a newsletter management feature that can invite customers to join the mailing list.
Why is this important? Once previous customers opt into the list, we can tell them about future information products in which they might be interested. While driving new traffic to your web site is always important, its far easier to sell to customers who have already enjoyed your products.
Checking Account
The merchant account for this e-book is set up to transfer revenue directly into a designated checking account at New Resource Bank.
If your business is up and running, you probably already have a dedicated checking account. But we couldn’t help including a plug for our friends at New Resource Bank, a San Francisco Bay Area community bank that not only provides personalized customer service, but also works to grow green and sustainable businesses.
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Posted in Featured Posts, Site Recipes, Social Networking, WordPress
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June 1st, 2009 at 11:45 am
OHH I am amazed with it. It is a good thing for my search on the net. Thanks. ^_^