InfoSpace.com, a provider of private
label solutions for content, community and commerce, said that ActiveShopper,
its integrated private label e-commerce shopping solution, is ahead of
schedule and will launch in May.
The company said ActiveShopper is designed to be a comprehensive integrated
e-commerce solution “that will define the standard for the next generation
of shopping products.”
“Our affiliate partners are telling us that users want to shop in context of
what they are doing rather than going to a shopping channel or using a
stand-alone shopping product that is not integrated with the content they are
using,” said Naveen Jain, chairman and CEO of InfoSpace.com. “For example. . .users browsing a story about a particular gizmo should be able to buy that
gizmo online from that page.”
As an ongoing trend, the company said, users are going directly to
e-merchants to purchase items rather than going through the company’s
affiliate sites. With the introduction of ActiveShopper, users will need only
to go to an InfoSpace.com affiliate site to research, buy and obtain special
promotions for any product offered online,
thus bringing the loyalty of these users back to the affiliates.
ActiveShopper will also enable InfoSpace.com’s network of affiliates to
become the merchant themselves and will allow them to bypass e-merchants by
giving them an option to directly order from the wholesalers or
manufacturers, the company said.
“This is a giant leap from the current generation of product comparison
products that are
available today,” Jain said
Initial product categories are apparel, books and literature, communications,
computer hardware, computer software, computer and video games, consumer
electronics, flowers and cards, gifts and candy, home and garden, movies,
video and DVDs, music, office supplies and equipment and toys and games.
InfoSpace.com’s affiliate network consists of more than 1,500 Web sites,
including AOL, Netscape, Microsoft, Lycos, MetaCrawler, The Wall Street
Journal Interactive Edition, ABC LocalNet and CBS’s affiliated TV stations,
among others.