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Quick request for suggestions on the Google Shopping Feed
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HandmadeJewelryByJim



Posts: 23

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:28 am    Post subject: Quick request for suggestions on the Google Shopping Feed Reply with quote

First, just so you know, I'd never heard of Google Shopping Feeds until I discovered eCrater, which was only about a week ago (and now I have a shop here).

I'm looking for some advice/suggestions/whatever you want to call it about the shopping feed rates. I am a two-time cancer survivor, forcibly retired and dumped into Social "Security" Disability by cancer #1. I WISH I was working on a high budget like a shoestring budget, but I'm not there yet.

So, first question is, just to confirm, do I understand correctly that for the Google shopping feed, all we pay is the percentage we select that's take from orders via that feed (i.e., there's no CPC costs, etc.)? Based on what I've read, that's right, but I just need to be 100% certain (can't afford surprises).

Second question, getting started, would it be more beneficial to start with either the High or Extra High percentages to get more exposure to my shop to, hopefully, get return customers that would buy directly from me (along with simply being more likely to get a higher rate of sales more quickly)? The way I (have to) look at it is, if the 12.9% rate (vs the 2.9% rate) gets me two orders instead of just one per day or per month, it's done its job to help my budget, and has paid for itself.

Final question.... Can someone explain what these feeds are all about, how they work, how well they work (in general---I realize it's going to vary per shop and per product), etc.?

Thanks,
--jim

The Score: Me: 2 Cancer: 0; Bite me cancer....I bite back ten times as hard.
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lastade-designs
moderator


Posts: 2903

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Jim,
I have been here for aroud 10 years and I sell craft patterns. To get a sale here you have to do a little promoting. Your sales can come in from many different places. The google feed is just one type of promoting that Ecrater can do for you. I have tried the different levels and currently do the 8.9.
I don´t know all the technical details but we are paying for a placement of our items on the Google Shopping page.

Sometimes you get sales from there but my last couple of sales have been at the 2.9% level because my sales came through the Ecrater mall marketplace.

I also get sales from pinning my page links from my store to Pinterest and Facebook.
When I get a sale from one of these links I promote to these places there is no fee from Ecrater.
Here are some groups you can join on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/EcraterStores/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/154704154596348/ - ecrater store promotions
https://www.facebook.com/groups/339664120216065/ - Ecrater what´s in your store

Hope this helps a little. I am sure others will chime in soon.
Lori - - LaStade Designs & Patterns
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Chakracord



Posts: 213

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 8:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Jim,

I know mine percentage is set at 2.9%.

I don't do Facebook, but may think about it.

I do Pinterest and I had set up a separate account on Pinterest for group boards for sellers.

SellersMall on Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/sellersmall/

You and other sellers are welcome to ask to join specific boards to pin the items they sell.
I have some sellers from eCrater, Bonanza, Etsy and personal selling sites pinning.

There is one seller that will come around and can give you a lot of detail about this.
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HandmadeJewelryByJim



Posts: 23

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 11:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

8.9%, huh? I'm debating over 8.9% and 12.9%, wondering if the 12.9% is a really big improvement or just a small one, or put another way, likely or not to be worth the extra 4%. Either way, it's great for me because I don't have to pay anything up-front for advertising, just when I get an order. That allows me complete freedom to choose the best rate for me.

Thanks for the information and FB pages. I'm waiting on approvals now.
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SheilaDeesPostcards
moderator


Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 12:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Jim and Welcome to eCrater and the eCrater community. Let me see if I can add a little more information.

