Viral Video Stores [review]
POS:
Social / List building featuresNEG:
'video' is really just a marketing tacticToday Im doing a review of the new Viral Video Stores cloud software One thing I always liked was the concept on niche Amazon stores. The reason is because they are about as close to ‘passive’ income as you can get. They way they work is simple. You select a very specific niche and then […]
Today Im doing a review of the new Viral Video Stores cloud software
One thing I always liked was the concept on niche Amazon stores. The reason is because they are about as close to ‘passive’ income as you can get. They way they work is simple. You select a very specific niche and then build a store based on that niche. Because Amazon has so many products you are almost guaranteed to find things you can sell to people in just about any niche you can think of, no matter how specific or obscure.
There is multiple advantages to this tactic. First you have a store without any of the hassle of buying inventory, shipping orders, etc. Second because you are selecting a specific niche its much more easy for your store to rank in the search engine results.
Now I will be honest your not going to make a ton of money from one store. You might only make $75, $100, or $150 per month from a Amazon store on average. However what if you had 3 stores, at $100 a month per store average you could be driving a new car for free. What if you had 5 stores or89 or 10 of them? You could be making a nice monthly cash flow without doing much of anything once the stores are set up.
This is why I got interested in Viral Video Stores. Here is an example of a live store that I was testing with:
The stores are very clean, easy to set up and come with a full featured admin area. They are also flexible. You can full edit the products, the look and the logo.
Now one thing I do want to get out right away is the ‘video’ part of the name “Viral Video Sores”. I was not sure why it had the word ‘video’ in the name. But after some testing I found out. This software has a feature that will search YouTube for a review video of the products you are selling and will then pull it into your products ‘details’ page. Well I’m going to be totally honest here. That does not impress me. Why? Because if your doing a Amazon product the right way your selling in a very specific niche. This means that its not very likely that there will be a review video on YouTube for the product your reviewing. Truth be told I think this ‘feature’ was more of a marketing decision to capitalize on the fact that video products are hot in the IM space.
But that does not mean that this is just another store builder. There is still the all important viral feature. Each store has a built in rewards system that allows you to give people points for taking a specific action. Once they accumulate enough points you can then give them the related reward. Examples of the types of actions they can take is optin in to your email list through the built in signup form.
They can also earn additional points towards a prize by sharing on different social media sites. You have full control over the number of points they get for each action as well as the number of points they need in order to win the prize. I really like this feature because it not only encourages people to share your store it also means your store is also a squeeze page that will let you build super targeted lists which you can then email later. One thing you can do with this list is email them about some of the best products on your store. In fact you can set up a auto-responder sequence to mail them links to products on your store regularly on auto pilot. This will for sure increase your sales and increase your passive income. This is the ‘viral’ part in Viral Video Store and it is very cool.
One feature I initially did not like about Viral Video Stores (but then changed my mind about) was the fact that this is a could based software. What this means is that you don’t actually download your store, or a plugin or anything like that. Instead you get a sub-domain on their server to host your store on. You can also ‘map’ your own customer domain name to their server as well if you prefer not to use their sub-domain. As I said initially I did not like this. Being a developer I wanted to download something. But then I started thinking. As I said the key to making Amazon stores work to generate a high end profit is to have many of them. If you where hosting dozens of stores yourself you would need an expensive server. You would at least need a VPS server for your hosting. This means your hosting would cost at least $39 a month to accommodate lots of stores and possibly much more. With Viral Video Stores everything is hosted for you on their servers so that saves you a monthly bill and allows you to keep all your profits. If you dont even have a domain name your fine, you can use their sub domain and latterly need nothing to get started. If you do have a domain name registered you can map your own domain to them and still save yourself the hosting fee.
Also in case your wondering. I did question Neil about his cloud server set up, wanting to know its specs etc to make sure it could handle the traffic that its likely to get. Its solid. The Viral Video Stores servers can handle millions visitors a day. So no need to worry about your store ‘going down’.
Each store has its own admin area to control that store and there is also a master admin area that controls your entire account.
