In my constant search for finding ways to monetize sites, I started hearing the buzz about PopShops. Okay, I'll bite. Basically, PopShops is a aggregator of datafeeds from multiple affiliate networks out there. Basically, they take in datafeeds from merchants within affiliate networks and gives you the ability to add products (across networks) and present that within your web site. They currently offer a "free" plan which gives you 10 pages/store/showcase, whatever makes sense to you. Also the free account only gives you javascript delivery method. Immediately, I didn't like the free account, since I want bots to be able to read my pages, and javascript won't cut it.
I upgraded to "Pro" which costs $5/month. I thought I'd give this a shot. With this option, you have unlimited store pages and most importantly, you can deliver the products via PHP (or other scripting languages). My first concern was related with security. I didn't want any type of url fopen() type code, where potential PHP could be embedded into my site auto-magically. I was glad to see that they're using cURL to send a created URL and return a HTML content block back from their server. This block is basically your theme (defined at PopShops) in raw HTML. This is great since this will be easily read and indexed. If you do not have cURL functionality on the server they provide a initial check for cURL and next it will fall back to fread() to fetch/receive the HTML content.
Currently, they're members of the following affiliate networks: Commission Junction, LinkConnector, LinkShare, Performics, Red Galoshes and ShareASale. I'm running into a few issues with LinkShare's encrypted ID that we're working through, but I was able to create a large store in about an hour. The Pro account has some problems (which they solve with the Enterprise account... I wish they wouldn't constantly hold the carrot in front of me!). Basically, Pro provides unlimited store/pages, but you're restricted to one PID or account ID. My brain wants to create many PopShops where I can track each site separately. This is available in the Enterprise model for $30/month. That's a bit more than I want to spend at this phase of the game. If the site I just created looks promising, and I see a decent return, I'll push to the Enterprise level. Along with PID management, you can manage the SID value as well. Which is important to me for keyword tracking.
One thing that I don't like with PopShops is the inability to provide 'paging' within the result sets returned. They offer a "related items" addition to your products, and with that you are provided with paging. Not sure why they can't offer that with basic product pages? I was thinking about parsing the HTML result set and making my own page handling, but read post on a forum where they stated that they're looking into this functionality.
My initial plan with my first PopShop is to promote with light PPC to see what kind of traffic I can get to it, and to see what kinds of returns I can hope to see. With this experiment, I'm going to go straight PopShop items only.. no eBay, no Adsense.
I'll be sure to report my findings.
Hello hanji, great post this one. How is your progress with popshops? It's really worth it?
Hello Dinheiro
Thanks for posting a comment. To answer your question, I created and launched my first popshops store a few days ago. My initial push will be organic traffic. I submitted to the search engines, stumbled it, linked to a couple of social bookmarking sites and created a few usfreeads.
I'll continue to do this, and probably make a squidoo lense or two for the rest of Feb. In March I plan to do a light test PPC campaign. Ten cent keywords with a low daily ceiling ($4/day). I basically want to see if I can get a conversion.
I don't know if it's worth it or not. Once I get a base of conversions I'll know at that time. I think Enterprise is the way to go.. but that's $30/month, and I want to know what kind of action to expect.
I'm excited to work on something non-eBay, which could lead to much higher commissions.. and allow me to diversify. My PopShop test also is restrictive in that I'm not promoting any eBay or other affiliates. No Adsense, and I'm sticking to one merchant for now. Once I get a feel of what this is about, I'll slowly expand.
I'll keep everyone posted on my progress... or non-progress.
Thanks!
hanji
Hello hanji! How is your progress with popshops?
I have one domain using PopShops and promoting it with light PPC on Yahoo. I've made a pretty decent profit with it every month. Commissions are slower, but are larger. I usually make 1-2 good sales a month, with 3-4 small sales. I'm researching other niches now, and should be upgrading to the Enterprise account shortly.
Thanks!
hanji
That's really great news hanji. Are you using popshops directly (like a shop using php) or are you using it mixed with a blog?
My pop shop is a stand alone store front.. so not a blog. I still haven't produced any more shops, and CJ sales have been down (EPN has been up on another note), so I need to get on it.
Thanks for commenting!
hanji
Hey,
I was wondering about your research on conversion numbers and the timeframe of your experiment.
Thanks!
-matt
Right now, I've since upgraded my account to Enterprise. It's $30/month, but is well worth it. I have several domains that are using PopShops. The domain that I started with averages around $100/month after PPC promoting. So that pays for the PopShops account. The commissions from CJ are so much higher than EPN, etc that it's definitely worth pursuing. It's harder to get daily sales though. In my experience, I'll go days and days without sales, then one day.. bam, I get $50, etc.
Thanks for commenting!
hanji