First, let's start with the basic fees you will be charged on eCRATER. There is no charge for having a store on eCRATER and your listings never end unless the item sells or you end the listing. With a few exceptions, all items listed in an eCRATER store will be sent to Google shopping at no cost to the seller. (The two major reasons are the seller must accept electronic payments and adult items are not eligible.) There are also other methods of advertising done by eCRATER for us. If a buyer comes to the eCRATER marketplace (https://www.ecrater.com) and makes a purchase, the seller will be charged 2.9% of the cost of the item as a fee (there is no fee on the shipping and we are expected to be professional with our shipping charges in ratio to our item charges). These fees will accrue during the month and you will be invoiced around the 16th of the following month for your total fees. If your fees do not equal 50 cents, the fees will roll to the next month for invoicing. ECrater reserves the right to invoice on a more frequent bases if your fees are large and/or you are new. If the buyer follows a link and comes directly to your store to complete the sale, there will be no fee.

Once you make a sale, you can click on the link in your admin that says "orders" and you'll see a column titled "Came From". There you'll see if the order came from the marketplace or store. The marketplace orders are charged the 2.9% of the item price and there is no charge for the store orders. The store orders will also have some additional information like store google, store bing, store other plus a few others which give you some idea where the buyer find a link to your store. Orders from marketplace could have come from lots of places but the buyer went directly to the marketplace. They could have followed a link from an organic search (like Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo, etc.), Google Shopping, from advertising eCRATER may have done anywhere on the internet, or they may have started their search by a direct link to the eCRATER Marketplace.

That covers the basic eCRATER fees. Your question was related to the increased amount for advertising. On the internet, most advertising is sold by the amount a business is willing to pay to have their ad shown. Cost are assessed by clicks on the ad, so everytime someone clicks on an ad, the business is charged the amount they said they were willing to pay per click. (There are lots more varibles, but I'm trying to keep it really simple.) These fees are paid by eCRATER when they advertise. We can get more exposure for our items by being willing to pay a larger fee when an item sells from advertising done by eCRATER. Let's say you select the 8.9% rate. If you sell an item from the marketplace and the buyer came from one of the advertising efforts by eCrater, you will pay 8.9% of the item price. If the buyer had come to the marketplace from any source other than paid advertising, you'll only be charged the 2.9% of the item price. So, on your order page, you'll see some orders that say marketplace 2.9% and some orders that say marketplace 8.9%.

At one time, the ability to participate in a higher ad level wasn't available to new sellers until they had made sales, been invoiced and paid their invoice. I don't know if that's still in effect, but if you can't select a higher level right now that would be the reason.

Your second question was related to whether a higher level was beneficial. The level selected has to be up to the individual based on factor they consider important. If the buyer is going to be very specific about what they want and there are few options, a higher level wouldn't help. If you are in a sea of other sellers, a higher rate would probably be very beneficial.

Don't get discouraged if your store has a slow start, it can take weeks before the search engines send out their bots and run the index so your store shows in the organic search engines.
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MrsDsHandKnits



Posts: 334

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 1:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My shop here on eCrater is about a year old and I was not able to participate in higher ad level until just recently, after my 5th eCrater sale.
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HandmadeJewelryByJim



Posts: 23

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sheila, thanks for confirming all of that. Based on what you wrote, I now have one question left. Are you saying the fees from orders are not deducted from what we're paid? That's fine, I just have to remember (at least starting off) that I have to pay that myself. If that's what you were saying, that is.

So basically, except maybe not being able to select the 12.9% option (and I was and still am debating on it vs 8.9%), it is as I understood ... and no hidden costs. I didn't expect that there would be, but as I mentioned, with my budget, I have to be 100% certain.

Many thanks to everyone for the great information. My (current) questions have been answered clearly and distictly, and I greatly appreciate that. I'd heard somewhere about the forums here being really quick to respond with great answers ... whoever said that was absolutely right.

Thanks,
--jim
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SheilaDeesPostcards
moderator


Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

HandmadeJewelryByJim wrote:
Sheila, thanks for confirming all of that. Based on what you wrote, I now have one question left. Are you saying the fees from orders are not deducted from what we're paid? That's fine, I just have to remember (at least starting off) that I have to pay that myself. If that's what you were saying, that is.

