ShopAdvisor Brings Deferred Purchasing Platform To Blogger Communities, Lets Readers Identify Their Product Interests At The Time They Discover Them And Later Notifies The Reader Of Deals It Finds Over Time

BOSTON, June 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ShopAdvisor, the deferred purchasing platform company which brings commerce to content for later consideration, has launched a new feature that allows bloggers to place a "Watch" Button next to reviews and other product placements.   The Watch Button gives the reader the ability to add the item to their ShopAdvisor Watch List while staying on the page.  Once the product is on the user's Watch List, the ShopAdvisor Platform continuously checks for availability, pricing changes, reviews and other related information and alerts the reader over time with the opportunity to purchase when the time is right.

ShopAdvisor leverages the natural "deferred" consumer buying behavior for higher consideration items (clothing, electronics, furniture, etc.) where consumers don't "buy now" – but instead gather information about a product over time, including price comparisons, opinions from social networks, product reviews, availability and other factors – and keeps track of this information to re-engage the user at some point in the future, when the timing or information is better.   

Launched as a mobile app in September 2011 for iPhone and Android, along with an iPad release in February, the ShopAdvisor active user base has rapidly grown to over 2.5 million consumers currently keeping track of over 250,000 products worth over $60 million.  With the addition of the external Watch Button feature, ShopAdvisor has added the ability to engage users from such diverse blog sites as Photo.net, a leading blog site specializing in photography and related equipment; Laptop Magazine, a TechMediaNetwork property and one of the most respected and trusted brands in mobile technology; and Shopping and Info, a specialty fashion blog about celebrity fashion, shoes and handbags.

ShopAdvisor for Media and Blogs – Keeping the reader engaged, while delivering a more natural, effective shopping experience

Today's bloggers deliver deep vertical market expertise around a diverse mix of products, everything from fashion to photography to household management and more.  These sites, both individual bloggers and larger publishing networks, generate product awareness and prompt consumer interest by delivering expert content and reviews.   Leveraging this expertise with their readers and the products they review has traditionally generated revenue through the addition of buy-now links, related product advertising or affiliate marketing links. 

However, the "Buy Now" approach has limited appeal, since most readers are not ready to immediately buy the item. This is supported by the fact that industry average click-through rates (CTR) on these links are usually less than 1%.   Even worse, since a click on these links takes the user out of the property, the reader loses the context of what they were reading and still may not purchase it.  Furthermore, the blogger also loses any connection they have to the reader and their purchase intentions around the content, as well as the opportunity to engage the reader with additional content.

ShopAdvisor solves these challenges. The Watch Button in a media site or blog effectively connects: the reader, the product, and the source (the property's content) in a frictionless way and monitors this combination over the course of the buying process.   When ShopAdvisor discovers a change in a product's price, availability, review, or other factor, it alerts the user of the change and provides an opportunity to purchase the product.  This innovative process of re-engaging the user is currently yielding CTRs greater than 10X the industry average because it allows the user to buy the product when they are ready, matching the more natural way a person purchases, while maintaining the connection between the product and the original point of interest.

"As a site for photographers by photographers, we review thousands of cameras, lenses and accessories," said Glenn Palm, GM of Photo.net. "ShopAdvisor gives our readers the flexibility to read multiple reviews and identify which products they are interested in buying with the knowledge that ShopAdvisor will find the best deal for them when they're ready to buy."

ShopAdvisor is actively building its blogger partner community and provides a set of tools and support for new partners to quickly integrate the ShopAdvisor Platform into their existing sites.  For more information on how to add the Watch Button features into a blog site, visit www.evoqu.com/for-bloggers.

About ShopAdvisor – ShopAdvisor is a deferred purchasing platform that connects consumers' initial interest in a product with their eventual purchase. ShopAdvisor's cloud-based services are used by blogs, media sites, and third-party applications to incorporate deferred purchasing into their user experience. ShopAdvisor also offers apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle and the web. Founded in 2011, ShopAdvisor is based in Boston, MA.

ShopAdvisor, evoqu, and Watch Button are Trademarks of evoqu, Inc. © 2012

SOURCE ShopAdvisor