The Top Shopping Sites you Must Familiarize Yourself with if You're going into the E-Commerce and Affiliate Marketing Business

In my capacity as an affiliate manager with a sizable agency, I come across many different clients and representatives of these clients. The people I deal with come with varying different degrees of online experience and often one wonders what they are doing working in this industry if they are not familiar with shopping online or some of the top shopping sites on the market.

I grew up with a mother who loved watching the Home Shopping Network and favorite activities included browsing through the latest mail order catalogs. Growing up like that I made the natural progression to online shopping. Being an avid online shopper from the early days when Amazon was just a book store and Google was just a small new search engine, I often find it hard to comprehend that there are still people out there that have never heard of some of these sites below or even considered purchasing something online.

So here it is, my hit list of the top shopping sites you must know if you intend to run an online store or work in e-commerce and affiliate marketing. This is broken up into two separate lists. First, the list of sites you must check out before entering into the business, and then a list of top sites you should check out after you have a decent business and are looking into affiliate marketing.

Take some time to check out each one. Shop around, see what's there, maybe buy a thing or two. If you're going to sell something online, you have to understand what it's like from your customers perspective and perhaps what your competing against.


The Before List:

#1 - Amazon.com

As the #1 site on according to Internet Retailer, of course the first one should be Amazon.com. If you're going to see what e-commerce is like, you'd better start with the best of the best and see how it's done right. With their top of line technology, merchandising and marketing, they're hard to beat. They are a huge success story and it's no wonder that the recent nexus laws for Internet sales tax has been so commonly referred to as the "amazon law".


#2 - SlickDeals.net

Any savvy online shopper will be familiar with SlickDeals.net. Their user-based forums are the ultimate source to finding the best deals, discounts and prices across the net. Founded in 1999, they have become one of the largest and most well known destinations for their user forums where other savvy consumers are sharing and posting the best deals they find. But posters beware, SlickDeals' users can be very brutal if they don't like your deal.

#3 - Woot.com

Every Internet/technology enthusiast is obsessed with Woot! along with all of their other sites and brands. Woot's brands bring together the best of both worlds in online shopping and deal hunting. Check out their multiple daily deal sites where one item is sold every day at an unbeatable price - woot.com, kids.woot.com, home.woot.com, shirt.woot.com and more. Don't forget to keep an eye out for the monthly woot off and the ever elusive bag of crap. They also have a deal forum (in a similar vein to slickdeals), deals.woot.com.


The After List:

#1 - ShopatHome.com

With a great domain name and one of the largest consumer following in the affiliate space, ShopatHome.com is a great destination. They not only provide a great place for customers to find the best discounts and deals on the net, but they also offer cashback rebates on purchases when shopping through their site. Rebate sites, like ShopatHome.com will often be the bread and butter of most e-commerce affiliate programs.

#2 - FatWallet.com

FatWallet.com is a top destination for shoppers looking for the best deals online. With their cashback offers combined with their stellar user forum and hot deals section, customers don't need to go elsewhere. They know they're getting the best deals when shopping on FatWallet.com. As their name suggests, they help us all keep our wallets nice and fat.




#3 - Retailmenot.com

As the top coupon site on the market, you can't miss Retailmenot.com. They have some of the best natural search rankings on the market for almost any coupon or discount related search terms. If a customer is looking for a discount, RetalMeNot.com will be the first site they see. Retailmenot combines both user-submitted offers and coupons as well as vetted deals they've gained through their affiliate partners. You'll also find a guaranteed voting system so incoming customers will know if a coupon listed is successful and current.