Hello everyone,

 

I have just recently launched a new startup, InfluxShopping.com. We provide online store owners a place to showcase their store on our eCommerce marketplace. Looking for reviews on the sites design and idea.

 

We are trying to provide a centralised location for people to search for new online web stores, a twist on the current boring search engine methods and results, which can be only helpful for those with thousands to spend on SEO, to improve their search ranking.

 

If you already have an online store setup and would like to display it on our 'marketplace', you can signup on our website. And once your site has been approved to display, a hyperlinked thumbnail of your store will appear within our 'Marketplace', where all our traffic is targeted. When clicked, your store will appear (full size) to the users within our website, where they can continue as normal along with switch from one store to another easily. Your store will also be placed within it's corresponding category, this helps users to remove all un-related stores while searching.

 

I will leave the website itself to provide all the information you need, however if you do have any additional questions, comments or suggestions please feel free to reply here on the thread or email us.

 

Thank you, we hope you find our new service useful.

 

The 'Marketplace': http://www.InfluxShopping.com/marketplace'>http://www.influxshopping.com/marketplace

 

http://www.InfluxShopping.com

Edited March 30, 201214 yr by JordanC

Quick pitch of the idea for those that would still like more info.

 

The idea of my site is to display other peoples online eCommerce stores which can help the business to grow, having their store listed amongst others which will also drive and overall have a centralised location for people to 'shop' online. For example:

 

If your looking for 'Clothing' you could go to Google, but you'd get about 100,000,000 results and they won't all be about clothing, also if you go into one of the results from Google and click 20 times, you'd have to click 'Back' on your browser 21 times to get back to Google, on my site you can switch from one store to another in one click. Also filter out all stores that are un-related to what your searching for. Currently you just filter out the stores you don't want etc but, I hope to add in a search field in time.

Hmmm...not sure how this will work for specific product searches. For example, searching 'Ugg Boots' in google is going to bring results quicker than going to your site, hitting the 'clothing' tab, clicking through to a site that looks like it might sell Ugg Boots and then running a search on that site. Google Shopping also offers price comparisons, so in one step you can search for a specific product and see the cheapest place to buy it.

 

Unless you can deep drill from your site into your listed sores for specific products then people will find results quicker with Google.

 

Just my humble opinion!

Hmmm...not sure how this will work for specific product searches. For example, searching 'Ugg Boots' in google is going to bring results quicker than going to your site, hitting the 'clothing' tab, clicking through to a site that looks like it might sell Ugg Boots and then running a search on that site. Google Shopping also offers price comparisons, so in one step you can search for a specific product and see the cheapest place to buy it.

 

Unless you can deep drill from your site into your listed sores for specific products then people will find results quicker with Google.

 

Just my humble opinion!

 

Thanks for the reply and opinion Dabbstar.

 

I completely agree with the fact some customers may find a good looking store but one without the item they specifically want. However unless I have access to each stores site data (back-end and databases etc..), I don't have the ability to allow users to search within all the stores.

 

But the suggestion gave me the idea of each store signed up to the site could register 'keywords' for their store, and a search on InfluxShopping would use those keywords to display stores matching the search criteria.

 

Hows that sound anyway? I'm trying to expand the site as much as I can to help both store owners and customers.

 

Jordan

Implementing a Google site search for each listed store will allow users to quickly search pages without leaving your site. Opens up a new revenue stream if you enable adsense too. Have you used Google CSE before?

Implementing a Google site search for each listed store will allow users to quickly search pages without leaving your site. Opens up a new revenue stream if you enable adsense too. Have you used Google CSE before?

 

Fabbstar, that is an Amazing idea! Don't know why I hadn't thought to use it before.

 

I'm checking it out now, the preview of it works amazingly well to search through all the stores listed on my site with the ability to add more as I receive more customers. Again, thank you for the suggestion!

 

Will be sure to update you when I work it into the site too.

 

Jordan

No probs! Good time to start using CSE, it's been overlooked for a while by the developers at Google but lately has seen some cool enhancements, such as general aesthetics, thumbnails in results, image search etc. Used the tool a bit so shout if you need help, with a bit of trial and error you should get the results you need!

I've gone ahead and added the search to the site. Works amazingly well and such a great feature to have, thanks again for the suggestion. http://www.influxshopping.com/marketplace

 

A few little issues with other parts of the site to sort which I've just realised but it's looking good. Just need to continue to market it (my biggest issue, as I don't know how to properly go about this).

 

Jordan

Edited April 4, 201214 yr by JordanC

Awesome - pleased it works.

 

A suggestion in marketing the site would be to link share with stores who subscribe to your free plan. You could make it work for them by creating a range of badges for them to embed in their footers, badges that read: 'influx approved store', 'influx listed' - or summat like that. I can think of other ideas to add value to your listed stores, which should make them happy to add the said badge to their shop fronts. For example, Google CSE has a promotion feature, so stores who agree to embed the badge can get items 'promoted' in your CSE results. The key is adding enough value so stores agree to embed, then you've potentially got traffic coming from each store. Just an idea!

Awesome - pleased it works.

 

A suggestion in marketing the site would be to link share with stores who subscribe to your free plan. You could make it work for them by creating a range of badges for them to embed in their footers, badges that read: 'influx approved store', 'influx listed' - or summat like that. I can think of other ideas to add value to your listed stores, which should make them happy to add the said badge to their shop fronts. For example, Google CSE has a promotion feature, so stores who agree to embed the badge can get items 'promoted' in your CSE results. The key is adding enough value so stores agree to embed, then you've potentially got traffic coming from each store. Just an idea!

 

Thanks again for all the suggestions Fabbstar.

 

Currently working on them all and yeah I like the 'promoted search' idea a lot too. Free for the stores as they just need to add a badge (so those stores with more money than others don't influence the search feature for their own benefit mostly).

 

Trying to improve it for SEO too right now, looking to get high up the keywords "eCommerce, marketplace" etc.. although with those keywords, I have a lot of competition lol. But also checking out related forums too.

 

Jordan