Why Shopping Comparison Sites Should Use an Application
I love getting a great deal, and I don’t have a lot of time to search for alternative offers so I use a shopping application. The shopping comparison sites are great. I bookmarked Overstock.com, Shopzilla, SmartBargains, Shopping.com, PriceGrabber.com, and Yahoo! Shopping. Of course, there is always Amazon and eBay. (Dangerous, as these sites are addicting and I couldn’t pass up several great bargains doing my research.)
However, I really love the convenience of desktop applications. And there are many benefits for the retailer. Being on the user’s desktop keeps your site top-of-mind and increases impulse purchases. Who doesn’t get distracted occasionally and begin to play with the apps on their desktops? Voila, a potential sale for you. Or the app can jump in when the user is searching for an item that the retailer has in their inventory. Voila, another potential sale.
Reminders. Shopping applications can offer reminders and promotions—creating an urgency to buy during key times of the year. What man doesn’t need to be reminded that they should buy their wife or girlfriend a gift during the holidays? Also if they are planning to buy online, they might need a reminder to buy now in order to get the gift there in time for the holidays. Gift suggestions can also do the trick. Shopping apps can offer more product information as well as recommendations; things that increase the value for the user.
While shopping applications were once difficult and time consuming to develop, new tools such as Adobe AIR exponentially speed up time to market. Adobe AIR allows developers to use web based technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and AJAX to develop shopping applications with the ability to support multiple operating systems. Adobe AIR also allows the shopping application to interact with your website if the user has it open in their browser. Previously this was much more difficult to do. Typically websites are sandboxed, however, Adobe AIR gives developers the ability to access some operating system features that only the typical shopping application could access to in the past. Adobe AIR is a remarkable technology that will allow you to get your app developed and out to your customers in no time.
With the simplicity of Adobe AIR. a shopping application can be built to maximize sales for this year’s holiday. Once a shopping comparison application is built, a large user base is necessary to reap the rewards. W3i has distributed over 300 million applications with proven results for e-retailers. The VP of Business Development at a major shopping comparison site comments about W3i’s Application Network, “W3i’s distribution partnership helped us build a loyal and active user base of well over three million daily consumers comparing prices across thousands of Internet stores within six months of launch.” Click Here to learn more about the W3i Application Network, a performance-based distribution opportunity, and how it can begin building your user base.
Thomas Heitz, Business Development, W3i
Thomas is a Business Development Executive at W3i, an application network that increases revenue, distribution, and engagement for Windows applications and plug-ins. His expertise is in increasing revenue and traffic for shopping and entertainment applications.
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