Categories in Ecrater Store

The first section of the template speaks about Categories.

The first screen you will see is called the "ROOT". From what I have figured out so far you are allowed 5 different categories that are ROOT or MAIN categories. If you look presently, I have "Men’s Wear", "Ladies Wear", "Children's Wear" and "Trophies and Awards".

Look to the bottom and view "featured Categories" to see what I'm talking about. Look at the bottom for Visual. Again with my rush I couldn't figure out WHY when I uploaded a picture to go along with my categories it didn't show up! My first Category was "Men's Wear". I typed that in the first spot, and then uploaded a picture to go with the theme. For now I just picked one of the product pictures I was going to use. I may change that in the future. At this point I was just trying to get my feet wet! The next time I went right below that and press one of the "free" buttons. That way the program knew that my pair of pants went with "Men's Wear".

Next I wanted to do a 'sub' category under "Men's Wear", called "Jeans". What I learned was to go ahead and enter "Jeans", and then use the third button with the arrow on it, which is called "Move Category" after I entered it. So under Men's wear I have jeans, slacks, etc. Look towards the bottom under categories again VISUAL

You can also add additional subcategories with for me was, "Under 40 Waist" and "40 and over Waist". When I edited a category I had to find the main category in the pull down menu of categories to place in there. For this exercise it was Men's Wear: Jeans - then I placed the waist categories in the same fashion I did to break down the "Jeans, Slacks, Shorts" sections. Visual

Remember you can add categories and subcategories later if you wish to. In order to move your products into those categories AFTER the fact you must go into the products menu, and edit those. That discussion is for another day though!

Today's Feature:



Details:

Up for sale is an authentic pair of Tommy Hilfiger Big and Tall Khaki's in men's size 40 x 30.
Pants are front pleated and they feel very nice.

Condition:

Pants are gently worn, and very handsome. There is some slight fraying on the bottoms - see pictures. The buttons are missing on the back pockets. They have been washed, and are ready to go right out of the box!
Very Nice pair of pants, but check the measurements below!

Waist - Top of Pants 39.5
Hips - Around Bottom of Zipper 50
Rise - Crotch Seam to Top of Pants 11.75
Zipper to Top Of Pants 9
Inseam - Crotch Seam to Hem of Pants 26
Bottom of Pants - Length folded in half 9

ecrater, online store, small business, home based business, blogging, categories in Ecrater

Categories in Store

The first section of the template speaks about Categories.
The first screen you will see is called the "ROOT". From what I have figured out so far you are allowed 5 different categories that are ROOT or MAIN categories. If you look presently, I have "Men’s Wear", "Ladies Wear", "Children's Wear", "Extras" and "Trophies and Awards".







Look to the bottom and view "featured Categories" to see what I'm talking about. Look at the bottom for Visual. Again with my rush I couldn't figure out WHY when I uploaded a picture to go along with my categories it didn't show up! My first Category was "Men's Wear". I typed that in the first spot, and then uploaded a picture to go with the theme. For now I just picked one of the product pictures I was going to use. I may change that in the future. At this point I was just trying to get my feet wet! The next time I went right below that and press one of the "free" buttons. That way the program knew that my pair of pants went with "Men's Wear".

Look to the bottom and view "featured Categories" to see what I'm talking about. Look at the bottom for Visual. Again with my rush I couldn't figure out WHY when I uploaded a picture to go along with my categories it didn't show up! My first Category was "Men's Wear". I typed that in the first spot, and then uploaded a picture to go with the theme. For now I just picked one of the product pictures I was going to use. I may change that in the future. At this point I was just trying to get my feet wet! The next time I went right below that and press one of the "free" buttons. That way the program knew that my pair of pants went with "Men's Wear".

Next I wanted to do a 'sub' category under "Men's Wear", called "Jeans". What I learned was to go ahead and enter "Jeans", and then use the third button with the arrow on it, which is called "Move Category" after I entered it. So under Men's wear I have jeans, slacks, etc. Look towards the bottom under categories again VISUAL

You can also add additional subcategories with for me was, "Under 40 Waist" and "40 and over Waist". When I edited a category I had to find the main category in the pull down menu of categories to place in there. For this exercise it was Men's Wear: Jeans - then I placed the waist categories in the same fashion I did to break down the "Jeans, Slacks, Shorts" sections. Visual

Remember you can add categories and subcategories later if you wish to. In order to move your products into those categories AFTER the fact you must go into the products menu, and edit those. That discussion is for another day though!

Today's Feature:



Details:

Up for sale is an authentic pair of Tommy Hilfiger Big and Tall Khaki's in men's size 40 x 30.
Pants are front pleated and they feel very nice.

Condition:

Pants are gently worn, and very handsome. There is some slight fraying on the bottoms - see pictures. The buttons are missing on the back pockets. They have been washed, and are ready to go right out of the box!
Very Nice pair of pants, but check the measurements below!

