[Village Hat Shop]

Hello –

We are VillageHatShop.com. Although we have been selling hats since 1980 (we have four retail stores) and on the Internet since 1997, we have just recently decided to concentrate more on seeking affiliate partners. Although we sell over 1,000 styles at VillageHatShop.com, our site is much more than a place to buy hats. Note in the left column a long list of pages devoted to hat history, hat making, books on hats, a hat glossary, hat trivia, etc. Our hat portal is the leader among full-line hat sellers on the Internet in categories such as traffic, reach, page rank, and the like. Take a look at the customer testimonials at Alexa or Yahoo for an indication of our emphasis on customer service. Furthermore, we offer a “We Will Not Be Undersold” guarantee – details can be clicked on from the left column of our site.

We also want to be a good merchant to a good affiliate. Because we are new to this, please let us know what this requires. We are registered at ShareASale. Banners and other creative content are available there also. Is this sufficient for you to do the job? How can we improve our settings at ShareASale so that we gain more of your trust and effort? We welcome feedback and advice, as we are anxious to learn about affiliation marketing. If our relationship with an affiliate begins to pan out, we are willing to tweak the deal to keep the momentum going, so stay in touch -you’ll find us fair and responsive.

Thanks,

Fred
http://VillageHatShop.com
vilhat@villagehatshop.com

[Greg Rice]

Fred, welcome to ABW. If you'd like, we can arrange a free consultation and I can help with some pointers to get you going.

[Village Hat Shop]

Hello Greg --

Sure, pointers are of course welcome. How about this forum? -- "I'm all ears." Or if you prefer, email me at the address at the intro.

Thanks for your offer of help. I want to do this well, attract good honest affiliates, et.al.

Best,

-- Fred

[Greg Rice]

Email sent, hope it helps.

[my2cents]

do you offer a datafeed?

[Village Hat Shop]

Ms or Mr 2-Cents --

Thanks. [48 cents more and you'd be a rich rapper.] I'm not very technically knowledgeable, but aren't there various kinds of data feeds? Can you be more specific with info about the kind of data feed desired? Also, I think I was reading on ABW that some affiliates want/like data feeds and others do not. Where can I read a little tutorial on data feeds?

Thanks,

Fred (as you can see, fewer than 2-cents at this point)

[darkstar7]

I'll sign-up. I've been looking for a good hat shop for my site.

[my2cents]

If you are goingto be successful with affiliates, especially with affiliates here at ABW you need a datafeed... but not some crappy throw it together in 15 mins feed... but a well thought out feed... seeing that your program is on ShareaSale that shouldnt be a problem... as long as you have data for all the collums upto and including Custom1
which from what i see on your website shouldnt be a problem.... since it is a datafeed driven site....

go here and dig in http://forum.abestweb.com/forumdisplay.php?f=188 lots of god info about what affiliates need in a feed... also do a search Leader and a couple others posted a short while ago spelling out what we affilaites want in a feed... for another merchant...

Joe

[Village Hat Shop]

Luke --

Welcome. If I can do anything, help resolve problems, etc. - don't hesitate to email me.

-- Fred

[Village Hat Shop]

Joe --

Thanks for the link - I'll check it out. I looked at the SaS data feed, and unless I'm missing something, each product needs to be uploaded one at a time. If I am understanding this correctly, this may not be suitable for our business where we have about 1,000 different hat styles for sale and these products are changing all the time (for the seasons, what's in style, stock issues, etc.).

I'll continue to look into this as many affiliates seem to prefer it.
Thanks again

-- Fred

[my2cents]

the condition to talk about (the constant changes in inventory) is a part of doing business... all merchants have this issue... just be glad you only have 1000 items to keep track of... some merchants here at ABW have 30,000+ items in there feeds...

When you offer a feed I'll join your program.. I have the perfect spot for your products...

Joe

[Village Hat Shop]

Joe --

Interesting - thanks. I'll try and meet the challenge. I'm curious as to why the data feed is so important? [Sorry if I sound ignorant.]

-- Fred

[my2cents]

datafeed are important because they allow one to populate pages with targeted products quickly..

Imagine trying to run your hat business without a database for inventory control....

All us affiliates want is to have access to your database in a useable form that we create pages with.

I have 100+ niche websites... with over 1,000,000 pages there is noway I can create pages manually any longer.

datafeeds allow my to create pages which are easily updated at regular intervals...

Many of us here at ABW have this challenge, we are full time WebMasters / Affiliate Marketers..

ABW is the "Big Leagues" where the heavy hitters "hangout" as compared to some of the other affiliate forums which are better discribed as the "AAA farm system" to use baseball metafors..

This conversation applies to all merchants who want us as affiliates... if you have more then one product you need a usable feed...

gone are the days of sticking a banner on a page and getting sales....



JOe

[Village Hat Shop]

Joe --

I get it - lecture understood. I also went to the ABW link that you suggested and spent some time there. This issue is quiclky coming into focus. I am working on supplying a data feed to SaS and will let you know when it is up.

Thanks for your comments.

-- Fred

[my2cents]

sounds great.... didnt mean to come off as lecturing...

However every time a new merchant comes here to announce their program we go through this...

It gets fustrating at times, to have to constantly repeat one's self..

I had a conversation with a merchant yesterday... about their consistant changing of their program over the past 3 months...

they should have done their homework before they launched their program...

JOe

[Cursal]

Just applied :)

Your program is just what one of my sites need.

[Village Hat Shop]

Cursal --

Great. Hope we are a good fit. Don't hesitate to contact me if something needs attention as we go forward.

Joe --

No problem. I didn't mean "lecture" in a negative way. In fact, I like a good lecture. New merchants (I for one) should appreciate that you take the time to teach us to walk. By the way, I am currently preping for a data feed at SaS. I will be working the excel file the next couple of days so that it is clean and current before I submit it. I'll let you know when it's up.

Thanks,

-- Fred

[Village Hat Shop]

sounds great.... didnt mean to come off as lecturing...

However every time a new merchant comes here to announce their program we go through this...

It gets fustrating at times, to have to constantly repeat one's self..

I had a conversation with a merchant yesterday... about their consistant changing of their program over the past 3 months...

they should have done their homework before they launched their program...

JOe



Joe (and others who made essentially the same suggestion) --

Our data feed is now available at SaS. Thanks for the mentoring.

-- Fred