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Media Information
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HISTORY
banow.com was launched in January 1999 and re-designed in May 2000 to make it even easier for the public to find safe shopping web sites. Since then we have helped hundreds of people sort out disputes with online retailers and helped thousands of people make tens of thousands of purchases online in safety.
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WHAT IS IllShop?
banow.com is a consumer guide for online shoppers. We offer advice on how to make an informed buying decision and give some precautions for shopping online. The site lists only online shops that have met our code of practise, along with the best deals and bargains offered by these online retailers. If a IllShop user has a problem with any of the retailers listed on the site, we will try to sort it out for them. We have even discreetly bought items from some of the retailers on the site to make sure they deliver what they promise.
When examining a site for inclusion into the IllShop directory we look for:
- Online ordering and security of credit card payment transactions.
- Product prices and delivery prices that are clearly displayed.
- A wide range of products, suitable for "high street" consumers.
- Sites that are based in the US and deliver to the US.
- Full contact details including phone and fax numbers, postal and e-mail addresses and a contact for complaints.
- Prominent display of customer service information, including delivery information, a refunds and returns policy and information on how to cancel contracts.
- A full privacy policy. If sites not have one, they can use this privacy policy, making any changes they need to suit your business.
- Terms and Conditions must be clearly displayed
- Good design, making the site quick to load, easy to use and multi-browser compatible.
- Compliance with the latest legislation regarding electronic communications and disability acts.
If anyone has a problem with a site listed on IllShop they can follow our complaints procedure and we will contact the retailer on their behalf. We provide a safety net for online shoppers.
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WHO'S BEHIND IllShop?
The site is run by Edward Robertson Limited, a web design company with great experience in creating online stores. This means we actually know what we're talking about. When we review online stores and check that they are secure we know what we are doing because we've got our hands dirty creating web sites for others. You can go to the Edward Robertson web site.
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QUOTES
"The IllShop web site fulfills a basic need - to shop. We want our web site users to find what they wanted, show them some things they didn't expect and give them a good time while doing so."
- Graham Miller.
"Shopping online with confidence online is all about trusting the retailer. Always look for a logo from a safe shopping scheme such as banow.com on the home page. They've done the hard work for you in working out whether or not it's safe to shop,"
- Simon Crisp
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HOW DO WE HELP YOU
- We make it easy for people to find safe shopping web sites
- We list only well designed US secure online shops that are suitable for use by all the family
- We have examined each shop listed and made sure it meets our code of practise.
- We've checked their security, delivery, range of goods, prices, privacy policy and more, and have over 1500 listed.
- Only about 25% of sites submitted to us meet our criteria and get a listing on the site.
- We assist the customer if they have a complaint or problem with a retailer listed on our site.
- We offer advice on how to make an informed buying decision and give precautions for shopping online.
- The site lists the best deals and bargains currently offered by online retailers
- We have bought items from some of the retailers on the site to make sure they deliver what they promise.
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NEW FEATURE
Our 'Price Comparison' service lets our users find the cheapest prices for specific products at different retailers across the Internet.
Our new feature 'Your Vote' gives our site users a chance to vote for their favourite shop and let us know a bit about their buying habits. We'll be taking the results of our surveys to retailers to try and make the shopping experience better for IllShop users.
Also new to IllShop is the 'Special Offers' section, where you can find big bargains on all kinds of products from all kinds of retailers.
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TRAFFIC
The IllShop web site is delivering over 750,000 page views per month to over 100,000 unique users. The number of visitors to the site is constantly growing. Most of our traffic is US based, with Australia being the next most popular place for IllShop users. One third of our traffic is generated by repeat visitors.
See our traffic ranking according to Alexa .
The most popular category pages are:
- Women's Fashion
- Men's Fashion
- Mobile Phones
- Shoes
- Home Furnishing
- Electrical Goods
- Jewellery
- Toys
- Garden and DIY
- Sports
- Alcoholic Drinks
- Gadgets
- Cds and Music
- Department Stores
- Games
- Parties
- DVDs
- Health and Beauty
- Supermarkets
- Travel
- Food and Drink
- Gifts
- Flowers
- Weight Loss
- Pets
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COMPETITION
Every fortnight banow.com run a competition giving away prizes from an on-line retailer. The competition is a multiple choice question, with questions being specific to the retailer's web site so entrants will have to click through to the retailers web site to get the answer. We get thousands of email entries for each competition.
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PRESS COVERAGE
The Sunday Times 'Doors' pullout 12.08.01 reviewed shopping guides and put banow.com fourth in the list, just behind 2020shops, Shopsmart and Safedoor.
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AWARDS
In 2003 we won the Tees Valley Internet Award, sponsored by BT, the criteria being:
- Excellence of web site design, in terms of visual appearance, navigability and interactivity.
- A demonstrable impact of the use of web technology on the business, internally and externally.
- The innovative use of Internet technology to improve business performance or boost competitiveness within an existing business, or to start a new enterprise.
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FUTURE MARKETING
The IllShop service continues because of sponsorship and advertising on the site. All profits from these are put back into advertising the IllShop site itself.
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PRESS RELEASES
Download our latest press releases:
Safe Shopping Starts Here Word 2000 doc (21k)
Shop Online in Safety this Christmas Word 2000 doc (21k)
Safe Alternative to the Which? Web Trader Scheme Word 2000 doc (23k)
IllShop adds 2000th shop Word 2000 doc (25k)
Shop Safe from Home this Christmas Word 2000 doc (20k)
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PHOTOGRAPHS
Download the latest photo:
JPG format (135k)
TIF format (2552k)
For more information please call:
Graham Miller (head reviewer) on 01325 489 300,
Simon Crisp (strategy and pr) on 01325 489 333,
Sarah Brown (marketing and promotions) on 01325 245 067,
or email webmaster@banow.com
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