1 Make sure you have an active user account and are logged into shopseal. If not, please create a user account.

2 Hit the 'Add a webshop' button on the front page and fill out the form on the Create a webshop profile.

That's all!

Anyone can add a shop and it's free all the way.

Yes, although you can't create different webshop profiles for the same webshop.

You will need a Shopseal user account. Fill out the form on the add a webshop page.

Yes. Shopseal provides a free service, there are no hidden fees. We run on advertising and sponsorship.

In most cases, yes, in some cases, no. By describing an online shop, you are informing anyone who might come into contact with this particular shop through shopseal or one of the major search engines. You are performing a community service.

Adding an online shop will NOT get you into any legal trouble as long as you follow our terms of use.
How am I protected?
- Public websites perform a 'public activity'. Public laws apply to public activities. Therefore you are free to share information on public activities. For more information on website laws, please consult the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) website.
- Your added input on online shops is protected by freedom of speech laws. Be careful though, these laws vary from country to country. For more information, please read the Wikipedia page Freedom of speech by country.

Additionally, Shopseal allows the following people to take over existing shopseal webshop profiles:
1. someone who has been given permission to manage the webshop's Shopseal profile by the webshop manager or the webshop owner
2. the webshop manager
3. the webshop owner
This means that Shopseal webshop profiles might be transfered to another user account, without further consequences. For more info on this process, read our F.A.Q. topic 'How can I claim an existing Shopseal webshop profile?'.

Yes. Although we mainly focus on online shops, we believe that a lot of offline shops will create a web presence in the end.

1
Shopseal provides a platform for online shops to present themselves and for users to communicate, comment & rate the shops they encounter. We are trying to recreate some of the best parts of an original live market. Help us inform & advise internet surfers like you.

2
Shopseal can be an effective marketing instrument.

Creating a webshop profile will:

+ provide customers with a valuable business overview

+ boost a webshop's presence in large search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!

3
Shopseal provides a free service, there are no hidden fees. We run on advertising and sponsorship.
We've built a neutral playground for small, medium and large online shops.

4

Anyone can add webshops, but you can claim ownership over an existing Shopseal webshop profile if you are one of the below:

1. someone who has been given permission to manage the webshop's Shopseal profile by the webshop manager or the webshop owner
2. the webshop manager
3. the webshop owner

5

We're focused on growing Shopseal, because the project relies on continuous development throughout the years. Expect new tools and services in the near future. Grow with us!

Not yet.

At the moment, we are working on the Shopseal product manager's blueprints. Adding a basic product manager to Shopseal would take just a few hours of programming, but we prefer to wait until we have clear blueprints + enough support and time to do the job properly.

Yes, definitely. An online payment system isn't required.

Anyone can add webshops, but you can (re)claim ownership over an existing Shopseal webshop profile if you are;

1. someone who has been given permission to manage the webshop's Shopseal profile by the webshop manager or the webshop owner
2. the webshop manager
3. the webshop owner

This means that control over a webshop profile can be transfered under certain circumstances.

If someone decides to claim ownership over a Shopseal webshop profile, we will need to verify if they have the authority to do so. We have designed a webshop profile verification procedure to make sure that Shopseal webshop profiles stay in the hands of people with the best intentions for the webshop.

If you would like to make a new claim for an existing Shopseal webshop profile, please contact us. In our contact form, select "Claim an existing webshop profile" from the category selection box and type the URL of the webshop profile you would like to claim into the Message field. We will send an e-mail with further instructions.

No, as long as you follow our standard terms of use.

For more information on this topic, please read our F.A.Q. topic 'I want to add an online shop that isn't mine, will the shop owner appreciate this?'.

Anyone can add webshops, but you can claim ownership over an existing Shopseal webshop profile if you are;

1. someone who has been given permission to manage the webshop's Shopseal profile by the webshop manager or the webshop owner
2. the webshop manager
3. the webshop owner

If you decide to claim ownership over a Shopseal webshop profile, we will need to verify if you have the authority to do so. We have designed a webshop profile verification procedure to make sure that Shopseal webshop profiles stay in the hands of people with the best intentions for the webshop.

If you would like to make a new claim for an existing Shopseal webshop profile, please contact us. In our contact form, select "Claim an existing webshop profile" from the category selection box and type the URL of the webshop profile you would like to claim into the Message field. We will send you an e-mail with further instructions.

Douglas Deleu
Managing director and chief developer

Floris Zuallaert
Marketing director and developer

We're committed to building a safe and rock-solid internet service.

A guide on adding or editing a webshop profile. Please contact us if you have comments or questions.

1
Shop Name

Use capital letters when needed

If your webshop maintains more than one different national or regional webshops (different URLs), you may add a country code at the end of the shop's name.

