Background. We were approached by a Rhode Island based writer and blogger, Tom Fitzgerald, who was overflowing with ideas about selling his books and “wisdom cards,” maintaining a blog, giving lectures around the country, even creating a modern day reincarnation of Ben Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” He had written four books and had created sets of message cards, and desired to sell everything online. Aside from the lectures, this was to be a product site.

Deliverables. Mr. Fitzgerald, after having explored several options for shopping carts and fulfillment with us, went with our advice to use WooCommerce and PayPal, given the small size of his product line. Regarding fulfillment, he wanted to do everything himself; being his own warehouse and fulfillment center appealed to him. We set up every aspect of his online store for him, including a customer matrix, postage rates, discounts, inventory, promotional codes, etc., and his P&L.

SPI’s e-commerce template is flexible and robust, applicable for do-it-yourselfers, and it is scalable for large volume product sales, warehousing, and fulfillment operations.