Auctiva - Powerful solutions for eBay Sellers

I have spent time over the last few days helping make different store owner's sites functional. The work has ranged from people who have been around a long time to brand new sellers. The range of problems I have seen have been normal to strange and everywhere in between. I would like to share some of the things that I have found before I forget them. However I don't have the brain power to do so tonight. I can't write them all down while I am working or I am not giving my customer's their money's worth.

So if I don't come back within the next day or so with some advice, if someone can let me know.

Things to talk about:
It takes longer to fix it if you mess it up the first go around than it does to get it right the first time. Reasons we mess it up.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Michelle G,

and I'll add: setting up the wrong kind of shipping method for what you want to achieve, which is what I did.

Here is one about Paypal:
I had a paypal representative tell me that one of my customers could not pay me because it had to be that her card had expired that month. They had no other option to give me. She tried twice and couldn't do it. So I sent her an invoice through paypal. Then the next day she sent me another payment, same card, same method and didn't get the "paypal error". It was definitely a Paypal error and not a setup error on my end as I had just received a payment that morning using the same methods and I received another that day using the same method.

Additionally, I had Paypal technical support inform me that the reason I was getting a go back to your site for 30 minutes error (customers will really like that one!!!) was because I wasn't accepting cookies. I was doing the testing of a store set-up. I checked all my settings that was not the problem. However when I tried the exact same transaction later on that evening it worked 100% with no errors.

I know that this is frustrating as all heck, but even while selling on eBay, Paypal would occassionally hiccup and sometimes burp! I think I will setup up Google Checkout when it is available even if the prices are identical, just to have extra options for customers in case of technical difficulties. Because just like AC has them, Paypal certainly has them too. And just because they have phone support does not mean that the answers you receive are correct!

Settings within paypal.

If you are having to capture your payment even though your Paypal gateway settings are set to sale:

There are several things that I have seen that cause the payment pending thing to show incorrectly. Go to your paypal account. Look under profile, then payment preferences. If you have answered the first 2 questions with Ask me rather than no, then Paypal will capture even though your gateway setup is set to sale.

The questions are:
Block Payments for the items not sold on eBay from U.S. users who do not provide a confirmed address and Block payments sent to me in a currency I do not hold.

Email templates:

For any email that you want to go to the customer, in the email address box for that template it should read customer. Nothing else.

The "customer" is what AC has called the field that will bring in the email address of the current customer that has made the order. Do not override this field unless you want 1 specific person to receive all your order confirmations. In which case, why have the order confirmation email in the first place.

Sales Tax,

Your sales tax set up in the US should never be set up to Province = ALL unless you have a physical store in all 50 states. If yours looks this way you will charge everyone in all 50 states with your own state's sale tax rate. Customers will not appreciate this and may cancel a sale without contacting you.

You must have at least one tax code. It comes preset with one. If you delete it, the system will not calculate taxes correctly. Each sales tax rule must have a tick mark in a tax code box for it to work.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Michelle G,

Integrated shipping methods:

If you go into Store>Shippping>Integrated Carriers you should only have 1 line per carrier. You should not have USPS, USPS#2, USPS#3 etc. this will confuse the system and cause problems especially if they are set up differently. This problem is usually caused by someone repeated using the integrated shipping set up wizard repeatedly.

In the same section: If you look on your line and you see USPS (FEDEX etc.) on one line, then the only other thing you see on that line is the notebook and the red X, your shipping will not work. You may have a connection with the USPS, but you haven't selected any shipping methods yet. To fix this, go into the notebook, click on the tab at the top that says Services (Shipping methods) and select some options. When you first open up your method you will see the configuration settings tab. If your settings for test mode or enable debug mode are enabled your customer will not be able to use this shipping method.

If you are shipping USPS First Class International Mail, you probably want to select USPS First Class International package not USPS First Class International Parcel.

If your USPS User ID field has a user name or password that you usually use for something else it is incorrect. This User ID is provided by the USPS and will have numbers and letters totaling 12 characters and wont resemble (most likely) anything you would create for a name or password. Your user ID can be found on the email that you receive from the USPS when you register with them according to the AC tutorial.