One again I will be totally honest I was a bit confused on how to get started right away. But that’s because I did not watch the tutorial videos. The tutorial videos helped a lot, where clear, and explained the system well. My one complaint is that the audio in them was a little low for me. I had to turn my computer speakers way up to hear them. There are a lot of them though that explains step by step how to use the system and after a bit of playing around I now have no doubt that I can set up a store very quickly. There is also a support desk built in if you need additional assistance.
Ok so what do I think about Viral Video Stores over all? Well as I said I think the ‘video’ part is more of a marketing thing than anything else. However that does not mean that I don’t like this product. Amazon stores have a lot of draw because it allows you to sell all sorts of physical products in any niche you can think of without any of the trouble of being an actual online retailer. While you wont make a lot of money from any one store if you have a lot of niche specific stores you can make a nice monthly income that is largely passive once the store is created. Add to that the social aspect and the fact that this has built in list building capability and you have a very solid product even when you discount the video part.
Bonus:
When you pick up Viral Video Stores by clicking the ‘APPROVED’ link below you will also get the following bonuses 100% for FREE!!
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
About the Author
Can we decide to load “best sellers only? Can we load our own products?
You can search for products in the back end to add. I did not see anything that said ‘best sellers only’ .. I dont see why you cant sell your own products just by searching for them.
That’s a great idea – I have forwarded it to the developer, and if possible, will try and get that added it in within the next 2 weeks. 🙂
Thanks for your testing, Brett. Do you have to use the YouTube video function?
No not at all and as I said I totally discounted that anyway.
You don’t have to – as long as you click a checkbox, we find videos for you automatically!
Brett thanks for the review. Jv shows 2 upsells: Pro for USD67 and DFY for USD97.
Do you know what the pro version contains more, extra than the basic version?
Does it automatically update amazon prices?
Does it include Automated Global Geo-Targeting?
The built in rewards system, “incentivise” opt in can also attract a lot of free products seekers not really interested in buying on your list which can defeat the objective of the built in viral system. and making your list costly.
Thanks
Normally I dont review OTO’s for 2 reasons. A) Because I test the front end in depth I simply dont have time to test the OTO’s normally B) Because I firmly believe a purchase decision should not depend on what you will be offered later.
1, Pro version as always has additional features – but you don’t need it to make Viral video stores work for you!
2. Yes – we run a cron job every day – or you can do it manually if you want
3. Global geo-targeting – nope. But we are looking into it- and might add it within 3 weeks.
4. Yup – it can – but its really down to how you want to advertise. You don’t have to give any points for optin!
Cheers
Neil
Dear Neil
Thanks for your reply – much appreciated. Can you please give an indication what are the pro version additional features.
Thanks
Keep In mind Andre that Neil does not use my blog as a contact form. He popped in to answer some comments at my request but it is not the best way to contact him.
Since the PRO version is an OTO at this point it really does not matter. I strongly suggest you choose to buy or not to buy Viral Video Stores based on what is offered on the front end, then make a separate decision to buy the PRO version once its presented to you.
Another thing – although I mentioned “best sellers” – when you go to the Amazon site you have other selection choices – such as – most stars – most reviews – price ranges – etc. – I would like to stock my store with my preferences – and this should be automated – otherwise I can’t buy this.
Again – forwarded to the developer – we’ll see what we can do about this 🙂
That would be an awesome addition. Hopefully it can be added soon.
Hi Brett, thanks for the honest review.
Can you tell us if there is a recurring fee for running the stores on their server?
Also, I understand the incentivized sharing concept to generate additional traffic, but what methods are being used to get the traffic started and what does it cost?
Finally, did Neil show you any actual proof of how much the sites are earning over time?
Thank you.
1) There is no recurring fee.
2) You can use PPC, but ideally you will chose a specific niche and get SEO traffic.
3) No and if he did it would not matter, niche product selection etc all depend on how much a store will make. One stores results have no bearing on another stores results.
