Collectibles and Toys - Star Wars

In case I didn't mention it, I'm a big Star Wars fan. Today, I got a chance to combine my love of Star Wars with my day-to-day job. A team member in the Signature Support department was trying to help a client that was expanding into a line of Star Wars products in an interesting way. The client is listing products for a supplier of Star Wars merchandise, but is not selling them directly. The intent was for the products to be listed normal in a new category on the site, but each would actually link from the product detail page to the affiliate site.

The result would be products listed in this category and that would load in searches but after viewing the details, the only choice to purchase the product would be to click a link to the other site. The outgoing link would have a referral ID that would be tracked with visitors or orders and our client would get the bonus.

Our software is not exactly set up for this specifically, but we came up with a good workaround by using the Call for Price feature. This allows for the ADD TO CART image to be hidden along with the price and replaced by the message in the product editor. Well, as it turns out this message field is not just a text-input box, but can accept limited HTML. We set up each of the products with Call for Price enabled and the message had an HTML link to the product page at the affiliate site with the proper referral ID. The result was simple and could be accomplished quickly.

To check it out, go to TVLegacy.com - Collectibles and Toys - Star Wars.

Update (2008-05-07): It appears that this client's domain name no longer points at the site. Oh well, that's the way the internet cookie crumbles.