It’s unanimous: after many tedious hours of Zlioshop judging, we have chosen a Chocoshop Contest winner. Trust us when we say it wasn’t easy, but we’d be lying if we said that a section dedicated entirely to chocolate cheescake didn’t affect our decision… Drumroll please:

Chocolat A La Mode: The Best Chocolate Place in the World

What We Like:

The Chocolate: Ok, this one’s obvious, but you’d be suprised how many Zlioshops had difficulty following the rules and we wanted to see 100% chocolate. Between chocolate books, chocolate fountains, and chocolate colored clothing, Chocolat A La Mode managed to keep a little variety while sticking to the subject.

The Colors: How long have people been saying “brown is the new black?” Chocolat A La Mode sticks to a yummy palate but uses a pink background to keep things from getting too dark.

The Categories: The chocolate books and movies section features chocolate inspired products, like the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the soundtrack to the movie Chocolat. Plus there’s a list of “goodies” which include more unusual items like a chocolate Elvis Presley bust.

We Would Have Liked:

Even though we’re drooling at the sight of that chocolate cake, a personalized header and some delicious images would have been nice.

Congratulations to Chocolat A La Mode, winner of the Zlio Easter Chocoshop Contest!

Once you’ve logged in to “Manage My Store” click on “My Revenues” and select “Manage Merchants from the drop-down menu. Click on any merchant’s logo and save money on all your own purchases automatically!

You can also buy from your own Zlioshop!

*Note that this offer is only applicable through the “pay per sell offers” section.

When thinking in terms of web, tags and keywording could not be more important. Properly tagging and categorizing your products in your Zlioshop could mean the difference between no visitors and visitors galore.

In case you’ve forgotten, review our post on Keywording 101. Then go back through your products and check if you’ve really chosen the best categories and key words.

Try to think of what you would search for if you were looking for this product, and assign keywords accordingly.

Click on the tab “Store Products” and then “Manage My Products” from the drop-down menu. If you weren’t paying attention before, this is where you can edit the products description, add a personal review, and tag the product with keywords and phrases.

Don’t forget to use the social features and tell other Zlionauts how you feel about your product. Do you love it, feature it, have it, or want it? Let us know!

Properly tagging your products is what helps them appear when visitors perform a search. When it comes to browsing, your Zlioshop will be easier to find if you take the time to choose your categories.

You can choose according categories and subcategories for individual products, as well as three principal categories for your Zlioshop. Once you’re done with all of that tagging and categorizing, sit back and enjoy the traffic!

We get a lot requests from members about features and services they would like see on Zlio and the most requested was subcategories for products.

You can  add subcategories to the products in your Zlioshop, allowing easier organization and classification – and perhaps a little more creativity in your layout

Let’s face it, nothing fits in to one category and your products are now free of their single-category-jail-cell! Use our default categories or create your own to help people better find your products.

Get out there and organize your Zlioshop! 

We are a culture of excess – why have one car when you could have two? On the same note, why focus your energies into only one Zlioshop when you could have 50 and reap the rewards?

The truth of the matter is, the more Zlioshops you have, the larger your opportunity for commissions.

We’re always looking for ways to improve Zlio and add new services. In our quest to quench your Zlio thirst, we have decided that all Zlionauts can now open up to 50 online Zlioshops without contacting customer service.

(If you want more than 50, we appreciate your ambition, but you’re gonna have to contact us first).

So what are you waiting for? Open those Zlioshops!

There’s been quite a buzz about Zlio since our recent launch in the US – with more and more users signing up everyday. The Zlio community is growing strong and now we’ve been featured in Reuter’s! Read below to get the jist of it, or click here to read the full article by Anupreeta Das:

“When David Pangelinan isn’t logging 14-hour days driving a fuel tanker, he’s at his computer indulging his latest hobby: building a succession of online stores in minutes.

Pangelinan has built four online stores offering hundreds of products for sale, from Bulova watches to Betty Boop pillows, using the Web site Zlio.com.

‘It was real easy,’ said Pangelinan, 43, who lives in Columbus, Georgia.

Zlio.com, which launched in France in 2006 and in January in the United States, allows people to form online stores for free. Users can choose a name, address and template for the store they want to create and then begin displaying wares, say an iPod or a T-shirt.

It’s a simple tool, with none of the typical hassle of designing a site, setting up a payment gateway and keeping stock of merchandise and shipping.

Once signed up, a new shopkeeper can choose from more than 3 million products offered by 120 merchants, including Barnes & Noble Inc, Zappos, Gap Inc and Apple Inc. They can then invite friends and relatives to shop.

