VendingBox launches automated Facebook campaigns

One of the biggest challenges you will face when getting started with your Facebook store is providing regular updates on your products for your fans.

It's important to regularly update your page with special offers, promotions and details on what's new in your store. However this can be time consuming, and although we have all been drinking the social media cool-aid, we don't all have time to continuously update our pages in this way.

VendingBox has just launched a fantastic promotional tool, which allows vendors to create scheduled product promotion campaigns. In a nutshell, all you need do, is create a campaign, add some products, choose a schedule, and watch the posts happen for you!

The following easy steps show you how to get started.

1. Login to your VendingBox account, select a VendingBox, and choose 'Facebook Campaigns' from the left menu.

2. Click the "Get Started" link , giving the application permission to make posts to your page.

  

3. Allow the page to reload, and 'Create a new Campaign'. 

Once created you will be ready to begin adding some products.

4. Search for products to add to this promotional campaign, and choose 'Add' for each one.

 

When done, go 'back to campaigns' and configure your schedule.

5. Choose a slogan for your campaign. 

Some ideas would be "What's new" , "Friday Madness" , "Cake of the hour!" , "Special Offer" , "July is the month for gloves!"

There are lots of schedules to choose from, ranging from hourly to weekly. If you want to repeat the campaign once all the products in your list have completed, simply tick the 'Repeat' option.

The system already knows all of the Facebook pages you own, so you can choose the page to post the products. Enable the campaign, save and watch it all happen for you. 

There is no limit to the number of products that can be added to a campaign, and no limit to the number of campaigns you can create. You could promote one product at 20.00 and another at noon, or a have a daily special offer at 16:00

It's noon bargain time! What a cool call to action?

So what does it look like once posted?

Going on holidays and want to keep the posts going on your site while away?

Have you gathered a seasonal set of products, you want to promote over the next few weeks?

Let us know what you think of this feature!

Scheduled Inventory Imports

VendingBox has now made it even easier to keep your store’s products and stock levels up to date.  All that’s needed is a specified URL location of a maintained product feed file.  Then, simply specify the frequency at which the re-imports are to be made.

Feed file option 1:

VendingBox’s plugin feed files can be used to keep inventories up to date.  If you have already imported your webstore’s products using our unique plugin feed file, you have already specified the URL you need to use for scheduling. 

Simply go to ‘Cart Integration’ section under ‘Configuration’.  Copy this URL and paste it into the applicable field under ‘Scheduled imports’.

Feed file option 2:

The specification for a maintained .csv or .xml feed file, whose URL you will need to specify, are defined under ‘Manage Products’ > ‘Upload spreadsheet’.

How do I activate scheduled Imports?

In order to activate this feature go to Configuration > Scheduled Imports (tab). 

Enable the feature by clicking the tickbox.

You can set these automatic imports to occur as frequently as every hour, or even weekly.

Simply use the options in the drop-down menu to set the frequency. 
At the bottom of this menu you will also see the options for “every hour”, “every two hours”, and so on…

 

‘Delete products which are not imported’

vendors can set the import to delete all products that are present in the VendingBox store directly prior to the scheduled import.    This may be of interest to vendors who wish to update their VendingBox store in order to maintain stock control and prevent over-purchase of inventory. 

If a given one-off product is sold on a platform other than VendingBox prior to a scheduled import, and the feed file is updated to reflect this, then ticking this checkbox will ensure that this product is removed from the VendingBox store at the time of the next scheduled import. 

Although, some vendors may simply wish to schedule imports in order to continually ‘add’ products at each import, and do not wish to remove anything previously imported.  In this case vendors should leave this tickbox unchecked.

If you require any assistance with this feature please do net hesitate to contact us at support@vendingbox.net

VendingBox goes mobile.

VendingBox has just gone mobile!

This means there is now a mobile version of your store available whenever any customer views your catalog using a mobile device.

The mobile store is compact, optimized for mobile and branded with your colors and logos. It is fully functional, allowing customers to browse and purchase as before. When products are shared to twitter or facebook, or google and a customer uses a mobile device to access the store, it will show just like the example here.



If you are reading this on a mobile device,  see it in action here!


To see your own VendingBox store on a mobile device, try the following

1. Open your VendingBox store and share or tweet a product.
2. Use a mobile device to access the Facebook page or tweet and click the link.
3. The mobile version of your store will appear instead of the flash version.

This excellent new feature means your products can be purchased by all those customers on the move.

The store is fully iPhone and Android compatible, and also features VendingBox Share and Earn. So if you are offering social sales commission, it also works right there on mobile!


VendingBox works best as a wall store, so don't forget to share your VendingBox products!