JoshK

For the web as you mentioned it shouldn't be a big deal. I think their are even certain systems that will allow you to run separate user side shops through only one admin (I am pretty sure Magento is capable of this). For the in person selling side, look at the types of products the store sells and pick which one of your lines best suits the store. You can always see if they'll expand to your other line down the road.

If you're looking to get started on SEO this beginners guide is a good place to start. http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo Hope this helps.

Email marketing seems to work well, so building your list is a good idea. Maybe offer a drawing at craft shows "signup for our email newsletter for a chance to win a free candle (or any prize people might like)" Also if you sell locally most of the search engines have free local listings. There are a lot of organizations that support local businesses, see if you can partner with them or if they have advertising options available. You can sponsor local charities or events that will give you exposure offline as well as hopefully a link and some traffic online. If you have a budget you can use Pay-Per Click advertising (sponsored links in the search engines). There are many more ways but those should give you some ideas. Hope this helps.

Your goals should be relatively easy to setup it's a matter of finding your order confirmation page, then copying and pasting the URL (address) into the form in Google Analytics. Good luck I'll be happy to answer any questions if I can.

If you have your sales setup as a goal you can see this under traffic sources->referring sites->Goals Set tab if you have ecommerce tracking enabled (it's a little more involved to setup then goals but well worth it) you can see the revenue generated from that link under traffic sources->referring sites->Ecommerce tab. If you'd like different information than these reports provide you can create custom reports custom reporting->manage custom reports->create new custom reports. Hope this helps.

The setup is going smoothly. I am keeping it simple, it has the ability to setup custom options for your products and other more advanced features, which I haven't looked at yet but may come in handy in the future. The one downside that I've seen is the cart is associated to a profile rather then a page, you can attach it to a page, however, you have to do all the store administration from your profile and this means if you want to manage the content but have your sales team process orders they have to do so through the profile the shop is associated with (your's if you set it up). One thing I really like is that you can give an instant discount to people that "like" your page I currently have ours set to discount the prices 10% if you like our page. I'm still adding products and content to it but the shop is up at my page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Premier-Packaging/200501809960142 if you'd like to see what I've done. I didn't really know what to expect until I actually published it so feel free to have a look around and I'll do my best to any questions on features that you're curious about.

Happy to help.

I'm biased as I work for Premier Packaging (retailpackaging.com) but thought since you mentioned custom printing, that you'd be interested to know we currently have a special where first time custom printing customers can get upto 1,000 bags or boxes hot stamped for free (you just pay the plate fee). Details are here: http://www.retailpackaging.com/pages/custom-printed-packaging-promo

I have been working to set this up this morning. I went with Payvment app, I like that you can shop any payvment store on Facebook and your cart carries over with you. I don't have any results as of yet (since I'm still setting it up) but I do see more and more pages offering this, and look forward to seeing where it goes.

I'd highly recommend it. It is easy to use, there may be a little learning curve when setting up goals and such, but there are lots of tutorials out there to help you along. If you're investing any time or money in promoting your website it only make sense to look at what is working and what isn't, and Google analytics is a great place to get that info.

There are numerous ways to promote your site some popular ones are: PPC (Pay for ads on a per click basis). SEO (search engine optimization is about getting your site listed in the non-sponsored portion of the search engines). Email Marketing (If you have an email list it's a great way to drive sales to your site, if you don't have a list now is a great time to start building one). Social Media (this is Twitter, Facebook, etc.) Word of Mouth (you can create incentives for your current customers to tell their friends). Display/Banner ads (You can buy or Trade these). The great thing about the internet is that the options are pretty much endless. The best option for you will depend on what you're looking to accomplish, what resources you have available and what you will be most likely to get done. Hope this helps give you some ideas. Also you mentioned you were looking for specific links (like directories) checkout Ontolo.com they have a link building query generator (I believe it's free) that will help you search Google more effectively.

In terms of keeping your same site and just moving it to a new host, it is more likely that you would need to find a shopping cart you like and then have someone convert your current design into a template for the shopping cart. It won't be starting from scratch because the designer can use the images and such from your current design, but it's not likely going to be a matter of copying and pasting. Hope this helps, Josh

Kudos for knowing when to walk away. You'll always have situations where you're not able to find a reasonable solution in which case it's better to say no thanks, then take a deal that is bad for your business. Fortunetly (in my experience at least) for every unreasonable person there's at least 2 or 3 reasonable ones.

If you have an analytics program installed (like google analytics which is free) you should be able to see how many visitors you are getting from mobile devices and look to see if they have an abnormally high bounce rate, that would suggest they have issues loading your site. Then you can easily decide if it's worth it or not. Also many popular open source CMS' (such as wordpress and I think magento) have mobile support readily available, wordpress for example has the wp touch plugin which automatically redirects mobile users to a mobile friendly version of your site (it's as easy to install as any other plugin and they offer free and premium versions). You'll likely find that you don't need it at this point, but if you find that you do I'd suggest searching around about the software you're using to power your site, you might find that it's free/cheap and easy to implement. (disclaimer: I've installed wp touch several times with no issues but always recommend backing up your site before you make any changes just in case). Hope this helps, Josh

MY 2 cents would be, don't respond with a "no". When they asked you to raise their prices they are not really trying to bully you into running your business their way (usually), they are simply voicing a concern (people will go into their store smell your candles, like them, then pull out their iphone and find it on your website cheaper). If you don't want to raise your prices, but still want this account you should respond with a counter request that addresses their concern (if you say no either the conversation ends and the deal stops or they bite the bullet and agree. If you give another offer then they have the chance to say sure, no, or give a further offer). From what it sounds like they are being reasonable, giving you prime placement in their store, offering to make you the exclusive soap and candle line in their store and so on, I'll be willing to bet they'd consider other options. Offer to make an exclusive line for their company you can change the colors scents and packaging, still prominently feature your brand but include "exclusively at [store name]" Or ask for a minimum - let them know if you raise your prices you risk losing current customers, you're willing to do that but only if they commit to buy x amount from you each month for the next 12 months to limit your risk. If you get creative you can usually find a solution that works for both companies and hopefully builds a lasting and profitable relationship. Good Luck, Josh