Question / Discussion More madcap ideas - advice on adding a payment service to Blog

unicornrider

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First of all thanks for all the help so far, my blog is now nearly two years old and it has hugely helped in driving sales for Amazon KPD etc. I have just written my first eBook and before I go putting it on Amazon KPD, I wanted to look into the options of putting it on my website.
I am also looking into offering an online course along the same topic as I have most of the work already created!
Some of the feedback I have had is that people are not so keen to go to third party sites to buy my items/services and would like to do it on my website. I have had a little look and things like Shopify seem very expensive. My website is hosted by HostPresto if that helps. So suggestions for free/cheap ways to offer my content for those that want to buy it are much appreciated.
I am aware that I might get more sales on Amazon but I have to devalue my product a fair bit to be competitive on there. I recently paid £19 for an eBook in an area I was interested that was direct off their own website. I have a fair following on Socials that do convert to my website and then onto Amazon etc so I feel I have enough footfall to get sales.
I am chatting to a friend who has already sold an online course successfully to see how she did that side of things. So a shop to offer my services, courses and eBooks on my website would be very useful.
 

Jon

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First of all thanks for all the help so far, my blog is now nearly two years old and it has hugely helped in driving sales for Amazon KPD etc. I have just written my first eBook and before I go putting it on Amazon KPD, I wanted to look into the options of putting it on my website.
I am also looking into offering an online course along the same topic as I have most of the work already created!
Some of the feedback I have had is that people are not so keen to go to third party sites to buy my items/services and would like to do it on my website. I have had a little look and things like Shopify seem very expensive. My website is hosted by HostPresto if that helps. So suggestions for free/cheap ways to offer my content for those that want to buy it are much appreciated.
I am aware that I might get more sales on Amazon but I have to devalue my product a fair bit to be competitive on there. I recently paid £19 for an eBook in an area I was interested that was direct off their own website. I have a fair following on Socials that do convert to my website and then onto Amazon etc so I feel I have enough footfall to get sales.
I am chatting to a friend who has already sold an online course successfully to see how she did that side of things. So a shop to offer my services, courses and eBooks on my website would be very useful.
I use WooCommerce for selling copywriting services on Content Conga - That's free as its just a plugin you install and then you can tailor the heck out of it.

I'm gonna tag in @neesharees as I know she promotes courses / ebooks and sells them so she might have some good input
 
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neesharees

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There are lots of options for selling ebooks but most are 3rd party platforms. Podia and Thrivecart are popular options for courses and things like Sendowl and Gumroad are popular for ebooks.

I invested I'm ThriveCart last year. Not cheap but it's a one time purchase price and you never have to pay more whereas places like Podia and Sendowl you pay monthly/yearly fees.

Ultimately I went with Thrivecart as it had an inbuilt affiliate programme and expectional functionality compared to other platforms.

I think it really depends exactly what you want backend to be able to do

I hope that helps slightly
 

unicornrider

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Brilliant thank you @Jon and @neesharees, I have been looking at WooCommerce on Youtube - they also mentioned Ecquid. Will look further into that and Thrivecart.
It's looking a bit more simple than I thought.
 
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Jon

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One thing I will say with Woocommece is the cost to get the customisation you want CAN add up

so my 2 biggest costs have been an addon that lets you create custom forms for people to fill in before they purchase and then all that information comes to you in the order email. That was about $49

I also have had a to pay a woocommerce developer (happy to share details, they are UK based) on PPH who could give me the functionality that would let people create multiple orders for content on the same page. That was about £200 for him to create all that for me.

Out of the box Woocommerce works great, it's just when you want to start REALLY tweaking it beyond just doing a google search the cost can mount up a bit BUT the biggest plus for me with Woo over Shopify was that with Woo you take all the money, with Shopify they take a % of each sale.
 
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unicornrider

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One thing I will say with Woocommece is the cost to get the customisation you want CAN add up

so my 2 biggest costs have been an addon that lets you create custom forms for people to fill in before they purchase and then all that information comes to you in the order email. That was about $49

I also have had a to pay a woocommerce developer (happy to share details, they are UK based) on PPH who could give me the functionality that would let people create multiple orders for content on the same page. That was about £200 for him to create all that for me.

Out of the box Woocommerce works great, it's just when you want to start REALLY tweaking it beyond just doing a google search the cost can mount up a bit BUT the biggest plus for me with Woo over Shopify was that with Woo you take all the money, with Shopify they take a % of each sale.
I had seen that about Woocommerce with the add on costs. I looked at Shopify and swiftly moved on as it's bit like Etsy with the fees, which I wanted to move away from.
 
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unicornrider

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And just like that - I have done it. I need to add products and do some editing but I never would have imagined that I would have a full website with a shop 2 years ago!
Will finish it off over the weekend and do a launch ;)
 
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Jon

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And just like that - I have done it. I need to add products and do some editing but I never would have imagined that I would have a full website with a shop 2 years ago!
Will finish it off over the weekend and do a launch ;)
Great stuff, just accept that you will end up doing endless tweaking! If you need someone to create graphics for your store than I recommend dropping @Ar_ a PM
 
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unicornrider

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I had a load of orders initially which was fab, then got busy with my full time job and neglected my marketing. I have a few orders a month at the moment which made the effort worth it and I know that if I do some more promotion that it will sell more.
 

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