Since YourOwnStore launched back in October 2010 we have seen many competitors come along with near identical affiliate stores, or at least they appear to be……..

When you launch a business and it becomes successful, inevitably you will end up with other companies launching ‘me too’ products and in many cases that can be a good thing as it creates choice for the consumer.

However, when you don’t fully understand how a website is created and all you see is what looks to be a nice looking site, how do you know what you are really getting?

We have spent now in excess of £100,000 developing our custom built affiliate store software that is 100% designed for the job from the ground up to give our clients the tools to succeed.

What we are finding is that other companies are using freely available software that is not really designed for the task or no longer supported, but look the part to the untrained eye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This website is actually using WordPress, a free blogging software combined with an inexpensive plugin called shopperpress – Total cost around £49, however the website above was listed for sale at £899.

The software is incomparable to YourOwnStore’s as ours is designed for the job and can pull in more products from more retailers than any other.

If you are thinking of buying an affiliate website to find out if it is actually based on the freely available WordPress, simply right click somewhere on the screen and select “View Page Source” if you’re using Firefox, or Internet Explorer select “View Source” as shown below:

Next, just look through the code and see if you can see /wp-content/ anywhere, and if you can, that’s a free WordPress website.

The other kind of software being used is a really old system that is no longer updated or supported by the original makers since 2010 and it is called Affilistore.

The script can actually still be downloaded for free but we really would not recommend using it as it will no doubt have many security problems as it hasn’t been updated for years.

You can find out if the website you are thinking of buying is using Affilistore by looking at the screenshot below or going to a live store example at http://www.newperfumes.co.uk:

If you are still not sure that the store you are looking at is using Affilistore, ask the company to provide you access to the admin area of a demonstration store.
It would also be strongly recommended to get them to put into writing that the software you are buying is not based on the Affilistore code!

Since we launched or own software, we have made in excess of 562 software improvements and we will continue to improve the software as things change fast online and you must keep ahead of the game. Also, as software becomes older, hackers find ways to exploit it which is why all software should be regularly updated!

So if you want to still have a fully working website for years to come, that is regularly updated and designed fully for the task, then you need to work with us and it is more than worth paying the extra – as the saying goes, you get what you pay for!