The notion of helping people create online stores is nearly as old as the commercial Web itself. Major e-commerce players eBay Inc and Amazon.com Inc have helped Web entrepreneurs set up hundreds of thousands of independent online stores.

Sites such as CafePress.com have been around since 1999… [but] Zlio offers a far wider range of goods for sale and takes more of a social networking approach.Zlio also provides some marketing help. They can put a widget on their Facebook or other social networking page, or use Google Inc’s AdSense software to direct traffic to their sites.
So far, people have created more than 250,000 stores, many organized around themes. One was devoted to all things red, another sold only hot sauce, a third focuses on The Beatles.
John Holsen, who runs a small publishing business in Kansas City, Missouri, recently started a shop with his wife, a yoga teacher, to sell yoga gear.

“It started as an experiment to see if I could build an e-commerce site in five minutes,” Holsen said. “And you can.”He said his site gets up to 5,000 hits a month and makes about $300-$400 on monthly revenue of $3,000.

Merchants share the revenue with Zlio and the seller based on the number of clicks and sales. Shopkeepers display wares and can earn up to 10 percent commission through eBay’s PayPal online payment service, either on every sale or on every click generated. They don’t have to worry about shipping orders because the companies take care of it.

Last year, Zlio generated $12 million in sales for the companies with which it has tie-ups, [says Zlio.com founder] Jeremie Berrebi.”

More publicity for Zlio.com means more visitors to your Zlioshop! Now, isn’t that good news?

Looking for another way to generate commissions on your Zlioshop? Don’t forget about referrals! For every person you refer to Zlio, you make 10% on their future commissions, and 5% on their friends commissions!

The easiest way to convince your friends to open a Zlioshop of their own is to send a personalized message inviting them to do so:

Click on “Manage My Shop” to access your Zlioshop’s report panel. Then click on “My Network” and select “Invite Contacts” from the drop-down menu. Here, you can inviteyour friends to visit your Zlioshop, create their own, and manage your preexisting referrals.

Trust us when we say your friends will thank you for it later…

WARNING: Do not turn your Zlioshop into a directory or link farm!
Zlioshops are to be stocked with products, not links leading to other sites. The rules are there for a reason, namely that link farms will decrease your status in Google rankings. Less Link Farm Zlioshops = Better Google Rankings.

It’s never been more trendy to be environmentally friendly! In honor of DC’s 16th annual Environmental Film Festival, why not create an eco-friendly Zlioshop? This year’s festival runs from March 11- 22 and looks more promising than ever.

Expect to see poignant films from award winning Native American filmmaker, Alanis Obomsawin, as well as cultural icon Charles Guggenheim, and numerous newcomers that are designed to make you think.

Subjects this year include the life of First Lady Bird Johnson and her role as an environmental pioneer, the finest tea in China, the American Prairie Reserve, and cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State.

Create a Go Green Zlioshop that features environmentally friendly products! Our merchants offer plenty of options from environmental magazines to natural fiber clothing to energy saving air conditioners.

• Try product searches for “environment,” “organic,” “recycled,” or “energy save.”
• Look for original items like Grand Ventura’s Upside Down Tomato Garden
• Need some more ideas? Check out TreeHugger’s 10 Tips on How To Green Your Electronics.

When you’ve finished, why not promote your Zlioshop by entering it into the Environmental Web Directory!

In a previous interview with featured shopkeeper Hanane Jo, she mentioned that she promotes her Zlioshop mainly via web directories. For those of you who aren’t too familiar with web directories, they are a great way to get your Zlioshop out there and drive more traffic to your page: 

A Little “Web Directory 101″

• A web directory or link directory is a directory on the world wide web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links.
•  
• A web directory is not a search engine, it lists web sites by category and subcategory instead of keywords. 
• The categorization is usually based on the whole web site, rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only one or two categories. 
• Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions.
• There are both paid submission web directories and free submission web directories

Try a Google search for “web directory” and “shopping directory” and look for the link  “submit” or “suggest url.” We’ve provided a little list to get you started:

1. Elib.org Shopping Directory
2. DMOZ Open Directory Project
3. Monster Marketplace
4. PlanetOnline Electronic Shopping Directory
5. HotVsNot Web Directory
6. Online Stores Web Directory
7. The Web Stores Directory
8. Aalsmeer Web Directory
9. It’s All About Links
10. Romow Shopping Web Directory   

Do you know of a web or shopping directory that should be here? Let us know in a comment!