Sunday, July 13, 2008

Popular Handbag Brands @ Endless.com (K - Z)

We're understandably excited about Amazon.com's new Shoe and Handbag spin-off, Endless.com. As we've noted before, many customers by two pairs of shoes in adjacent sizes, and return the one that doesn't fit. The Endless policy of free return shipping certainly acknowledges the usefulness of this approach.

Endless.com is still in its "Beta" testing phase, so you may have trouble with the site being "down" from time to time. Rest assured that the server side software is the same robust back end that has made Amazon.com synonymous with online shopping. If you do have problems reachingthe site, you can use the "Accessorize!" links below to locate products in our Amazon aStore. If you wish to order through Endless.com, simply cut and paste the name of the product in the form below. This should take you to a page at Endless.com that you can save wheter the site is currently available or not. (This really isn't often a problem, but it's annoying when it is.)

Here are some poular brands available at both Amazon sites:

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Amazon Launches Endless.com Subsidiary for Shoes and Handbags

Amazon.com has launched a new subsidiary store called Endless.com especially for shoes and handbags. There has been a lot of speculation about just why Amazon would do this, but I think the answer is pretty clear. Savvy readers like you may know that Amazon has parlayed its online expertise into a retail empire providing third party order fulfillment for Target and other big-name retailers, but to many people (if not most) Amazon is just "the world's biggest bookstore" and nothing else. Even though we're trying to keep up with the Amazon's ever-growing list of departments, book sales account for over half our commissions here.

Even if you're familiar with Amazon's site and comfortable with their navigation, you might want to give Endless.com a try. The new site offers free overnight shipping and a 100% price guarantee along with the same Amazon.com service you know and trust. Endless.com also has a more streamlined website with many new navigation features and extensive use of Javascript for faster surfing.

While Amazon hasn't provided much in the way of linking formats to date, they promise to roll out more options this summer, and we will certainly be keeping an eye out for those! In the meantime here are a few "generic" links to get you started:

Endless.com Homepage

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Author Mania!

Even though the Dewey decimal system and Library of Congress taxonomies have categories for fiction writing, most libraries arrange their fiction books alphabetically by author. This is a very workable solution for most people. It's simple and straightforward and gives due weight to the fact that people who like an author's books are likely to read more of them.

Amazon.com follows the same procedure ... sort of. If you search for an author's name, you will generally get some pretty good results but mixed with some extraneous "hits" on people with the same first or last names. If you drill down far enough, you may find that your favorite author is one of Amazon's featured authors, and you will find far fewer of these similarly named results on these category pages.

That was the inspiration for my Author Mania aStore. As I got furhter into it, I realized that there was a need for (at least) two more "author" stores, Author Mania II, and Author Mania Too. (Amazon aStores are limited to "only" 999 categories per store.)

•   Author Mania Too
          •   All Featured Authors
•   Author Mania
          •   American Literature Classics
          •   British Literature Classics
          •   Comics & Graphic Novels
          •   Horror
          •   Mysteries & Thrillers
          •   Sci-Fi & Fantasy
          •   Teen & Young Adult
•   Author Mania II
          •   Children's Books
          •   Playwrights
          •   Poets
          •   Romance