A hosted-BANS, but better. 100% Commissions

Hey BANS dudes and other CJ affiliate marketers...

A couple of us have been PMing about an idea. Would any of you be interested in a hosted BANS-like product that included eBay (nothing new there), but also bring in Amazon and the full CJ product catalog? CJ exposes an HUGE product catalog via their API.

I have built the platform for this, it's been running for about 6 months. Currently PR 4. But I currently only use it myself. After following several discussions, I've been considering commercializing the platform to allow others to "run" their own store under their own URLs - put in their affiliate ids (CJ and Amazon)... Would appreciate any feedback on the idea.

If you need a proof-of-concept: We're currently allowing people to use our domain for free with their CJ and Amazon affiliate ids to see how it works and to gain some awareness. Sign-up, run some traffic through there to see it's real... In the long run, I know the serious people don't like to build links for a domain that is not theirs (and I don't blame them). Thus, I'm considering building a hosted version of this that would respond to their domain name.

I would need the help from some serious people to get this off the ground. I would be looking for a group that would be willing to beta-test and help me work through the bugs. They would get a free instance, or course, in return for their help. I would also be asking for testimonials, etc, to help on the marketing side. I'd envision an affiliate program for sign-ups as well. The early beta-tester group could have very favorable terms there too as an incentive...

Serious IMers only please... Thx

 

One other thought on this. I have a script running at Blogskinny.com that will automatically post blog posts to blogger.com using the gData API. I was thinking that this should somehow be included in the hosted BANS product... I would think that with some sort of marketing / SEO piece built-in, it would really help people with what they are already doing manually to promote their BANS sites...

 

Ive got two clients who want to use BANS but with their Ebay store instead of Ebay category data pull.

Can you do this for E bay store owners or those who would want to own an Ebay store of their own products?

Also you could pull in RSS feeds to create content on the pages...I think this would help with Google not seeing the sites as thin affiliate sites.

 

Already been done. http://www.hostedniche.com It is based on ebay API keyword search. Some of the other things suggested here could be added.......

 

Sem-Advance - Great ideas..

1) RSS consumption.. YES. I already do this on my directory (see sig) on a fairly large scale. So that's no big deal. I like the idea. Helps avoid the "similar footprint" problem for Google SERP.
2) I have never pulled data through the eBay API *by listing ID*. I'm assuming it's there as a criteria. If it's there, I would commit to it. I'll dig into the docs for the calls I'm using and post what I find.

Understanding that this is a beta-run, would either of your clients be interested?

 

Thanks.. A few points:

1) www.hostedniche.com is PR 0. I was going to launch this from http://Compare4.us
2) It looks like www.hostedniche.com is only pulling from RSS feeds... My proposal (and what Compare4.us already does) is pull from the eBay API, which gives real-time info as well as much more interactivity for search criteria, etc.
3) I think the real differentiator is that I'm proposing that this solution would duplicate the eBay capabilities of BANS and www.hostedniche.com, but would add in Amazon products AND the CJ.com product catalog.
4) I didn't totally follow, but was www.hostedniche.com letting you use your domain? My proposal is that you would point your DNS at my server farm and the script would read it and display your hosted niche store..

Good? Bad? Worth doing? I certainly appreciate the feedback. If people here don't get excited about it, then it's probably a loser. After all, this is the market (IMers)...

 

1) Yes, just starting out. Hosted niche allows subdomains or use of your own domain.

2) API, Also look at the source. No references to eBay.

3) Good point. Pulling from cj would be good. I wouldn't want Amazon, doesn't pay well. I dont know about you, but most of my money comes from $25 sign ups.

4) subdomain or own domain. Examples http://www.simpsonscollectables.com http://simpsons-collectables.hostedniche.com

 

Thanks ecw...

Sounds like we might be competitors if I decide to go forward with this. That okay, it's a big Internet... Any interest in joining us on this project? Or too close to home... I can PM you the full details of my beta-tester offer..

Not been my experience. I make WAY more from Amazon than eBay sign-ups.

 

Seeing that the site works on shopping comparisons, it is pretty easy to see why Amazon would take precedence in terms of commissions.

