edirectory

[kier]

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I've been looking over an email I've received from Jill at edirectory.

The statistics are certainly impressive but I'd like to hear if anyone here has anything to say be it positive or negative.

We (www.EBTM.com) sell rock, indie, punk and metal merchandise as well as alternative fashion labels and accessories so anyone selling clothing's opinion would be much appreciated.

All the best,

Kier

[SillyJokes]

The statistic I've always been impressed by is the rate at which they charge.

You may have a wildly successful new brand going on which will see a return on their start up fees, monthly fees and commission fees but we certainly wouldn't.

I have spoken to other merchants on e directory who are appealling to the same market as me and they have often been less than impressed.

However I do know of one apparel compant who thinks they are pretty good.

[gary]

We are regularly contacted by eDirectory trying to get us on board, and although we have got the fees down considerably, I have still not been able to justify those fees (and the additional effort and work required to work with their systems) compared to the multitude of other shopping directories. I also prefer customers to know they're buying from Tie Warehouse, but there's no merchant branding at all on the site. If they were the Google of online shopping, it would be a different story.

[kier]

Thanks for the response, we've decided to give it a miss.

[tim_lb]

They call us up fairly regularly. They seem expensive to me (need to pay those salesmen, for one thing), so we're definitely in no rush. As Gary points out, they charge as if they're the top dog when that doesn't seem to be the case.

[Pea Sea]

Hi everyone,

As head of sales at eDirectory.co.uk Plc, I thought it worthwhile to join this thread. Apologies for joining it late - been on holiday.

In response to Gary; you're absolutely right, eDirectory is not the Google of online shopping. However we do have over 1 MILLION pages indexed with Google, and we send a huge datafeed to Froogle (which IS the Google of online shopping!). Searches by brand or product-type regularly result in eDirectory featuring on page 1 of natural listings. The point about merchant branding is an interesting one, note however that customers DO know who they're buying from (merchant name is clearly stated at checkout, together with a link to merchant info page), and there is merchant branding throughout the site, with merchant banners scattered liberally throughout the site's category pages. These banners link exclusively to merchant's product(s).

The general subject of our merchant listing fees runs much longer than I have got time or space to commit to here, in a nutshell though, the sheer size of network that eDirectory offers to our merchants (our partners include The Sun, Handbag, Autotrader to name just a few) means that we feel fully justified in the fees we charge. However if Gary - or indeed any other merchant - would like to discuss specifics I'd be more than happy to do so.

If we believe that your products would be a worthwhile addition to our database (and in your case this is definitely true Gary), We try and be as flexible as possible, be it with initial fees or sales commissions. Bear in mind though that we too are business, with our own costs!

Finally I'd like to correct SillyJokes' error in referring to "start up fees, monthly fees and commission fees". There are NO monthly fees payable by eDirectory merchants. Merchants pay an initial listing fee to join our network and an agreed commission rate on net sales. We currently have in excess of 600 merchants on our network, a number that is growing daily. This fact, coupled with our extremely high retention rate would suggest that the vast majority of our merchants are happy to continue to work with us year after year, and recognise eDirectory as an invaluable source of online revenues.

I hope that this addresses the majority of the points raised thus far. Happy to answer any further eDirectory-related questions.

Best regards


Paul Curwen
Sales Manager
eDirectory.co.uk Plc

[SillyJokes]

Is there an annual fee at all?

[Pea Sea]

Contracts are indeed renewable on an annual basis. This does involve a renewal fee, however there is no set annual fee - it varies.

Clearly it's not in our interests to hold merchants to ransom at renewal time. Our money is made from commissions on sales generated throughout the year; the annual fees payable by our merchants can be seen as their contribution towards the (not inconsiderable!) ongoing costs involved here.

Our extremely high retention rate would suggest that we get the balance right at renewal more often than not!

[gareth]

I'm interested to know if anyone has any further views regarding eDirectory (good or bad) as we've been contacted by them again...

Cheers

[preventx]

We have used them for over a year now. I wasn't going to renew it, but I think they saw I only had a few sales so got a really cheap deal to stay on for another year.

I think they have been good for us for search engine ranking, but regarding sales, quite slow, we paid for a banner as well £150 for 4 weeks I think and we only got 2-3 extra sales. I liked the froogle feature but google don't seem to push it.

I have just looked at our sales figures and we get 1% edirectory 5% affiliates and growing, then 5% over the phone and 89% online.

we get quite a few clicks from www.thegoodwebguide.co.uk but we also have a paid banner in the health section.

[pricethat]

Not sure if it is quite the same but shop.com looks like quite a good alternative and seem to be quite pro-active on the marketing front.