Waist - Top of Pants 39.5
Hips - Around Bottom of Zipper 50
Rise - Crotch Seam to Top of Pants 11.75
Zipper to Top Of Pants 9
Inseam - Crotch Seam to Hem of Pants 26
Bottom of Pants - Length folded in half 9

ecrater, online store, small business, home based business, blogging, categories in Ecrater

First Entry

First off I need to mention that this is a mirror site that I hosted on wordpress. They have an awesome system, but for me to many restrictions.......especially NO JAVA SCRIPT! You can use next to nothing as far as extras that I really wanted to have. Once this site is up to day it will be my primary one again I believe!


The purpose of my blog? Well I guess there is a couple of things!

1. Show others my journey of figuring out HOW to open a free store up, attempt to market it, show my hills and valleys of the learning curve...and possibly learn some things from readers!


2. Show items from my store from time to time to hopefully get them there, and possibly purchase some items so I can donate some proceeds to Focus Ministries. Focus Ministries is a Christian based Domestic Abuse Ministry. I think they do a fine job, and I hope I can help them out financially so they can keep going! There is a huge need out there for their services!


3. Hopefully at the same time place some educational items out there so others can learn about this very important issue!

So how did I find a store? I have to be honest I was trying to get rid of some of the junk around my house, and placed them on ebay. I got very frustrated with their system of placing items on there, so it wouldn't take so darn long! I did some reading on the community section, and saw an ad for Auctiva I went and read around, and saw that they actually had videos about their product. Myself, personally I love visuals!

I went ahead signed up for the free service, and decided I would offer their optional insurance of my ebay bids. I figure it was the least I could do for paying for a really COOL product! Check it out! Free templates, and once you really get the hang of things...pretty darn easy! They also have a community that you can go and ask questions to.

In their community they had a thread about online stores. They seem to speak about stores off ebay mostly. Blujay.com was the first one they mentioned, and then they mentioned Ecrater Now I signed up for ecrater sometime in the evening, and decided to take a second look later on. The next day I guess they were doing upgrades or something, because the server was down. I went back to my community thread on auctiva, and took another look at blujay I guess you can call me impatient, because I began to place my items up that I wanted to place in a store there. It was nice but I really like the idea of catagories, more pictures, some of the other extras that ecrater had over blujay. I do wish ecrater would allow links, and html. I think that is one drawback. I do think they both have good features, but for me I prefered ecrater.

So! Introducing:




It will be changing as I figure out more, and I will share will all of you! For now I need to go, and I will leave you with my first add from Ecrater!

Details:

Up for sale is an authentic pair of Calvin Klein men's Jeans size 36 x 32.

Condition:

These are nice Jeans with no holes, rips, fraying. They have been washed, and are ready to go right out of the box!
Check the measurements below!

Waist - Top of Pants 37
Hips - Around Bottom of Zipper 48
Rise - Crotch Seam to Top of Pants 12
Zipper to Top Of Pants 8
Inseam - Crotch Seam to Hem of Pants 27
Bottom of Pants - Length folded in half 10

Click on Picture to go to store item directly!
ecrater, domestic abuse, domestic voilence, online store, small business, home based business,

My Journey Continues

With Ecrater I have learned (for me anyway) is that I have to edit my pictures first, and place them on my hard drive. I use CorelDraw 9 and Photo Paint for my stuff to edit after I take the pictures. I had read somewhere that if you place color and a caption behind your items it will make them stick out. I don't know if that works, but I figure I will give that a try for a while and see what happens.

The template itself took some getting used to, but the community forum was helpful with most of the items. I figured out my logo banner pretty quickly, and if you have a program that will allow you to use pixels for the sizing your banner will be larger(I converted to inches as it says .833 x .227). Otherwise I found it just makes it to small. The bigger picture right below it was a chore to figure out. I noticed within the forum most of the time when the question is asked they are forwarded to a thread regarding images, but I had a hard time figuring out what they were saying. I'm talking about the section where is says, "Your Image Here". To be honest I was looking for the upload button like you have to the logo section, and it wasn't there. If I were guessing I would assume that is what threw me! You will get to that portion, but ONLY after you click the template that you choose for your store. Its different that just telling the program WHAT template you want! LOL After you do that you go back CLICK on the chosen template, and then the upload screen appears! Again I made sure pixel size was correct(.583 x .653 inches).



Details:

Up for sale is an authentic pair of St. John's Bay Big and Tall Khaki's in men's size 40 x 30.
There are no holes or stains. Very Nice!

Condition:

Pants are gently worn, and very handsome. They have been washed, and are ready to go right out of the box!
Very Nice pair of pants, and check the measurements below!

Waist - Top of Pants 40
Hips - Around Bottom of Zipper 50
Rise - Crotch Seam to Top of Pants 12
Zipper to Top Of Pants 9.5
Inseam - Crotch Seam to Hem of Pants 27
Bottom of Pants - Length folded in half 9.5


ecrater, online store, small business, home based business, blogging,

Starting OUT

Well as I figure out wordpress I will be adding things along! (Revised - Have moved to Blogger)

The purpose of my blog? Well I guess there is a couple of things!