 

Thanks both for feedback. Let me know if you think the deal I've laid out in the PM is fair. I think this is a HUGE market, but I need a team to attack it. That will only work if everybody wins... Let me know.

 

Also, can you elaborate on how you see RSS best working into this? Here's where my head is at:

1) Give the store owner an RSS registration page. The owner supplies the rss URLs that they want pulled into their stores.
2) An RSS engine updates based on new content from RSS publisher...

Sure - That part's easy. Now what? Where does it show in their store? In Compare4.us, I have the RSS under articles... Those get picked up by Google really nicely, but there isn't much integration with the products being displayed. Any better way to do that? Or is it up to the store owner to pick RSS feeds relevant to their niche and leave it at that?

 

Do you guys know, does BANS have a built-in affiliate program management piece?

 

Curious:

One thing that I was never clear on, how does seo work when your domain is redirected via dns?

 

purdue512, sounds interesting. I would like to know how well the test sites are doing in terms of traffic and sales. I have a couple of test sites but are tiny compared to your comparison site so I haven't gathered much useful information.

 

Great basscleff..

You'll get slot #6 out of the 10... I'll PM you further instructions...

 

Sounds interesting. Send details please.

 

Totally fair question. December has brought in about $400 (that's adding CJ and Amazon together) for me. I think there were some Adsense $$ also, but can't remember. That's with very little promotional activity. I will pull together screen shots for you.

Now, others are using the site and I don't see the revenue because it goes to their IDs directly. So on that, I can only estimate based on the volumes I see coming through. I'm guessing the site as a whole is earning a couple thousand a month right now. That's with a handful of users, none of which are serious marketers.

No issues there. ALL sites are redirected via DNS. Without DNS, Google (and the world) couldn't find your site.

Are you asking about the difference between a CNAME and A RECORD? On that, I don't think there's any difference for SEO. If someone thinks there is, please let me know before we go too far and we'll use an A RECORD approach instead.

 

Hello purdue512

PM sent.

hanji

 

Okay team: There is clearly enough interest here with the responses I've gotten to call this thing a "GO." For those who have committed to helping me test, many thanks. I think you'll be happy with the financial rewards as I've laid out in the PM in return for your efforts testing and marketing this product. For those still thinking about it, I still have several slots I'd like to fill. Just get in touch..

I will put some thought into the best communication strategy. In the mean time, for those ready to start testing:

I'm calling this: C4us Niche Store (v0.1)

Please point the DNS for the domain you will be using for this to resolve to c4us.compare4.us. In geek speak, your domain will be a CNAME to c4us.compare4.us.

For example: If you have your domain dns hosted at GoDaddy, do this:

1) Log in
2) Domains \ MyDomains
3) Click on the domain you're going to use
4) Under "TOTAL DNS" click on "Total DNS Control and MX Records"
5) Under CNAMES: Click edit (the pencil) for the CNAME of "www". Change the entry to point to "c4us.compare4.us" (don't use the quotes)... If you don't have an entry for www, build one pointing to "c4us.compare4.us".

We'd prefer you used this CNAME approach so that we can change the IP address for the platform in the future as needed for maintenance, scaling and load / link balancing. If you are not planing on using the "www" prefix, you can build an A RECORD pointed at our IP directly, but please do this with the understanding that you will have to update it in the future if we change IPs (for which we'll give you warning) and may have some down-time for your site associated with that cut-over... The CNAME approach will ensure no down-time.

Let me know what questions you have...

When the DNS is replicated, you should just see my Compare4.us site when you browse www.[I]yourdomainname[/I].com. PM me when that's complete and we'll get the configuration ball rolling so you can start testing C4us Niche Store v0.1...

 

Hello

Just trying to understand this correctly. If we use CNAME, we'll be able to point www to your servers, but we'll still need a valid A record for the zone. How do you handle if someone types this in the browser (http://yourdomain.com)? If I'm following correctly, (http://www.yourdomain.com) will resolve to you fine, but the first example won't. I'm guessing we'll need to put one of your IPs as the A record, but risk the chance of that failing if you change the IP if the user does not prepend the www.

I don't normally mess with CNAME, so I could be missing something.

Thanks!
hanji