It sounds like your not quite understanding how to do Amazon stores well. The idea is to have multiple stores each bringing in a moderate income that add up to a large income
Hi Brett,
I found the training videos very small, difficult to read and difficult to understand. Especially the one on setting up a subdomain for your campaign. I had to submit a suppor ticket to try and get some details and clarification on how to point your campaign to a subdomain. Needless to say I was annoyed by this.
Yea you have to turn up your speakers like I said in the review to hear them well. As for them being small, why dont you just click the maximize icon in the video controls to watch them in full screen mode. You cant get much bigger than full screen.
Hey
Did you watch them in HD and make them full screen? If not – you need to do that! Sorry about the sound levels – will give that feedback to our staff.
Cheers
Neil.
Bret + Neil,
I want to trust both of you, but did anybody do a quality control check on the SEARCH function? On my store, doing a search for ONE ITEM comes up with 100 or 200 NON RELATED results.
Plus now, the 2nd time in less than 12 hours I’m getting a message: 504 Gateway Time-out
nginx
I’m quite annoyed after spending $$ and several hours populating my store, and now I cannot even see the store because of the timeout … again.
So far this is buggy at best!
Did you contact their support? While I appreciate the feedback you should be aware that I have nothing to do with the products I review and they vendors of these products do not monitor my blog for support issues. Keep in mind you should always contact a products support before publicly condemning a software, I sell software that I personally write and do my own support and I can say honestly that 90% of the ‘bugs’ that people find are actually caused by them not using the system correct. Not saying this is your case just saying its a possibility.
Brett,
Yes, I have 3 support tickets in. The first time they said there were no problems. I have not heard back from the last 2.
I do a search for “Earthly Body” and dogs comes up … You have to scroll way down to find Earthly Body results. I believe it’s because they have the search results direction defaulted to “Desc” and not “Asc”.
Please check it out for yourself, if you want …
{link removed}
Do a search for EARTHLY BODY and see what comes up.
Then search again and change direction of search from DESC to ASC (which it should default to) … that’s better, but the results still show other unrelated stuff.
Believe me, I want this to work and not be embarrassed.
The site being down is my biggest beef … it’s up again now.
And I want to trust your reviews. Just letting you know.
Thanks,
Greg
No search function is going to be perfect, and Im saying that as a person who has written hundreds of them. If you feel that this one needs improvement then you should send them a suggestion. Neil is very accommodating normally. FYI: DESC vrs ASC being the default really is a matter of opinion.
Hey Gregory,
What you pointed out about searches was a good point of feedback and we are implementing changes to support your request. Support will be in touch about that. As for the site being down – we tracked that too some technical issue which has been rectified – and so it shouldn’t happen again 🙂
Hope this helps, and as always – support is the best place to communicate with us!
Regards
Neil
Hey Gregory
Sorry to hear that! As Brett said, best to contact us directly. We have tested this thoroughly and the product search feature is set to mirror how Amazon works. Again if you’re having any specific issues, we can replicate that on our end and see how we can help you 🙂
Regards
Neil.
After reviewing your ad video about your service – reading reveiws found in a search – reading a lot of info – you guys and everybody else, for some curious reason, do not mention anything about how one loads products. YOu make it sound like you can set up a store in just minutes. But I am sure it does not load the individual products in an auto mass load. I bet you have to load them one at a time. But you did do a lot of fancy talking around this issue – making it sound like that it does load the products in a mass with a click of a button.
So here is your chance to answer to that. Does this load about a 100 or so products in a single category automatically or do you have to load them manually. Please be specific with your answer unless you just have something to hide.
Hey Steven
There’s a LOT to this product – so sorry in case we missed that part (though I do cover it on demo webinars). Anyway – you can search for products with keywords and just click on the ones you want to add to your store. That’s it. That’s all it takes.
Regards
Neil.
