There are so many online shopping cart options for today’s entrepreneurs and business owners to choose from. Each week ShopTab features one online shopping cart, interviewing the featured cart’s developer to provide an opportunity to learn about why their cart may be right for your business.

This week ShopTab sat down with Rick Wilso, the President and COO of Miva Merchant. He has been with Miva Merchant for over 10 years. Wilso started out as Director of North American sales back in 1999, and moved up to VP of Sales and Business Development in 2002. They sold the company to FindWhat, now MIVA, back in 2004 and then Wilso and a small team re-purchased the company from FindWhat/MIVA in 2007. The company is now based out of San Diego, California and is a privately held company. Wilso along with CTO and intellectual father Jon Burchmore and mutli decade technologist and CEO Russ Carroll have helped grow Mive Mercant to great success. (more…)

Have you added applications to your personal profile and want to remove one.  Facebook has made a lot of changes how this is done but the latest design update did make it easier.  Here are the easy steps how to delete an application from a Facebook profile:

1. Login to your Facebook account
2. Currently The Applications menu is located under the Account link on top right navigation. Click on it and a drop down menu will show up.
3. Make sure you then select Add to Profile from the drop down option next to Show on top right of this application list page.
4. Now that you can see what Applications are added to your profile you can either delete an App or Edit it with the options below.

If you selected the X delete button and completed the steps the application is now deleted from your Facebook profile. You’ll not be able to use it again unless you add it to your Facebook profile  again. Some apps might continue sending you information to your email account registered with them. To de-authorize yourself completely, you might have to follow any cancellation link provided in the email.

Facebook’s proprietary apps like the Wall or Photos are needed for full functionality of the service and cannot be removed but there settings can be adjusted through the Edit Settings option.  Removing unused apps helps to keep your Facebook page clean.

When was the last time you took the pain to wipe out the excess of unused Facebook apps? Are there Apps you recommend we install?

There are so many online shopping cart options for today’s entrepreneurs and business owners to choose from. Each week ShopTab features one online shopping cart, interviewing the featured cart’s developer to provide an opportunity to learn about why their cart may be right for your business.

Most recently, ShopTab was able to speak with Vince Pichpongsa, a director of Vevo Systems Co., Ltd based in Bangkok, Thailand. Pichpongsa has been involved in software development and IT business for more than 10 years. His recent works have helped contributed to the development of VevoCart, the main product of Vevo Systems Co., Ltd that was first launched in 2006.

VevoCart is a complete ecommerce solution with intuitive and user-friendly interface. The software is written in C# with ASP.NET 2.0 and 3.5. It is easy to use and understand by the merchants. Its software architecture is designed to be easily customized and understood by even the most novice of internet users. (more…)

There are so many online shopping cart options for today’s entrepreneurs and business owners to choose from. Each week ShopTab features one online shopping cart, interviewing the featured cart’s developer to provide an opportunity to learn about why their cart may be right for your business.

ShopTab recently had the priviledge to interview Jamie Whitney of Squirrelcart. Squirrelcart was launched in 2002 as a self proprietorship. Whitney functions as the owner, developer, support tech, sales manger, marketing manager, and janitor all in one. He has developed a cart that is very customizable and easy to use. Squirrelcart will even generate the HTML for all of your store’s pages based on the built in templates provided or allow you to fully design the layout with HTML yourself. The  (more…)

Guest Post By Travis Pospesel, Owner of The Reptile King

Most people think of Facebook as a hub to keep in touch with friends, and don’t get me wrong; it does a great job at that. But if one digs a little, some truly awesome stuff can be had. ShopTab is among those hidden gems. More on that later….

The herpetological hobby has been around for many years. The thought of owning a snake, a lizard, or even a frog as a pet is still catching on. There are a lot of mysteries involved and care goes far beyond filling a food and water bowl, or a couple trip outside.

One has to think about habitat design, temperature, humidity, specialized diets, Lighting and other variables. To the average person this is too complicated and or a hassle. Our motto at The Reptile King is “We Take The Guesswork Out Of Reptile Care!” This is one of the main reasons we started this company. We want everyone to enjoy this wonderful hobby.

What’s so wonderful about it you ask? Well how would it be to have a piece of Amazon rain forest right in your living room, or a re-creation of a desert in your den? These things are possible and are what fuel this hobby.

There’s nothing more awesome than watching a Veiled Chameleon sitting still on a branch and having its tongue jut across the cage after a cricket! Or a Mossy tail leaf Gecko blend seamlessly into its habitat.  It doesn’t matter if you are young, old, male, or female, there are reptiles for everyone! And guess what? They are an allergy free pet!

Reptiles only make up something like 5% of the pet industry. Tapping into that 5% and gaining ground is a tough thing to do. Big dollar advertising campaigns, newspaper ads, banners, flyers, social networks, and word of mouth are all things that are needed to keep a new business afloat. We have been around since mid 2009. In that time we have utilized every known resource to get ahead, to make some sales, to retain customers.

The one place that has helped us tremendously is Facebook. The use of a Fan page is still a rather new concept, but you know, it works great. I personally feel that the folks who push, push, push product after product on their pages are losing the most important part, interactivity. We use our wall to interact with fans, customers, and future hobbyists. We answer questions, post fun facts, and have the occasional game.  So how do you introduce product sales into a page without being invasive or making fans “hide” you because it seems like spam? The answer, ShopTab!

ShopTab is brilliant and incredibly simple. A tab appears at the top of your page alongside photos, info, and events. It says SHOP. Clicking on this tab pulls up your custom uploaded banner and a list of your products, complete with pictures, descriptions, and a price. There is also a button for Buy It Now. Clicking on this buy now button, sends the potential customer directly to the product page of your website, where they can get additional information on the item. The beauty of ShopTab is the customer /fan chooses whether or not they want to shop.  No more spamming them with the hopes they will click.

The interface is very easy to use. The products can be entered manually, or in bulk using a CVS file uploaded from Excel or similar spreadsheet program. I went from zero to five hundred products in about 10 minute’s time.

Another twenty minutes and I had a custom banner in place on my SHOP tabs site too. Did I mention that all this is only $10 bucks a month! Where out there can you get anything for $10 bucks a month anymore? especially when it comes to promoting a business.

Now let’s talk analytics. One week after installing ShopTab, we saw a 19% increase in page referral from Facebook, and saw a small boost in sales. This is only after one week. With a little more promotion to get fans to realize it’s there, I think this will be even more of a success.

So if you are into Reptiles, Amphibians, or Invertebrates I invite you to come check us out at http://www.facebook.com/thereptileking, we welcome everyone. While you are there see what ShopTab is all about, and if you have any questions about reptiles or ShopTab feel free to ask.

Travis Pospesel, Owner
TheReptileKing.com