Newsletter - January 2008
Are you looking forward to 2008 ? Will it be your best year ever ? At this
time of year many people make resolutions about things they want to do in the coming year.
Loose weight, stop smoking, getting fit are some common resolutions that are made and if
that is something you are doing we wish you all the best with your efforts. Here at Fun To
Create we aim to make 2008 our best year ever for online business and we would like to
encourage all our members to do the same.
To help you get 2008 off to a great start we would like to use this months
newsletter to give you some ideas on how you can use your Fun To Create stores to best
effect and increase your profits in the coming year.
Unlimited FREE Stores
All members can open as many FREE stores as they want. This means that you
can create different themes for each of your stores, allowing you to target specific types
of buyers. So for example you might want to target animal lovers and open a free store
featuring designs about dogs and advertise this in places where dog lovers are going to
look. Then you could create another free store featuring nothing but cat designs. By
creating different themes for each store you will find that your advertising can be very
specific and should therefore create more targeted traffic which will translate into
higher sales.
To create new stores on your account, simply sign-in and go to 'All
Stores' and click the yellow 'Create New Store' button and then set it up as you did with
your first store but with the new theme in mind. We will give you some ideas to try during
2008 a little later.
VIP Store owners -Open FREE stores under your account
We are pleased to announce this new feature for VIP store owners. You now
have the ability to allow others to sign up for a FREE store from within your VIP store.
This means that you can encourage friends, businesses, charities and anyone else to create
their own free stores from within your shop. How does this benefit you ? It means that you
will be paid the difference between your VIP prices and the FREE store base prices that
you set. To activate this feature you need to login and go to 'All Stores'. Then, under
your VIP store name go to 'Edit' and then tick the box at the bottom 'My VIP Store can
open free store'. Then when someone registers in your store they will then have the
ability to open their own free stores under your account.
Is it worth upgrading from a FREE Store ?
The base prices you receive in your FREE store are low already, but if you
sell more than a couple of items from your store each month then it would be worth
considering an account upgrade to VIP. You get even cheaper base prices, allowing you to
make even more profit on any items you sell plus you also get the added benefit of FREE
shipping. This means that any shipping charges you set in your store becomes part of your
overall profit. You also then have the ability to add your own domain name to the store,
create discount coupon codes for your customers and as mentioned above you can create free
store accounts under your own store, increasing your profits even further. As well as all
that, your customers will also have the ability to create their own products in the 'Make
Your Own' section. You also get your first month free to try it out so if you are serious
about building a profitable store then an upgrade to VIP is well worth it.
To upgrade your free store go to 'All Stores' then on the right of the
store you wish to upgrade you will see a yellow upgrade to VIP button. Then follow the
instructions. Remember that you will need to get your own domain name for this store to
work properly. For full details read the section on 'VIP Domain Stores'.
New Store Ideas for 2008
Local to You. In your local area you will
have many community organisations that would benefit from having a free store. Schools,
churches, charities and other local groups all need to raise funds. As a VIP store owner
you could provide an opportunity to do this at no cost to them. Why not offer to set up a
new free store for them. They would provide the artwork for you, such as logos, text or
pictures and you then place these on products to sell in 'their' new store. They would
either buy the products themselves or they could promote the store in their area. They
would profit from any mark-up they place on each product, this going toward their
particular cause. You as VIP store owner would profit from the difference in base prices
plus any postage fees you have set for your stores. A win - win situation for everyone.
Go Global. All our products are produced in China
and then posted from Hong Kong direct to your customers. The shipping price is the same no
matter where in the world your customers are. This means that you can search out ideas for
new products / stores from anywhere around the globe and then ship to them at the same
competitive price. Look for large events that are coming up this year in different
countries to see if you could provide products for hungry customers.
An example of this would be the upcoming US Presidential elections.
If you live in the States then you know all about what this involves, but even if you live
elsewhere it is not difficult to do a little research on the internet and find out what
goes on and what kind of products you could create.
These are the main dates to keep in mind regarding this election:
Primaries begin - From January to June voters decide which candidates they want to see
represent their particular party. February 5th is 'Super Duper Tuesday' when 20 different
states hold their primary elections. Election day is November 4th 2008 when all registered
voters hit the polls to elect their new President.
As with most elections world-wide, people like to show their open support
for one party or candidate or the other, so T-Shirts, badges, buttons, window signs,
stickers and many other products could be created for this. You could open one shop for
the Republicans and another for the Democrats or any other party involved. A few minutes
searching on the internet should soon provide some great ideas that you could use or
modify for your products. But don't waste time, get your stores set up as soon as possible
as the race is already underway and you need to let as many people know about your new
store as you can.
Even if you are not interested in politics you can use opportunities such
as this to really increase your profits this year. I'm sure if you think about it there
are many other events both local to you are national that could provide a good opportunity
for extra sales.
Small Business People. Do you know anyone who is an
artist, graphic designer, photographer or similar ? You could offer these people a free
store also as they will be experienced at creating designs. They may want a store of their
own to showcase their work. Or they may wish to add their designs to a greater range of
products than they normally sell to their own customers. You can easily find such people
in your local yellow pages directories or on the internet. It shouldn't be to difficult to
show these business people the benefits of this completely free service.
Do you need pictures for your products ?
A number of store owners have asked if I have any pictures available that
they could use on their products. In response to this I have created a new membership site
which I hope to grow over the coming months, where members can download pictures and use
for vertually any purpose, including placing on your products. The images are a
combination of copyright free pictures and my own photographs. Any member joining the site
now will benefit from a very low introductory membership rate. I have called the site Freedom Images and hopefully
those of you who do not have any pictures or artwork of your own will find this site
useful.
I hope that we have given you a few good ideas to experiment with and in
future we will try and provide further ideas and inspiration through this newsletter. If
you want to discuss anything you have read here then feel free to leave your comments in
our Help Forum.