Guardian Unlimited has launched a shopping site and has a books
version in the pipeline.
Shopping Unlimited (www. shopping.co.uk), which went live last week, is
an online guide to shopping featuring an A to Z directory of the best
shopping destinations on the net with links to recommended websites.
Steve Wing, new-media advertisement manager for Guardian Unlimited, will
oversee sales for the site, which will cover everything from garden
tools to financial services.
Wing and his team already sells banner ads and sponsorship for Jobs
Unlimited, Football Unlimited, Film Unlimited and News Unlimited. He
said he will recruit more sales staff in the future, with the launch of
more Unlimited sites, but will use his existing team to sell Shopping
Unlimited.
Liberty is one of the first clients to spend money on Shopping Unlimited
by sponsoring the ’buttons’ or clickable boxes on the left-hand site of
every Unlimited site.
Web author Jim McClellan, who will write the site’s editorial content,
will constantly update the site, adding new shopping destinations and
comments from customers.
Guardian Unlimited is also planning to launch a Books Unlimited site
following the massive success of internet book shopping ventures like
Amazon.com.
The company declined to discuss details but said the book site will
launch in November or December and that other Unlimited branded sites
would follow.
Guardian Unlimited, part of the Guardian Media Group, announced that it
had signed up more than 500,000 registered users and notched up 9.75
million page impressions at the start of this month. This makes it one
of Britain’s most popular web networks.
