By Paul Pannone
eWedNewz received a tip from an unhappy supporter of a program by Red Goloshes that alleges unless they cough up more money they face being shut down. According to the tip 400 other participants are affected by the move. In the tip some preferential treatment in the way of a “heads up” to selected participants was mentioned.
Red Galoshes promises full-service online marketing and consistent revenue growth; until it doesn’t.
The tip alleges;
”I am one of the stores in the Red Galoshes/Bridaluxe network. I got an email yesterday that the server will be turned off 11-1-12, effectively closing my website and all the others (unless I cough up big bucks for a migration to another server).
Red Galoshes/Bridaluxe was sold to Hollis Interactive in July 2010. The owner’s name at Hollis is Mark Malone.
The sites were always linked at the bottom (Sites we also like…)
But some of the sites, namely:
AnnaBellagio.com
haydencroft.com
myspiritualwedding.com
ThatsMyTopper.com
tuxedosdirect.comdon’t have that bottom link and seem to already be independent from “the group”. They might have gotten a heads-up???
These website stores still have the bottom link:
ashmontengraving.com
bellissimabridalshoes.com
cheersfavorcompany.com
elizafig.com
itsmymitzvah.com
lolasbigday.com
modelbride.com
orangeblossomtiaras.com
pickapetal.com
printedcandle.com
somedaytreasures.comThe stores had 400+ affiliates, so the closing affects products being removed
from LOTS of other websites as well.http://www.redgaloshes.com/merchants/portfolio.phphas a list of all the merchants that were involved. Some had dropped out already (Dessy, EG Jewelry, Encore Studios–you know about, LCI Paper, not sure which others)
Some were complete site set-ups by Red Galoshes (links listed above were). These merchants had been invited to participate and asked to fill certain niches the company desired. They only wanted “best selling” items. Then merchants paid 20% on all sales, a steep fee that was to have included marketing (except the main marketing vehicle, a Wedding Gazette newsletter, stopped years ago).
Merchants often found that their affiliates had the Google listings for their products, not the originating merchant.
Other merchants just fed merchandise into the RSS feed to affiliates (and I’m sure paid a much smaller percentage) including:
Advantage Bridal
American Bridal
Beau Coup
Exclusively Weddings
USA Bride Weddings
Vistaprint
Wedding Mountain
Wedding Paper Divas
WeddingstarRed Galoshes/Bridaluxe used to be a way that the little guy could compete with the enormous wedding sites. When they started feeding in every possible piece of merchandise from the big sites, it lost it’s “boutique” appeal. And, of course, the little guy’s merchandise was pushed pages and pages back where few had the patience to find it.”
Under the agreement of anonymity the tipster gave eWedNewz the following excerpt from the email alerting participants of the shutdown, citing tough economic times, a changing environment and social media as the causes;
“After much deliberation, we have made the decision to shut down the Red Galoshes program, and with it, your site.
This decision comes in spite of the enormous investment we put into the model, but in the end, economic times, changing search algorithms and social came in and crushed it.”
eWedNewz sought comments from past website owners who have moved to other industries, including David Fuhrer. It was Fuhrer who blew the whistle on all wedding websites, proclaiming that websites could be part of the business but not the business.
Here’s what Fuhrer told eWedNewz;
(Not know all the details) Am I correct that the person who gave you this lead is stating that the “network” he is in a) developed his website b) hosting his website c) marketed his website…he doesn’t want to be quoted but, what did he PAY & WHEN? the “network” then—above whatever initial payment he made—charged him 20% on anything that was sold via his website.
FYI: whole thing sound like a link-building pyramid scheme, which as you know pads-the-numbers to unrealistically favorable analytics for “all”. it also sounds like they “stole from the poor, to build for the rich” if indeed his website is being ceased. who owns his domain name?
So much more to this, but from what i quickly absorbed it look as if this guy “found” (or did they find him? did he have a website prior to this?) a “turn key solution” for all his online needs & took it, paying the penalty of a 20% vig. Now red galoshes is shutting his & others websites down due to economics.
Do you know what this truly costs? —$100 to host a site for a year, $10,000 to build the most wicked website; and maybe $80 a month to an “expert” seologist?”
eWedNewz tried to reach out to various people mentioned in the tip including a general email to Red Galoshes and Andrea Zimmern. No response was given at the time of this story’s release. eWedNewz continues our investigation into this story.
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