List Your Products Free For 3 Months!

Icoste · Jan 24, 2009

Hi Guys,

We are currently doing a great promotion, we are offering 3 Months Free listings with Icoste.com. We can list all your products absolutely free for the first 3 months and after that prices are as little as 18p per click.

Icoste is a large UK shopping site with thousands of visitors searching for products every day, we have over 500 shops currently listed with us and we have top ten results on Google for thousands of keywords. We are similar to other sites such as Kelkoo & Pricerunner as we offer price comparisons to our visitors and also product reviews and ratings.

We can import your products via any data feed you have available as our import process is very flexible, or you can manually add/remove/update products from your merchant account.
There are no contracts or upfront payments and there is no requirement to stay with us after the 3 months.

If you do wish to stay with us we will simply send you an invoice at the end of each month for the visitors we have sent you, this invoice includes a breakdown of all the clicks, dates, times, IP addresses, visited products etc.

We have 2 merchant accounts available. To find out more, simply visit our "Merchants Get Listed" page on icoste.com or you can reply here.

Hopefully we can get some more merchants signed up and start boosting sales for your business.

Let me know your thoughts....

Best Regards,

Mike Meade
Sales & Marketing Manager

Eagle · Jan 24, 2009

Sounds good - I'll have a shufty.

Deleted member 27344 · Jan 24, 2009

I've said it too many times before and no doubt I'll say it many times again:

No company registration details visible (illegal)
No SSL on login pages (cheaply run?)

Wouldn't touch it (if I had anything to list that is!).

Icoste · Jan 24, 2009

Hi,

We are not a Limited Company, we are independently owned. So its not illegal, and we do have our contact details listed on the "About Us" page.

Agreed, we dont have SSL, but we do not store any personal details in the admin area, it is simply so that the merchant can add/remove/edit their products.

Please can you make sure that you do not accuse businesses on this forum as "illegal" if you are not 100% sure what you are talking about.

Best regards,

Mike Meade

Eagle · Jan 24, 2009

Too many people assume 'Company'.

Deleted member 27344 · Jan 24, 2009

Well actually i didn't accuse you of being illegal but the fact that you haven't any business registration details being illegal.

So, Mike, learn business law and stop taking things so personal.

I couldn't find the info on the UK government site (what a surprise!) but you might like to read this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/21/new_web_email_regulation/

Icoste · Jan 24, 2009

Again, we are not a "Company", so we do not need to have any "Company" details, because we dont have any.

We do however have our business details on the "About Us" page.

We are not doing anything illegal, and I am not taking anything personally, I am just informing you of what we do and who we are.

We are an independently owned business, we are not hiding anything, nor do we intend to.

But as I said before, I think branding someone on this forum as "illegal" is very unprofessional if you do not know what you are talking about.

I do not wish to get into a debate or argue about this matter, I just want to inform you the correct details.

Best Regards,

Mike Meade

ken_uk · Jan 24, 2009

What is a independantly owned business?

Does that mean sole trader?

Icoste · Jan 24, 2009

Hi Ken,

Yes it does mean sole trader, although we do run as a business with many employees we are still classed as a sole trader, as we are not a Limited Company - there is no reason for us to be a Limited Company although some people class Limited Companies in a higher league.

Basically a sole trader (business) has one person who owns the whole business.
A Limited Company (company) does not have an owner, but directors who work for the company.

Hope this answers some questions and hopefully we can get back to the initial topic.

Best Regards,

Mike Meade

ken_uk · Jan 24, 2009

Thanks, Seems reasonable, just was a bit confused as not heard the term independantly owned before.

Steve2507 · Jan 24, 2009

Looks good, I shall drop you an email about it next week.

Plus I understand the law and know you can't have a company registration number on a site that is not run by a limited company.

Steve2507 · Jan 24, 2009

Okay, come across a small problem.

What format should the datafeed be in? I've had a look and can't find any info.?

Steve2507 · Jan 24, 2009

Just realised you expect a return link on our homepage and you want to charge per click - sorry deal broken.

Icoste · Jan 24, 2009

Hi Steve,

The datafeed can be in any format as long as it includes the title, price, image URL, and product URL, and preferably a category.

We do offer 2 different options if you prefer not to have the backlink, without the backlink it would be 26p per click and with the backlink it is only 18p per click.

The return link doesnt "have" to be on your homepage, it can simply be on a links or resources page, as long as that page is no more than 1 link away from your homepage, and is not full of hundreds of other links.

You can benefit from the 3 months free listings, plus get a reduced CPC rate.

Please let me know if you are still interested, if not im sorry I couldnt be of more help.

Best regards,

Mike Meade

Stampy · Jan 24, 2009

Is it a standard 26p per click? How do you get your traffic?

Adwords could well be cheaper than that unless you've got a hotline to some targetted traffic.

Icoste · Jan 24, 2009

Hi,

Yes 26p per click or 18p per click if if you choose to display our logo.

All our traffic is targeted, we get our traffic purely from natural searches, so if you have a product called "Sony 123", our visitors will be actively searching for "Sony 123" and then see your product and the price, and if they like the price they will click your link, or they may be browsing through our site and come across your product & price and be interested in buying the product.

