ShopWindow v1
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Background and Introduction
Digital Window is the holding company for two key online businesses, Affiliate Window (the UK’s leading affiliate marketing network) and ShopWindow (shopping comparison service). Digital Window puts transactional websites (retailers) together with the owners of high traffic websites (partners), enabling them to share traffic in a way that is financially beneficial to all parties. The model is simple with the website supplying the traffic receiving an agreed commission for any completed sale. This is known as Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), when a retailer pays on performance. ShopWindow is a shopping comparison service that allows a partners users to search and compare over 6 million products from 800 retailers. Partners can integrate ShopWindow within their websites, offering users a shopping environment and channel through to sale. With over seven years experience in online marketing ShopWindow offers partners a powerful and rewarding service that can be delivered and maintained with little development and resource.
History
ShopWindow v1 launched towards the end of March in 2007 (26/03/07) and was the first shopping comparison portal of its kind to be released by a network. ShopWindow had a very positive uptake as it was promoted via many industry channels and was even coupled with its very own forum at launch. ShopWindow proved to be so successful that a year after launch, budget had allowed for a new, more robust version to be created.
Success
When ShopWindow launched the take up by affiliates was very positive. Affiliates seemed overwhelmed with the speed at which they could get a working site live and how easy it was to use. Many merchants saw the positive future in ShopWindow and hastily signed up to have their products promoted via this channel. ShopWindow v1 generated over £2 Million worth of sales for merchants before it was shelved for its bigger brother, v2.
Client Software v2
A year after the initial launch of the ShopWindow shopping comparison engine, a new version was launched due to its success. The new version built upon the same principles that had seen the notoriety gained from ShopWindow v1 and further enhanced the offering for affiliates and consumers. See below for a full list of the improved features. Again, as per ShopWindow v1, a number of templates were released to encourage users to adapt their install. The white label shopping solution delivered the bare bones template to encourage affiliates to take this on and manipulate it aesthetically to give it its own individual twist.
New Look Template
The new look template was designed to be a "bare bones" skeleton template to encourage affiliates to not adopt a standard layout but to tweak and manipulate the template to show off their creative flair. The standard out of the box template looks like the below:
Future
ShopWindow v3 was released in 2009 as the ShopWindow technology evolved and the current version surpassed its predecessor in many ways.
As the ShopWindow platform evolved it meant that the team had to look to the future and this of course meant unfortunately leaving behind the old versions. Support for legacy installs has now ceased, however, the platform has not been discontinued and so all of those that do have a v1/v2 integration are not going to lose their sites. The benefits and enhancements offered in v3 should be incentive enough for affiliates to migrate over.