OpenSky Anyone?

[Nelson Swett]

(I posted this in the private forum as well)

Someone I follow on twitter today posted something that I was interested in and so I followed the links. (okay, it was a blender) It took me to what I would classify as a store sponsored by OpenSky. Here's a link to their affiliate program page: OpenSky Shopkeepers

I wondered if anyone was using it.

It appears as though you set up a "shop" of products that you want to sell. You can do so either from their catalogue (which would get you live right away) Or, if it's not something they currently carry, you can request that they source products for you. The site indicates that you and they split the profits 50/50.

Just curious if anyone is using them and if so the results.

[angienewton]

Nelson,
I have mixed feelings about Open Sky! Most of their products in the shops are more expensive that you can buy at Amazon (I was looking at the Garmin watch and they sell it for $300 but I got it form Amazon for $159 big difference!). I would personally not have one of their shops because so many people are joining them and it just looks spammy to me. I followed them on Twitter and then all of their other Twitter accounts followed me back, not sure why but I didn't follow any of them back. I don't know much else about them so I really can't give you a full review on the affiliate shop aspect.

I did purchase something yesterday from them and so far the order process went well. We'll see how shipping goes! The only thing I don't like is that they don't accept Paypal but then again neither does Amazon.

Oh and here is something else that I'm not sure about. Say I order from one shop but there is another product I want in another shop I would have to place two orders?

I'm looking forward to reading more thoughts on the company but I would not personally choose to have a store with them for the price aspect alone!

[Nelson Swett]

I've done some reading and am still undecided. I had an initial thought that it might be a good place to have store if you did offline services (say cooking classes) and wanted to have one location that you could send people to if they wanted to purchase some of the equipment you used (like knives, a blender, food processor, cutting board, etc...) But still not sure there isn't another way to do that.

[jkgourmet]

Nelson, have a look at popshops, or even an amazon A-store. Might do the same thing you want to do at a far lower cost.

[cadehugue]

No i haven't used it in past, would love to give it a try in future.

[Nelson Swett]

There doesn't appear to be a cost at opensky. It also has the added benefit of being able to add products that might not currently have an affiliate product...if you can get opensky to carry them. Still lots of questions, but I'm going to keep researching.

[Clare Swindlehurst]

This sounds interesting - I tried an Amazon A Store in the past and didn't have a lot of luck with it so I now use the Reviewazon plugin with WP.

[dominicfilip]

i am too hearing it for the first time.. will look forward to it in the future.