232 New Posts Today

[Amy Ely]

We are pleased to announce the launch of our latest product: ShopCentral!
This store builder tool enables affiliates to create and install a shopping platform on their site within minutes.



Tell me more...
ShopCentral is a simple, dynamic and hassle-free store builder that integrates with buy.at’s API. The end result is a professional looking, live-feed shopping engine created with minimal effort.

ShopCentral's innovation lies in its implementation, designed for complete ease of use and simplicity for our affiliates. Enjoy minimal running requirements, an extremely easy install and update process, and the ability to feature millions of commissionable products on your site with your own customized store in minutes.

You can customize the shop to suit your needs but we've designed some pre-built templates (including a Christmas theme) for you to use, like the examples below:




ShopCentral - Key Features:
• Minimal running requirements
• Simple install
• Maintained using the Management Area (no need to re-upload shop after editing)
• Setup in minutes
• No maintenance - powered by buy.at's API with real-time feed access
• Access to millions of products across hundreds of merchant feeds
• Customizable to suit your needs (both in design or presentation but also in content and feature set)

Oh, and you can have as many shops as you like - it's completely free.

I want one. Where can I get started with ShopCentral?
You will find ShopCentral in your Affiliate Management Area under "Content & Creative", or click here: https://users.buy.at/ma/index.php/ips
This interface allows you to setup, edit and download your shop and contains a PDF install guide.

If you need more convincing or want to see a demo shop in action visit buy.at Labs: ShopCentral | buy.at's lab for new affiliate technologies

There's more to come...
This is just the beginning for ShopCentral! We've implemented the shop fundamentals but built this tool with plenty of room for growth and new feature sets.

As a result, we'd love to hear your opinions. We've implemented a feedback widget on every page of the Management Area (hovering along the right side of the interface). It's not just for ShopCentral though, let us know what you think so we can continuously refine and improve our products and services across the board.

As always, feel free to contact us with any questions.

Thanks,
Amy Ely

[Vinny O'Hare]

Looks like something affiliates can really use and simple to do.

[Bill]

Neat code. I'm "playing with" it already. (Not good - 'cause I'm heading on a trip tomorrow morning and I need to get some sleep - and this looks like it can keep me up late. DRAT! )

[Amy Ely]

Lol - glad to hear you're having fun with it

[factcheckers]

Howdy,

Does anyone know if ShopCentral works with Ticketmaster?

I must be doing something wrong. The store shows artists who are not on tour: The Police, The Killers, Kings of Leon, etc.

The store shows only 45 items, and they are not in any order. The first item is The Killers for $38.50 with no further explanation, no city or date. Then it's Kings of Leon for $24.50, then back to The Killers for $35.

The Store does list "Cats" several times, and this is a valid show. However the link(s) bring me to the main Ticketmaster site. I would expect to go to http://www.ticketmaster.com/Cats-tickets/artist/843992. I tried using all 3 Product Link Behaviours: Merchant site, Product page, and Lightbox.

One more question, please. Is MovieTickets.com available for ShopCentral? I can't get anything to show up for them. Thanks.

[mayfly]

Seems like a great tool. I just went and played with it a little bit...one quick question: is there anyway we can "preview" the stores before going thru all the downloads and uploads?

[kriskennedy]

Hi Mayfly, Factcheckers

Just so you know, you only ever need download the store once and then any changes you make can be made using the Management Area if you edit the store, click "Save" and simply refresh your Shop.

I will speak to our Design Team about the upcoming release to ShopCentral about a preview facility in the Management Area so thanks for your feedback. If you have any other suggestions let me know.

Factcheckers - Ticketmaster does work with ShopCentral but we seem to have an issue with the feed. We are working to resolve this now and I'll let you know when it's fixed. Thanks for the heads up.

Also regarding MovieTickets.com - their product feed isn't available yet and we are working with them now to integrate with our systems.

Best regards,

Kris Kennedy

[kriskennedy]

Hi Factcheckers,

Just to let you know that the Ticketmaster feed issues were resolved this morning so your shop should be functioning correctly now.

Let me know if you have any other problems or questions on ShopCentral. The more feedback the better as we are currently deciding on the next feature set!

Many thanks,

Kris Kennedy
Project Manager
buy.at

[Bill]

Really slick the way this works. One simple download/upload and it's ready to go. Alterations can be made at will and on the fly via the buy.at interface.

Two anomalies thus far noticed:

1) I'm getting an awful lot of "Image Not Available" displays (mostly Swarovski items).

2) Any chance of getting the "Jewellery" category changed to "Jewelry" - a bit more "Americanized?"

[factcheckers]

There are now 14,291 pages (10 items per page) of Ticketmaster items in no particular order, that I can tell. Without some filtering, sorting, or selection option, I don't yet see how Ticketmaster items are a good fit for ShopCentral.

If I go to the last page and work backwards, there are many items with zero amounts and displaying pictures of luggage, gym bags, and such. My buy.at programs are only MovieTickets and Ticketmaster, no merchandise. The only category I selected was Event Tickets.

I really like the animal print handbag that is displaying for the band, Foreigner, LOL. If I click on the image, it brings me to the Ticketmaster Canada site to an actual concert, so some progress has been made.

[Sproates]

Hi everyone,

We are currently putting together a couple of guides for ShopCentral for those of you who wish to tinker with it beyond what can be done out of the box: one guide for customising the skins/styles, and another for techie aspects such as changing the functions of the shop and integrating it with an existing site.

In the meantime if anyone has any techie questions about customising their ShopCentral shop or has problems installing it or getting it to work, please contact me at ian.sproates@corp.aol.com.

Ian Sproates, Software Development Manager, buy.at AOL Advertising, +44 (0)191 222 9728, ian.sproates@corp.aol.com, www.buy.at

[silent_thunder]

Wow!! Just super. No work for us now.I just looks and feels much better than astore.

The only program is the wait times with getting approved for each programs

Features I like
1.So every time we make a change there is no need to change the files
2.Meta Tags and Keywords


The Templates are not aligned,Testing IN FF and Windows 7 , If you select all the categories and use Purple Vertical the menus are loading behind search

@Sproates I just downloaded a PDF from Buy.at is that the guide that you were talking about? or is there something else?

[Sproates]

Originally Posted by silent_thunder

@Sproates I just downloaded a PDF from Buy.at is that the guide that you were talking about? or is there something else?

The PDF you downloaded is the installation guide. It's pretty basic. We'll soon be publishing more in depth, technical guides telling you how to customise the shop even further.

[Ben Taylor]

- The Templates are not aligned,Testing IN FF and Windows 7

Hi SilentThunder,

Can you let me know which version you are using of FF, and i will look into this.

Thanks

Ben
--
Lead Design Engineer
buy.at

[silent_thunder]

@Ben Taylor

I am using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

Resolution 1366x768

[Ben Taylor]

Hi silent thunder.

Thanks for the further information. We recommend using one of the skins with a vertical navigation for configurations with more than 6 or so categories.

If you switch to the purple vertical skin, you should get a nicely formatted menu down the left hand side of the screen.

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Ben
---
Ben Taylor
Lead Design Engineer
buy.at

ben.taylor at buy.at