Selling on WordPress – Sell Services on WordPress

Posted by Jacob on Aug 14, 2011 in WordPress eCommerce Plugins | 0 comments

Principles of selling a Service are very similar to selling Products. Both solve a problem and like any other products if you want to sell your service, you will have to build your credibility and gain peoples trust because a potential buyer don’t really know what they will get from you until they spend their money and actually experience your service.

Services are intangible that means you cannot see them, touch them or take them out of the box or demonstrate them. Because of that you need to make your services easier for customers to buy. To do so you will need to productize your services. Make your services tangible.

Aim of this article is to demonstrate how to sell services from a WordPress site but I couldn’t help but to share couple of techniques below how to productize your services.

Turn your Service into a Product – Name your services. If you are selling services online, design a product box with your service name on it. Use the service name on all the supporting documentation, tips sheets, templates that are provided with your service.
Create different Service Levels – If you can divide your services into several packages that are easy to buy and cater your customers’ needs and budgets then you will sell more services and your customers will keep coming back.
Combine Services and Offer Special Bonus – If you are selling more than one service you can combine couple of them and offer special price or some kind of bonuses to your customers.

To sell a service from your own WordPress blog or site, you will need a WordPress eCommerce Plugin to collect payments, send payment confirmation and necessary email notifications or even generate tax/sales invoices. As Services are not tangible items so you won’t have to worry about shipping.

WP eStore Shopping Cart plugin is a top WordPress eCommerce plugin in the market. You can use this plugin to sell digital or non digital items including any type of services. I will do a live demonstrating using WP eStore Plugin to show how easily you can sell your services from a WordPress blog.

For example you are selling Blog Setup Service. For a basic Blog Setup you will be charging $99.95. Your are also offering Premium Themes for extra $15 and Ecommerce Plugin Installation for extra $25.

To add the service select “Add/Edit Products” from WP eStore menu.

Add/Edit Products

Enter the name of the service in Product Name and set up a price for the service. I have put some brief information about the service in “Product description” and an Image for our Service in “Thumbnail Image URL”.

Product Description

Don’t forget we are also selling extras with the basic Blog Setup service like Premium themes and Ecommerce plugin installation. To set them up you will need to add these to the product variations.

Product Variation

Click “Save Product” button at the bottom to save the service.

You will need the product ID to show the service on your post or site. Select “Manage Products” from WP eStore menu to retrieve the product ID for your service.

Manage Products

Product ID for Blog Setup Service is 9 on my site. Depending on the number of products you already have your product ID will be different.

If you are placing your service on a Blog Post or Product Page then simply click the WP eStore shortcodes icon from the menu bar and select a short code to your post or product page.