Archive for Shipping & Taxes
Major Change at the Shopping Cart Company
Posted by: | CommentsThere is a new major change to the admin panel inside your shopping cart account. This change should not affect your website links, it's only an organizational change.
The products menu is now VERY different. The change is better in that it groups together product options in a more logical way. So this should make it easier for you to manage your products inside your account. It also makes sorting your products much easier.
So all the functionality has stayed the same, it's just how the information is organized. (some of my screen shots for my training programs will need to be redone)
The shopping cart company has prepared a short video for you. Unfortunately, there is not audio to go with it (just a music sound track). My guess is that they did this so that the non english speaking people would not feel left out. There is text explanations that go with the short (under 5 min) video.
You find that by logging into your shopping cart account, and clicking the link under 'Announcements' on the right.
I will review this next week during our club call
The Shopping Cart Won't Accept Orders from Certain Countries
Posted by: | CommentsQuestion: Laura Jo asks: "We continue to have problems accepting international orders, mainly Canada. Customers complain that they won't accept the postal code and that they can only select from US states. Is there something that hasn't been setup correctly in the Shopping Cart?"
Answer: If a country isn't included in the drop down list in the order form, the country may have been designated as "excluded" in the cart.
To check this, go to "Products –> Set up Shipping" and use the link in the second section "Setup Ship-To Countries" to view the list.
If no countries appear in the excluded list, the cart will allow purchases from all countries. If the customer's country appears in the list and there are issues with address or postal code fields, this may be due to settings in the Gateway.
Note that you can also use this to ban certain countries
Setting up Taxes for Your Products
Posted by: | CommentsSome Questions came in from the "Ask Christina" area from Jackie:
" 1. Are electronic download products charged sales tax?
2. Where do we find the tax rates for each state?
3. Do we manually enter the tax rate for each product and each state? Where? How?
4. If I have a product that links directly to an order form and I want to insert a sales letter inbetween, how do I get the code to link the product icon to the sales letter and the sales letter to the order form? Thanks, Jackie"
Answer:
1. You generally do not charge sales tax for download products, so make sure that in the product details for that product you change the drop down to 'No' for adding sales tax. However, since I'm not an accountant and cannot give tax advice, you will want to check with your tax advisor.
2. You only need to set the tax rates for the states that you live in and have a physical presence in. So if you live in Massachusettes, then just find the tax rate from your accountant for that state. You do not need to worry about the other states.
3. You do NOT manually enter the tax rate for each product, you just specify if it has taxes or not. The shopping cart figures out the rest.
You DO set the tax rate for your state if you ship physical products. You find that in Product –> Set up Taxes
4. The shopping cart gives you a button with code inside of it that links to the order form. Instead you would
link that to your sales letter. Then, on your sales letter, take the original link, and link that to the order form.
Using Fedex and UPS Logos on your site
Posted by: | CommentsYou can add Shipping logos for companies that you use to ship your product on your order form and website. US Postal Service, Fedex, and UPS on your order forms make your business look more professional and can improve your conversion rates.
You can find out more about using the US Postal Service Here:
You can find more info on using the Fedex Logo Here
You can find more info on using the UPS Logo Here