Your post is full of uncalled for negativity. First your accusing me of ‘dancing around the issue’ and ‘fancy talking’. Then your accusing me of claiming its easy to use when my review clearly said it took me some getting use to at first and I had to watch the tutorials. Finally your assuming I have ‘something to hide’, which is silly since this is not even my product. (you seem to have not read my other reviews either)
Im not sure why you feel I deserve that kind of negativity but I don’t mind saying I find it a bit offensive. I always go out of my way to report my findings without holding back. Even to the point of mentioning its flaws. How that is ‘fancy talk’ is beyond me. I never said a thing about a ‘mass load’ once so I’m not sure how I made it seem like it does this.
As for adding products, you search by keyword then click the ones you add to your store. It takes about 1/4 of a second but yes you have to click the ones you want to add. No you dont add a bunch of products that you dont know about or have never seen all at once. That frankly would be pointless as well. You seem to think that the way to make money with Amazon is to have as many products as possible. This is not correct at all. The way to make money as I explained in the review is to have very niche specific stores. You cant do that when your adding hundreds of products without even knowing what exactly they are.
Well said Brett
Hi , You couldn’t have said any better.
How do you get these sites ranked if they are on a sub-domain? I am not clear how you would get a domain name and have them hosted like Hostgator or any other host
Subdomains rank just like any other site.
You dont need hosting if you want to use your own domain, you simply get a registered your domain name and point it at their hosting.
Are you able to buy more campaigns after original purchase?
Yes
I’m on the fence about this. I can see the advantages of a cloud based Amazon site builder, but am concerned about a few things:
1) Since we don’t actually own or host anything, our sites could disappear overnight if the developer moves on to something else. What’s your commitment to this product?
2) Is there a way to add unique content? Otherwise, having lots of store clones on the same domain seems like it could be considered spam by Google. May even violate Amazon TOS, which doesn’t want you to just scrape their content into a store.
3) Getting traffic from organic SEO requires optimized titles and product URL’s. Do we have any control over this. Can we, for example, link directly to products in our store, as in: http:mydomainname.com/product.htm
Thanks,
Gene
Valid questions, let me ask Neil to pop in and answer them.
One thing I will say though is about them doing the hosting. I can understand you are concerned about that. The thing is, unless you actually run your own web server this can always happen. Millions of users where shut down when HostGator decided to sell out to a inferior service a year ago.
Is there a risk that your store will go down? Yes a tiny one. But even if your hosting yourself there is always a risk since you are still relying on someone else actually and as we have seen even a billion dollar hosting company can go down, sell our, or go bankrupt.
Hey Gene,
Appreciate your questions, and here are my answers:
1. Well – we have a developer team of 4 full time developers and one manager. We pay them well and we keep them fed 🙂 And as I mentioned elsewhere – our plans with this are of world domination – so we are not going away! (If you search for any of our products, we are still supporting the ones from about 2 years ago!)
2. We are not scraping any content. We are connecting with the API and grabbing information we can grab. I actually don’t think its an issue because this is not duplicate content. Each store will have unique products – highly unlikely that even with DFY stores, two end stores will be same.
3. Titles and URLs are already optimized based on the product name. But you cannot change them any further. Trust me, it would be easy to add for us – but then 5-minute stores will turn into 5-hour stores, and that’s not productive for anyone. We did similar things with another software in past (Vidlify) and the site and its pages are ranking and getting TONS of organic traffic!
Hope this helps?
Thanks!
Neil.
Thanks for your quick and honest reply. I did go ahead and purchase. I’m looking at this as a quick way to build Amazon stores and product landing pages to test traffic and conversion methods. And if the video and viral traffic techniques work, then I won’t miss the lack of SEO flexibility.
Thanks,
-Gene
The link I got shows $27 as a once-off payment when I get to PayPal but on the main site it shoes that to be a monthly payment. Please clarify. Which us which?
Unless to promo has ended its a one time payment.
How does this rate next to Fresh Store Builder?
Fresh Store Builder is better in my opinion.
Hey Brett, I’m checking out the product and there is actually a monthly recurring cost for both the elite monthly and the elite lifetime.
That is because the launch promo / special is over. Sorry you missed it.
The FE is often a bonus these days.