Does anyone have a masked soapguild website store?

[MaitriBB]

Hi all I signed up with the Soapmakers Guild last year and am using their website to sell soap (soapguildstores.com/maitribb).

I bought the domain name maitribathbody.com through Godaddy and masked the soap guild website's url to go to store.maitribathbody.com for a more professional look.

Unfortunately, when you go to store.maitribathbody.com, although it goes to the correct site, you can't buy anything. It won't add stuff to the website. I assume it's because of the masking somehow because every page at the soapguild website shows up at store.maitribathbody.com in the address bar.

Any web gurus who could explain it to me? I fear that I've been losing customers this past month by directing them to a site where they can't buy anything.

I removed the masking for now, but would prefer to use it if possible.

 

[VanessaP]

Its hard to tell when I can't attempt to use it while the masking is on.

My question is how many browsers have you tested the masking with while it was on?

 

[Badger]

I could test it on a couple different browsers if you wanted to set it to the masked website. (I am running Waterfox (a version of Firefox) and Chrome). Oh, I can also test internet exploder (er, explorer)

 

[MaitriBB]

Yeah I turned the masking off because I don't want to lose any sales. It's cool, I was just curious as to whether there was a fix to keep the masking.

 

[DeeAnna]

Why not pay the $50 or so a year to have your store hosted on your own internet service provider, rather than deal with a subdomain and the issues thereof?

That said, is the ecommerce software you are using for your store also a service provided by the Guild website? If so, the store software may be trying to create a shopping cart using your masked URL as the location for the cart, rather than the real URL for your subdomain. There might also be issues with a masked URL preventing the correct use of the Guild's SSL certificate for secure checkout. Not sure, but something to think about.

I doubt it is something you will be able to solve on your own -- I recommend you contact the tech support at the Guild's website or at GoDaddy.

PS -- I live about 2 hr north of you!

 

[melstan775]

Yeah if you have a we store, might as well host your own website. My website is sixty a year and I have two subdomains installed. I can have ecommerce if I want at no extra fee because I have unlimited storage. Ecommerce is a function of your website not your host. If you're being charged you're being ripped. I recommend staying away from godaddy- they are notorious for accounting errors. They are great to buy domains from because they are cheap but then have your domain transferred to a new host like blue host or Arvixe. If that's too complicated sounded, just buy a domain from whoever you host with. Use a host that had Wordpress blogging software available because it's the easiest way to run a website. Then get a free commerce theme from WooThemes. Their code is clean and organized and sooooo easy to customize. This is how I havw run all my websites since 2008. Hosting your own store is technically easier and the least expensive way to run a store in my opinion.

 

[MaitriBB]

Ok well I bought a plan at Arvixe and am in the process of transferring my domain name over. When I Went to woothemes, though, I can't seem to figure out how to download woocommerce.

Edit: Meh. I figured it out Am waiting for the domain transfer to go through in order to install Wordpress. Thanks for the help!

 

[melstan775]

You're welcome. Feel free to message me if you need help. It takes Arvixe a lil while to set up but once the do their backed is super easy to navigate.