Internet Tradeline, which builds
“Point and Shop” online stores for small businesses, Tuesday inked deals
with ShopNow.com and WeTheShoppers.com that call for its
stores to be featured on their sites.
The initiative is part of Internet Tradeline’s effort to better market the
e-tailers whose sites it has created through “volume discount” portal and
other distribution deals.
The company operates a Point and Shop network,
which includes 75 co-branded malls developed with local media sponsors such
as boston.com, The Los Angeles Times and Times Company Digital Internet Tradeline
gets a percentage of sales on the sites it creates and maintains.
ShopNow.com is an online shopping destination, while WeTheShoppers.com is a
shopping portal. Both will give visitors to their sites access to Internet
Tradeline’s stores.
“The agreements with ShopNow.com and WeTheShoppers.com are simply the
initial steps in our initiative to help Point and Shop merchants realize
the immense sales and distribution capabilities that the Web has to offer,”
says Steven Levy, vice president of business development for ITI.
“The Point and Shop Reach program will level the e-commerce playing field,
allowing small merchants to increase their exposure when we list them on
some of the most popular shopping destinations online and granting them
access to millions of unique customers.”
Internet Tradeline competes with Yahoo!
Shopping, Amazon’s
zShops, GoBizGo, Intel’s iCat, and FreeMerchant. All are trying to get
small businesses online.
