Minding Your Online Ps & Qs

Internet shopping community piiq.com has implemented iMediation's iChannel software to track, maintain and expand its online selling partnerships. iChannel enables online businesses to build strategic "selling chains" that increase e-commerce revenues and traffic.

     Palo Alto, Calif.-based iMediation's iChannel enables a company and its selling partners to collaborate in presenting customers with information and buying opportunities. The software solution can be customized to fit any business model, including for merchants, portals, affiliates or content aggregators.

     Offering a collection of Web sites across several shopping categories-toys, book, movies, and more-piiq.com is designed to be a "one-stop" Internet shopping source. In addition to connecting consumers with prequalified online merchants, piiq.com aggregates shopping content including news, reviews, contests and special offers.

iChannel allows piiq.com to view and analyze aggregate viewer browsing patterns, purchase activity and other data. It also enables piiq.com to consolidate information from all of its partners and aggregate key information such as individual click-throughs and commission payments in one format, regardless of where the information comes from, says iMediation This replaces the old method of reviewing a diverse array of data from third-party affiliate network management companies, it adds. The information from all sources will be consolidated and audited through iChannel, allowing the company to determine the effectiveness of its selling chain.

     Finally, iChannel also allows piiq.com to develop selling relationships independent of exiting third-party network hosting services, iMediation says. It can set up partnerships with any type of business, large or small, regardless of whether it is already part of an affiliate network, the company says.

     Launched in August 1999, piiq.com developed a new Internet shopping concept whereby shoppers can find what they're looking for quickly by "bookending" a search term with the letters "p" and "q". For example, typing "www.pbooksq.com" takes the shopper to piiq.com's multi-company booksellers site.