I’ve been dabbling with Shopmozo in the last few days, trying out the platform to create an affiliate site.

As how the app has been marketed, Shopmozo seems a ‘dream come true’ for affiliate marketers who intend to create multiple websites targeting different niches. As the software enables you to incorporate products from Amazon, AliExpress and eBay, you only need to pick the products you want and load them into your website.

But is it that simple?

Sure, I said there are three huge e-commerce sites from which you can choose products to promote. However, your ability to choose depends on the level you subscribe to.

If you look at the Shopmozo website, you will see that there are three types of licenses depending on the number of stores you want to set up.

I bought the app when it was first launched. So I got the unlimited license one (at a lower price than now, of course).

Even with the unlimited site license, I can upload products from Amazon only and not from the other two networks.

What is Shopmozo?

Shopmozo is essentially a cloud-based app that enables you to build websites which are search engine-optimized that you can fill with affiliate products (from Amazon, AliExpress and eBay). Getting visitors from Facebook groups is also built-in to enhance the website’s traffic.

You don’t need to buy any domain names as your affiliate stores will be hosted in Shopmozo.

The Features

The selling point of Shopmozo is that you can create a number of affiliate stores fast with various sliders (themes).

The ‘unlimited’ license allows you to build many stores but it doesn’t mean that you can upload products from ALL the three e-commerce networks. As stated earlier, I can only pick products from Amazon.

If you want to choose products from AliExpress and eBay, you need to do an upgrade of your subscription. Here are some of the features of the upgrades:

Shopmozo Pro

 

Shopmozo Enterprise

The Good

1. Website Creation

Most affiliate marketers want to create websites in different niches … fast. With the training provided, Shopmozo can certainly help you do that.

2. Choosing Affiliate Products

If you have already chosen your niche (and keywords), all you need to do is look up the products (from Amazon/AliExpress/eBay) within the Shopmozo app and include the selected ones in your website.

3. Optimizing For the Search Engines

Shopmozo has this part covered. There is a section under ‘Traffic’ where all you need to do is fill up some verification codes and submit your sitemaps for your sites to get crawled by the search engines.

4. Autopost in Social Media (for Marketing/Promotion)

With the ‘Pro’ version, you get to autopost your websites in different Facebook groups (within your niche), including those which you are not an admin of .

You need to create the FB App to do this. (Although it’s not rocket-science to create an FB app for this purpose, I feel the training provided in Shopmozo might not be adequate for newbies).

For more detailed instructions on how to create a Facebook app like Shopmozo where your website is hosted by them,
you can go HERE!

To be able to autopost to a wider audience in Twitter and Instagram, you need to get the ‘Enterprise’ Version (as seen in the above image on the versions’ different features).

The Bad

1. Sub Domain

When creating websites, I prefer to have my own website’s domain name. Creating websites using Shopmozo, however, your store’s url would be www.yourstore.shopmozo.co

2. Not Exactly Unique

The basic idea of this app, i.e., help you create multiple affiliate sites with the ability to upload products from major e-commerce sites, is not entirely unique.

I have used a similar platform before called Fresh Store Builder. That platform, however, only allows for upload of products from Amazon.

3. Use of Browsers

When I first got Shopmozo, I tried it out in Google Chrome.

I was puzzled as some of the features with the app didn’t seem to work. I can’t even click on my settings or affiliate platform.

I thought I had been duped. But as always, sending support tickets is my thing…and so I did just that.

I got a reply that I might need to change the browser that I was using the app in…and so I turned to Internet Explorer. 

I am not a regular Internet Explorer user but because Shopmozo’s features seem to work in IE, I have no choice but to use IE.

4. The Themes (Sliders)

When I read that Shopmozo provides various themes for you to choose from, I honestly thought that these are ready-made, colourful, attractive themes that can suit any niche.

I was wrong.

The themes (sliders) are images that you have to upload yourselves – whether you create them or source online.

When Shopmozo claims that you can ‘choose different themes available’, it was just referring to the different colors for the website, and NOT the headers/themes.

So I was disappointed, to say the least.

And I can’t upload images to the library – because that’s only made available for upgraded subscription – in Pro and Enterprise

To get round this, you need to use images which are accessible online, incorporating their url as you upload/change your sliders.

The ‘standard’ version of Shopmozo (regardless of the ability to create ‘unlimited’ sites) allows for only one slider. 

5. Product Description

As you upload your selected affiliate products into your site, the description of the products (from Amzon) will be correspondingly incorporated.

It’s best that you don’t leave the product specs/description as is because that’s like plagiarism – directly copying from Amazon. And we all know this is not good for SEO.

6. Search Engine Optimization

In the Shopmozo dashboard, there is a section on ‘Traffic’ from which you can optimize your site for the search engines.

This is certainly a good thing. However, as specific training is not provided on this section, newbies might not be able to figure out what to fill in for Google, Bing, Pinterest verification codes or what to do with sitemaps.

7. Social Media 

You can allow your website visitors to share your posts on products via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. under the ‘SMO settings’ in Shopmozo.

However, apart from Facebook, you cannot autopost messages in Instagram and Twitter without signing up for the Enterprise version that would set you back by a further $97.

Final Take

The basic idea of Shopmozo in enabling one to create multiple websites is laudable.

It certainly beats creating websites using WordPress in terms of speed. Using Shopmozo, you just need to work on images to be used for your sliders/themes and think about the products you want to upload and promote.

I have tried creating websites in both WordPress and using platforms like Shopmozo.

With any website, it will take sometime for your website to appear in the first two pages of the search engines (of course depending on your chosen keywords).

From my experience, on average, it takes about three to four months to see my site appear in the first page of the search engines and …. ultimately sales.

This applies to websites that I created using WordPress. It took longer for those that I created using platform like Shopmozo.

Having said that however, I believe the main reason for this was that I did not exactly optimize my product pages as conscientiously as I did for my WP sites.

I guess I was carried away in uploading product after product, trying to showcase the multitude of options to my audience rather than giving them valuable information that would help them in their decision-making – whether they ought to get the product or not. 

So the main thing to take away here is that whether you create your website using WP or apps like Shopmozo, what’s important is creating valuable content that your audience is looking for.

If your website were to just feature products with specs/description like what is found in Amazon, then there’s no value in that. Audience are usually looking for something more – like what other users think about that product – information that would help in their decision-making.

So however your websites are created, in my opinion, we need to place ourselves in our audience shoes. Think about what your audience want. Think about why they would visit your website out of so many related ones out there. That’s where true value is!