You're most welcome, I enjoy helping when I can. As far as paying your eCrater fees, eCrater never receives the money for your sales. There are no "Buyer" accounts, they don't register to make a purchase. When they pay through the eCrater checkout system, their payment is processed by PayPal and the total amount (minus PayPal fees) are immediately available to you in your PayPal account. If you take Stripe, the money is held by Stripe and transferred to your bank account.
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HandmadeJewelryByJim



Posts: 23

PostPosted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What, no having to wait until the first business day after the day of the order (not mentioning Etsy here, but that's exactly what I'm doing after getting an order last night), or a month (again, not mentioning Amazon Handmade---my first and only order with them ... saw that 15% commission and the four-week delay and said BYYYYEEEE)? Getting paid immediatey .... hmmm, not sure I can handle that. ;-} (for those who weren't around, that smiley is a wink/grin or sarcastic grin, in this case)
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Jim, somewhat late to the party. Been fighting an abscess this week and a wonderful tooth extraction this morning! Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad

I only contract to do 2.9% for Google/MP sales. I also work hard at promoting my goods on Pinterest and Facebook and directly, etc. I sell sewing patterns and lots of them.

The 10 places that can send sales to your store are:

Direct - your own efforts, signatures on emails and forums, etc.
Google %
Other - that comes from who knows where
Pinterest
Yahoo
Bing- I believe Bing only promotes new items although someone can correct me.
Facebook
Twitter

At various times I used 12.9% and 5.9% and checking out my numbers over the course of two months each, my sales had no change, I was just paying more to have them.

Make sure your site is very professional looking and that your photos are also professional-looking as in no dog's snout in the photo, and yet I have seen that when the item was on the floor for its photo! Sheila said it can take time. The more items you have listed, the more chance of sales.

I comprehend SSD as at the peak of my career as an RN rheumatoid arthritis hit me like a Mack truck and I haven't been able to work for over 17 years! Which is why I also sell on Amazon as I need a certain amount each month to be sure we eat and keep the lights on! But yes, other than the Google feed % there are no fees here unless you want to pay them like having your own domain name or a fancier storefront (not in my eyes so I have the old one Very Happy )
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pickychicky



Posts: 1552

PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 5:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's absolutely nothing I can add to the topic of fees because our fellow sellers have already covered it well. I just wanted to let you know that we're also here to help you set up attributes (required for Google Shopping placement) for your listings, if needed. Since you've never heard of it before a week ago, you will almost certainly need assistance because Google never makes things easy. LOL

The main things you need to include are upc and brand; other things like mpn, color, size, material, format (CD, DVD), etc., also help. If you don't have the UPC, then you will need to enter the attribute identifier_exists and enter false for its value.

Of course, you don't have to mess with attributes to be included in the eCrater marketplace or "organic" searches (regular Google, Bing, etc.). However, they are required if you want to be placed in Google Shopping. You will find that it can be a bit of a headache, but it will go more smoothly as you go along.
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HandmadeJewelryByJim



Posts: 23

PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 7:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The only Google attribute I had trouble with was UPC, and I found the answer to that one in old posts here. The brand is obvious: Handmade Jewelry By Jim. Color, obvious. There was one other that I'm drawing a blank on (thanks, chemobrain). But it was another obvious one.

What I'm really curious about is what someone said about not being disappointed if I didn't start making sales in a couple of weeks. Weeks? Seriously? Can it really happen that quickly here (perhaps with the Google shopping feed)? Or is that just an extreme example that might happen every blue moon?
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jim, it quite literally depends on what you are selling, how much effort you put into your store, how much promoting you do, etc. We have had newbies come on the forum and say that they opened their store 2-3 days if not a week earlier and why no sales yet? One guy wanted to know how many sales he could expect in a month and I asked him how much he would like to see. 60, he replies and then I tell him that he only has 40+ items in his store, he really needs to bulk up his inventory to hit 60 sales a month! Well sometimes it is because they are selling about 8 things, all yard sale rejects! Other times it is just what folks are looking for. When I came here 10-11 years ago, we all had to list manually, unlike some that can use an eBay download. So I think it took about a month before my first sale. Every thousand listings I got more sales. Don't forget with sewing patterns, I have to have the right style in the right size range, etc. to make a sale. Currently, I have about 8000 items in inventory here and over 5000 at Amazon some of which are on both sites. Amazon obviously has lots more eyes so I have more sales there, and Google seems to hate small online sellers, they seemed to have forgotten that they started out to be a SEARCH engine, then they started monetizing their site and we kept losing ground. A couple of months back they eliminated their G+ program and my sales went down on Google organic.

