A sneak peek at the new OpenSRS Storefront
By: James Koole on November 19th, 2008
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: OpenSRS Storefront
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Since OpenSRS launched back in 1999, we’ve offered a couple of ways for our resellers to sell domain names and related services. First, there is the Reseller Web Interface (RWI) which provides a browser-based sales and management interface. Second, there is our Application Programming Interface (API) that allows resellers to integrate domain sales and management into their own systems.
Starting today, we’re ready to tell you about a third way to sell through OpenSRS – a hosted storefront.
We’re rolling out our new OpenSRS Storefront solution as a “technology preview” in advance of its official launch in a few weeks. If you want to roll up your sleeves and try it out, later today, there will be a link in the RWI for you that will provision a ‘live’ working Storefront interface. You can also try Storefront in the Horizon Test Environment – it’s there already.
We’ve put together a list of frequently asked questions that will, we hope, answer most of the questions you might have about how Storefront works.
There are a few things that distinguish the OpenSRS Storefront from competing hosted reseller-in-a-box offerings. The Internet has changed dramatically over the past few years with the arrival of what has become known as “Web 2.0.” Our Storefront really reflects those changes.
Back in 1999, people looking to buy domain names were generally fairly tech-savvy individuals who knew how to code HTML or manage their own server. Or they were companies with IT departments that could make sure that the website that new domain name was pointing to worked properly.
Today, anyone and everyone wants to be online. Tools like hosted blogs, photo sharing sites and MySpace deliver on the promise of making it easy to establish and maintain an online identity. Our Storefront further extends this and makes it easy for everyone to find, buy, own and manage their own domain name, regardless of technical experience.
It’s really a domain name sales site for the Web 2.0 age and we think it represents the way domain names will be sold in the coming years.
Here’s a look at the end-user experience:
For current Resellers, there’s no fee to pay, or contract to sign. Just click the link in the RWI, when it appears later today, and your storefront will be created and you’ll be able to start customizing it right away.
We expect that many of you will want to see for yourself what Storefront looks like on the back end. To get you started, we have a screencast showing how to get your Storefront provisioned, and what you’ll find once you log into the Storefront Manager.
We’ll have more information on Storefront in the coming weeks.
