TheFind has recently announced the launch of their new Merchant Center and its accompanying UpFront Merchant Program. As many of you may already know, TheFind, while they do accept product data feeds… Mostly just crawl sites in search of products for sale. This is a very targeted step in the direction of accepting bid or paid listings (IMO).
Essentially, the new program will allow merchants to supply TheFind some valuable information about their online stores. Note that your store is likely listed in the engine already and you need only “claim” it, add your info and verify it to get started. Suggest you do this, because it’s free, and TheFind is dubbing this a $299.00 value in the future.
Most of you probably find in your Analytics that TheFind is a very helpful shopping search portal, and tends to convert rather well… Its free too. So ideally, IF TheFind moves in to a paid platform for product fed submissions, it could be quite a good thing for those who are in and less of a good thing for those who are not.
Once creating your Merchant Account with TheFind you will supply the following information about your store.
- Store Name
- Store’s Homepage URL
- Primary Country & Currency
- Payment Methods
- Shipping Options – (Bug here.. No option for delivery not needed or downloads, you must choose a carrier. Also, no option for “Best Way”)
- Customer Service Phone & Email
- Addresses to the Following Customer Service Pages: Contact, Shipping, About Us, Privacy, Sales Tax, Order Tracking, and Live Chat.
- Specify if your Store is Only Online
- Year your Store was Founded
- Official Business Name
- Company Head Quarter’s Address
- Do You Sell Primarily “Green” Products
- Links to the Following Additional Pages: Your Blog, Sales or Clearance Page, Twitter, Facebook and Your Newsletter Signup too.
- Finish the info gathering with a (Very Short 40 Character) Marketing Message
Once the info is in you are on to verification of your website. TheFind needs to know you have the right to supply the information. Here is where the decision comes in… If you want the added benefits of the UpFront Program you will have to add a button link to your homepage. If you choose not to you are still better off but missing out on the new features of the UpFront Program. Note that some issues were experienced when submitting store URLs NOT in the root.
The UpFront button shares your store’s key information with shoppers in a single, uniform display.
- Increase your store’s visibility on TheFind, where over 12 million shop each month.
- Establish and reinforce credibility with shoppers.
- Drive high quality traffic and increase conversion on your site.
So, this one is worth a try, as we already know TheFind generally performs very well. My own suggestion is IF you cannot manage a small verification text link or image on your home page… You may be missing out or paying to play in the future.