Lots of sites Google really doesn't care about and the other search engines as well if you look like a potential fly by night. They want to see some stability, so it may take 6 months before they push you up in results in Google organic. I too had never heard of Google shopping before coming here, so I have always cared more about the organic search engine as sales from there are no fee, compared to GS which has fees.

When I left eBay to come here, I had made the decision that if it took it, I could pay out for promotions as much as I had in fees on eBay, but never got to that point as my sales, until Google started changing things, ended up higher than eBays with none of the fees. Unfortunately not anymore because Google keeps changing things and we depend on them for eyes on our stores.

So it all depends. Jewelry is a huge market with lots of people selling and some buying. So you might want to specialize in your jewelry. I haven't even looked at your site yet, but offhand, I can mention one seemingly underserved market and that is plus-sized women. I do reviews for Amazon and have noticed that the women's watches are all sold as women's standard which is about 7 1/2" sorry guys, but some of us large-boned women need size 8" or more. 50% of the women in the USA are oversized 14. And are not necessarily large-boned but they do need bigger items like necklace lengths. Which means they need everything bigger. Where I like daintier jewelry, my husband likes to encourage me to wear more elaborate pieces, but that isn't what I like. At this point, most days I am doing good to get out of bed, much less get out of my sleeping clothes and into street clothes including jewelry!

Hope some of that helped. Very Happy
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HandmadeJewelryByJim



Posts: 23

PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

To answer the bit about what I sell, on this site, I'm specifically selling bolos (aka western ties). Keep in mind that I'm on a microscopic budget (again, cancer #1 dumped me into Social "Security" Disability). That means I only have so much per month, and bills take a big chunk of it right out. So building up the product count is slow, but almost every incoming order helps that. I'm branching out now to add slides that won't be seen on Etsy (just 'cause ... this is now the bolo shop). The current style, with 18x25mm cabochons, will continue to be listed on both.

The new slide, when I get the stuff in to make it, get it photographed, get the raw sensor data edited and converted to an image, and get the page writeup done (sounds simple enough, but as probably any cancer survivor in here would know, low energy levels make it not so simple to just zip through all of that), is going to be in an RMO shape with the US Flag, a snake coiled up, and (if you hadn't already guessed) the words "Don't Tread On Me" . Next probably an Indian head penny, nickel, or whatever it was, but that has to wait until my next SSD payout next Friday night around 2330 CDT. So I definitely have plans...just need the time (energy levels---exceed those, and my eyes go blurry for days and then I get an eye migraine) and money. It's all just stuff that, years ago, I had the choice of either learning to live with, or to go insane. I chose the latter, of course (though some my question that [grin]).

Thanks,
--jim
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 11:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jim, when I first got sick, we didn't know what was wrong, but I had a chance to watch the Shawshank Redemption several times. And in it Morgan Freeman in his character said, Get busy living or get busy dying". I choose to live. It is hard. My stepfather had RA and had come about sort of the same way as mine did. He died within 14 years from side effects. I knew he was in pain but I never realized it was a triple whammy, pain, fatigue and lack of appetite - although I am hungry now I have to live with it as I only have so much soft diet food around! Laughing Many never understand that these diseases can have long-term effects. Just do what you can. Nobody should expect more.
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