zanox, the German-based affiliate network, has been blazing a trail around the U.S. with their zanox PRM (Partner Relationship Management) product, and soon they’ll be rolling out a shopping portal for affiliates.
According to their white paper on zanox-Shop@, it’s all about multi channel sales for affiliates. The zanox-Shop@ shopping portal enables affiliates to point traffic to a turnkey online mall.
I think this could be a good option for affiliates that don’t have the technical prowess to build a shopping site themselves, as well as a good use of traffic hitting parked domains.
Apparently this is big in Europe (then again, so are David Hasselhoff and Jerry Lewis!), so I’ll be curious to see how it goes here. It could be a healthy distribution channel for participating merchants.
See the U.K. version at http://shop.zanox.co.uk/ – the U.S. version is scheduled to launch shortly.