1. Show others my journey of figuring out HOW to open a free store up, attempt to market it, show my hills and valleys of the learning curve...and possibly learn some things from readers!


2. Show items from my store from time to time to hopefully get them there, and possibly purchase some items so I can donate some proceeds to Focus Ministries. Focus Ministries is a Christian based Domestic Abuse Ministry. I think they do a fine job, and I hope I can help them out financially so they can keep going! There is a huge need out there for their services!


3. Hopefully at the same time place some educational items out there so others can learn about this very important issue!

So how did I find a store? I have to be honest I was trying to get rid of some of the junk around my house, and placed them on ebay. I got very frustrated with their system of placing items on there, so it wouldn't take so darn long! I did some reading on the community section, and saw an ad for Auctiva I went and read around, and saw that they actually had videos about their product. Myself, personally I love visuals!

I went ahead signed up for the free service, and decided I would offer their optional insurance of my ebay bids. I figure it was the least I could do for paying for a really COOL product! Check it out! Free templates, and once you really get the hang of things...pretty darn easy! They also have a community that you can go and ask questions to.

In their community they had a thread about online stores. They seem to speak about stores off ebay mostly. Blujay.com was the first one they mentioned, and then they mentioned Ecrater Now I signed up for ecrater sometime in the evening, and decided to take a second look later on. The next day I guess they were doing upgrades or something, because the server was down. I went back to my community thread on auctiva, and took another look at blujay I guess you can call me impatient, because I began to place my items up that I wanted to place in a store there. It was nice but I really like the idea of catagories, more pictures, some of the other extras that ecrater had over blujay. I do wish ecrater would allow links, and html. I think that is one drawback. I do think they both have good features, but for me I prefered ecrater.

So! Introducing:

My store for the new Store. It will be changing as I figure out more, and I will share will all of you! For now I need to go, and I will leave you with my first add from Ecrater!

Details:

Up for sale is an authentic pair of Calvin Klein men's Jeans size 36 x 32.

Condition:

These are nice Jeans with no holes, rips, fraying. They have been washed, and are ready to go right out of the box!
Check the measurements below!

Waist - Top of Pants 37
Hips - Around Bottom of Zipper 48
Rise - Crotch Seam to Top of Pants 12
Zipper to Top Of Pants 8
Inseam - Crotch Seam to Hem of Pants 27
Bottom of Pants - Length folded in half 10

Normally, I use Priority Mail for all my packages.

If you would prefer to use Parcel Post for your packages to save some money on shipping I would be more than happy to do that. Keep in mind that will take at times a lot longer to get to you, and has restrictions for delivery confirmation and insurance.

I would be more than happy to combine items to save your money on shipping charges, and I normally ship out within 3-4 business days. If there is a delay I will contact you right away. I normally try to get the packages out promptly.

I welcome international orders, but you will have to contact me for a quote. Also be note that I can only pay the shipping charges presented at the time from the carrier, and can't be responsible for additional fees you are asked to pay to be received within your country.

Here are some helpful links for conversion from USA Sizes to International Sizes!

ecrater, domestic abuse, domestic voilence, online store, small business, home based business,

About Us

My journey to build a store for a faith based domestic abuse agency. Their name is Focus Ministry. Please note they are not affliated with Focus on the Family.

I have been a offline business owner for over 13 years, and have been successful at it. I have worked with community projects, been an officer for business organizations, and helped launch and run successful events.

I wanted to help a ministry online, and since my degree was Information systems I know I won't be totally out of my realm! Focus Ministries has impressed me, and their area of ministry can be a very scarey subject for anyone. Domestic Abuse is not a gender issue, but a very serious one that I feel fear of the subject overall is the biggest bottleneck to overcome. Christians I have found have an extra bottleneck which is also based in fear, and most tend to add the burden of issues onto the victim and family members.

Watch my hills, valleys, learning curves and victories while growing an online store and internet presence! When I'm unsure of something I will be honest about it! From a business prospective if something seems to make sense I will point that out as well! I welcome people to CLUE me in when you feel I'm wrong, and I always look forward to opinions, prospectives and ways to help those in need!

I'm not working for Focus Ministries, and I can't offer you tax write offs from purchases. They are aware of my presence here, and they also have some awesome resources at your disposal for individual needs, group or church. Please see their website for some awesome articles, resources and training options.

Besides a personal budget to help them I wanted to mention that we will be making monthly donations to them after we pay the costs of the items purchased. NO we aren't adding in HUGE adminstrative fees and such we have heard of from others. Our goal is to help families in need, and make sure staff and costs are taken care of.

I will not give the world's view of 'holy rollers' here! LOL! Boy some of the stories I have heard! I do sincerely wish to help an organization that help so many others. A place that some are afraid to attend their events because the subject matter is to 'outside the box' for them. If you don't wish to help with the by purchasing please consider a donation. Their website information is on my main page - right side - towards the TOP!

God BLESS!

Additional Ecrater Stores

Ecrater is a wonderful market place on the web! Below is a sampling of some stores that you might enjoy!!