About Inc. signed a deal with Styleclick Inc.
be the exclusive mass provider of brand name merchandise from its supplier
network on About’s vertical network of 700 topic sites.
Styleclick will customize and maintain a universal shopping cart, offering
About users a secure transactional platform with guaranteed merchandise.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Additionally, Styleclick will provide ready-made online store offerings to
About’s Web Services Division (formerly NorthSky and VantageNet) clients,
which consist of more than 2 million small business and personal Web page
sites, giving them the ability to offer the universal shopping cart from
their sites and share in transactional revenue.
About’s guided sites will now offer visitors the opportunity to browse and
buy relevant consumer merchandise without leaving the site to complete the
purchase. For example, a customer on the About Baseball GuideSite, which
offers original content, articles, a directory of links and community, will
be able to purchase sports-related merchandise.
As part of the outreach to users, Styleclick’s consumer product offerings
will be spotlighted quarterly to more than two million-plus subscribers to
About’s BargainDog newsletter, which alerts subscribers to good buys online.
“The partnership with Styleclick (allows us) to implement a universal
e-commerce experience for our users and to Web masters within a short period
of time,” said Bill Day, president and COO of About.
A subsidiary of USA Networks, Styleclick can tap the resources of its USA
Information and Services operating unit, offering more than two million
square feet of warehouse space and the ability to ship more than 80 million
packages a year, and 40 global customer care call centers. The company
represents businesses across more than 90 product categories including over
100,000 consumer products aggregated from more than 300 national brands.