Your prices are clearly displayed so any user that thinks it is too expensive will not click, this way you are getting clicks from users who are actually interested in buying your products.

Some of our merchants have conversion rates of 80%, the lowest conversion rate we have is 3% but the majority are a lot higher.

We send quality visitors who are looking to buy, we leave the rest up to the merchant. It is the merchants responsibility to provide an easy checkout and payment option.

Theres no contract, no upfront payments, you can cancel at any time.

We will simply send you an invoice at the end of each month for the visitors we have sent you, this will include all IP addresses, time & date of clicks, and the product that was clicked. Any trace of fraudulent clicks or competitor clicks you will not be billed for.

Agreed, you may get cheaper clicks via Google Adwords but the visitors are of a LOT less quality, and of course you may have competitors clicking away at your ads (Unless you invest in fraudulent click companies who charge you an arm and a leg).

Although we do have thousands visitors every day, we may also not send as many visitors as Google Adwords, but the visitors we do send are far more prone to actually purchasing your product.

I hope this clears a few things up for you, if you have any further questions i'd be glas to answer them.

Best Regards,

Mike Meade

Stampy · Jan 25, 2009

Thanks for the response and details Mike, particularly on a Saturday night. Definately looks like something worth investigating further.

Icoste · Jan 25, 2009

Hi Stampy,

No problem, we're hard workers here.

fisicx · Jan 26, 2009

Back to the legal issues: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdot...5385126&r.i=1075385095&r.l2=1075425686&r.s=sc

You have to display your contact detail including email address. If you have registered the business name then you have to display that registration number. Got nothing to do with being limited.

Like the look of the site but I tried searching for one of the items on the homepage and you were way down the results (page 3). I then looked at some of your competitors and nearly all of them were cheaper. So if I were researching a specific item it's very unlikely I'd use your service.

What can you offer me that other comparison sites don't?

Icoste · Jan 26, 2009

Hi, thanks for the reply.

You are absolutely right, we did not display our email address due to spam but we had a contact form. However we have now included our email address along with the other details. Thank you for pointing that out.

With regards to "nothing to do with being limited", the only way you can display a registration number if you are a limted company. You can not receive any registration number if you are not a limited company. We are not a limited company so we do not have a registration number.

Thanks for the feedback, we are constantly updating our search methods and other areas around the site to improve functionality and this will keep improving over time.

What we offer that other comparison sites dont, is 3 months free listings and high conversion rates.

We will offer any ecommerce store 3 months free listings with no contracts.

We may be a little more expensive than other sites, however we provide sales and results for our Merchants.

If you hire someone to do a job for you, and you choose the cheapest rate per hour but take 5 days to complete the job, this would be more expensive than hiring someone who charges twice as much but does the job in 2 days.

We are similar to this scenario, from personal experience other similar sites can send a lot of traffic but no sales are generated. We can a fair amount of traffic, but it is quality traffic, so this in turn leads to sales.

Thank you for your reply fisicx, you have made some good points and I hope I have explained a little more about what we do.

Best Regards

fisicx · Jan 26, 2009

Yup that's good.

But what's in it for ME (not the merchants). Why would I want to visit and use your service?

As a consumer, I don't care about your deals with the merchants. I'm only ever going to use your site if it offers a better deal than your competitors and of the 8 products I checked, all were available cheaper elsewhere so I'm surprised that you convert so well.

As to the email thing, there are loads of way to disguise it and block spam. Just search for 'hiding your email address'.

Icoste · Jan 26, 2009

Hi,

Sorry I didnt know you were asking as a consumer, my mistake.

We are now building up our database of reviews and ratings from other consumers to give our visitors more information and reviews about the products.

We are also going to be launching our discount codes soon which will be special codes for consumers to get discount off their purchases. As I said before, we are constantly improving the site every day and we welcome any requests.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards

fisicx · Jan 26, 2009

Nope still not a USP. All you are doing is offering something already available and the discount coupons are worthless unless it brings the price down below your competitors.

Even if I were a merchant I'd still want to know how effective the site is. I've been trying to find your listings on google and am not having much success. Youi are there but way down the ranking. That's not going to convince me that you will bring me much custome.

This is not me being grumpy, it's just that there are loads of comparison sites and I can't work out your USP.

Icoste · Jan 26, 2009

Hi,

I understand what you are saying, and appreciate your thoughts. We are offering stores 3 months free to see the results for themselves.

With regards to a USP, there doesnt always have to be a USP for every business, as long as it brings in customers why the need for a USP?

There are many well known brands that do not have USP's, Tesco for example do not have a USP, they are not the cheapest, they do not offer anything more than Sainsburys or Asda or Morrisons, however they are one of the biggest supermarkets (IMO the biggest).

I agree its good to have USP if you can, but there are millions of businesses that do not have one but are very well known and respected.

Please dont think that I am trying to argue, I appreciate your criticism and will only help us progress. I am also trying to answer your queries the best I can, so I hope I have.

Best Regards,

kanchan · Jan 27, 2009

Hi,
Well actually i didn't accuse you of being illegal but the fact that you haven't any business registration details being illegal.

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