If you never called the post office or got an email response back from them if you chose to do it by email, your USER ID is stuck in a test server and it will never work. If you call USPS Internet Customer Care Center (ICCC) from 7:00AM to 11:00PM Eastern Time at 1-800-344-7779 and give them your USER ID, they can tell you whether it has been moved from the test server to the production server.

Once you are moved to the USPS production server give it 30 minutes to an hour to work properly on your site.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Michelle G,

Thank you Michelle for this invaluable information!
Do Get some rest!
If you are burning the candle at both ends, you won't be in the middle very long!
Peace!
Cheryl, AKA Muffyjo, & Somebody!

HTML Head (Meta Tags) and Google Descriptions:

Don't leave these fields blank! Why because these are what help the search engines to find you.

Because people don't really understand this, I have seen people routinely leave these fields blank.

There is a specific syntax that you have to use in the meta tag field or it isn't going to help you be found. There is a clickable link to the left of the field that says meta generate. If you don't have the syntax yet, click on that link, leave name the way it is and keywords into the first box. You input your keywords into the second box and click update and it returns the code into the box. Then you click on the link again and type description. You enter your description and then you click ok. It will then add that into the HTML Head field on your item inventory.

Here is a good thread on the meta tag creation: http://community.auctiva.com/e...1099313/m/9191026713

quote:

Originally posted by Michelle G:
Integrated shipping methods:

If you are shipping USPS First Class International Mail, you probably want to select USPS First Class International package not USPS First Class International Parcel.

I am wondering why USPS has both of these on the drop-down list of choices?

I don't think there is a First Class Parcel anymore..it may have been prior to everything going Air Post.
I don't see anything on the USPS about it.

I don't know either. However if you choose it USPS 1st class parcel rather than package it will never show up as an option for an international customer.

Michelle,

I just went to check mine to see for sure what I had chosen.

Interestingly enough, for Domestic (US) you only have the choice of First Class Parcel.

But, Int'l shows both choices, Parcel & Package. Very good to know about this.

I do not have First Class (Int'l) as an option in my shipping methods (due to no tracking, DC etc.)
so guess I won't worry about it. But, I'm sure others use it.

Thanks

Michele
maybe so many meta tags and http fields are all empty ( like mine right now) is because the excellent video instruction stops with description so those of us that are computer illiterate don't know what to do next. It might help everyone (including his chuck norris t shirts ) if he finished the process. Might stop some ???s Of course it might hurt your set up business!

I am not worried about my set-up business. I will answer any question for free on the boards as you can see by my number of posts and my listing itself. My set-up services are for people who don't want to do it themselves. Otherwise why would I come back to tell other people what I have learned.

If you need help with meta tags and descriptions all you have to do is ask. Here is a great link from someone on meta tags: http://community.auctiva.com/e...1099313/m/9191026713

And here is a guide that I have been setting up on the boards - totally free - for everyone trying to keep track of the best threads both Auctiva and User so that everybody can get started. http://community.auctiva.com/e...511099313/m/47510367. I even noted in that thread about the problem with the Auctiva Commerce getting started video. I contacted AC to let them know that their video halts at the most inopportune time. The new Auctiva expert Steve indicated he was looking into. I looked again at the video last week and saw that it wasn't working. It also seems by your post that it still hasn't been fixed. I don't have the equipment or the knowledge of how to do you-tube videos. So unfortunately my explanations have to come in writing and sometimes pictures.

My primary store is a book store. I am waiting for the file upload capability to come so that I can more quickly put items into my store.

But I have been giving freely of my time since January helping others on the forums. Only just recently have people been asking if someone could do it for them. That is when I started to offer my services because no one else wanted to do so, offered to do so etc.

Here is another:

Similar to the multiple instances of shipping, I have seen people with multiple lines of Paypal in the Store>Payments>Gateways. This also is caused by using the payment setup wizard too many times and not realizing there is still one or more in existence. This will cause the system to be confused. You should only have one instance of paypal. If you click on the notebook to the left of the X on the instance that you are keeping, scroll down to the bottom. There should be a bar that goes across the screen that says payment method. You should A) have that bar, and B) paypal should be the only method checkmarked in there. If you don't have a paypal box in there you need to go to store>payment>method and create a paypal method.

To do so, click on the first drop down box under add payment method, select paypal, change user groups if needed and hit save. Then when you go back into your paypal gateway you can tick the paypal box at the bottom of the screen and hit save.