VALID EXAMPLES:

Sony International ( for http://www.sony.com/ )
Sony JP ( for http://www.sony.jp/ )
Sony India ( for http://www.sony.co.in )

2
Shop URL

Shorten your website address for clarity purposes.

VALID EXAMPLES:
http://www.jeanstore.co.uk
www.jeanstore.co.uk (our system will add the http:// automatically if you don't)

INFERIOR EXAMPLES:
http://www.jeanstore.co.uk/index.html
http://shop.jeanstore.co.uk/main.aspx

IMPORTANT EXCEPTIONS:

1 A shop within a non-shopping site

Many webshops are subdirectories inside a large website's hierarchy. Make sure that the website address links directly to the site's main shopping page.

Example: Designer Vincent Leveque runs his webshop - http://www.vincentleveque.com/Shop - within a subdirectory of his website - http://www.vincentleveque.com -

2 Independant regional or national webshops

Independant regional or national webshops should get their own shopseal profile, although it is not mandatory.

Examples:
http://www.uniqlo.com , http://www.uniqlo.com/us/ , ...
http://www.thebodyshop.com/ , http://www.thebodyshop-usa.com/ , http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/ , ...

3
Shop screenshot

This thumbnail image will represent the webshop, in profile and search results.

Head out to the webshop in your browser, take a screenshot and paste the screenshot in an image editor. Cut out (crop) the webshop (contents) from your screenshot. Try to crop the logo, some contents, part of the menu, .. Preferably save as .png or .jpg.

Examples of image/photo editors: GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements , Paint, other ...

Maximum image filesize: 500 KB
Allowed Extensions: png, jpg, jpeg, gif
Images larger than 500x500 pixels will be scaled.

Click 'Browse' to select your preferred screenshot cut, click 'Upload' to send the image to our server.

4
Shop Description

Describe the shop's characteristics and goals.

When a suitable description isn't available to you, try searching for one with Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia or other search engines. Try to get at least a few paragraphs of text.

5
Languages used on site

Only add languages that are essential to your shop.

To select multiple languages, press [Ctrl] or [cmd] while selecting

6
Categories

This one is important. Try to guess all categories that apply to the shop - it might be just 1, it might be 10 ..

7
Shop Tags - Optional

Add some keywords/tags that apply to this particular shop.

How does this work?
Enter a word and hit Enter OR enter a comma separated list of max. 1024 characters.

Example: partygear.com tags:
glow sticks, fireworks, specialty party gear, disco lights, fluorescent lights, ..

If you're having trouble making up keywords/tags, try to think and respond more intuitively - do a little brainstorm and use all the words you think of.

Please don't use category keywords.

8
Special occasions - Optional

Some shops offer event- or holiday-related products and services

Examples:
http://www.shopforweddings.com offers Wedding related products
http://www.personalizationmall.com offers romantic gifts for Valentine's day

9
Product styles - Optional

These are industry/product specific words, try to add a few ..

Examples:
partygear.com: dance, wild, rave, nightlife, ..
bookstore.com: educational, historic, intelligent, reading, ..

Below the entry field, you can find a small list of suggested tags for Product styles.

Please don't use category keywords.

10
Additional services - Optional

Many shops offer additional services alongside their main function: selling things. What kind of additional services does your shop offer?

11
Location - Optional

Inform future customers of your shop's location. This is important information, because the shop's location(s) will determine shipping costs.

Try to add a country and a city, all extra info is a bonus for interested shoppers.

12
Shop Tagline - Optional

This text will appear on top of your Shopseal webshop profile.

A online shop usually has a tagline or slogan.

TIP: You can retrieve a tagline from a web page source code, right-click on the web page and select 'Source code'. Alternatively you can right-click in FireFox on a shop's main page and select 'Page info', often the tagline can be copied here.

13
Products priced in - Optional

Most online shops display prices in a single currency - there are exceptions though.

This input list does not refer to possible currency conversion that might be available elsewhere on-site.

To select multiple currencies, press [Ctrl] or [cmd] while selecting.

14
Payment methods - Optional

Please put in extra effort to get this one right - people appreciate a good selection of payment methods.

Check only the payment methods you're sure of and check at least 1 payment method.

15
Social networking profiles - Optional

There are some great social networking services out there. Add as many external webshop profile pages as you like. Paste the URLs of the external profile pages into the above input fields ..

Adding social networking profiles adds valuable information to your webshop's profile.

E-mail applications and providers often block e-mails from unknown senders.

1 Check your spam/junk folder, there's a good chance the mail can be found here.
2 Are you sure you're checking the e-mails with the same e-mail adress you registered with?

Contact us if you are still experiencing problems after trying the above.

We have dedicated a seperate page to this topic. Please read our webshop profile verification procedure page.

Yes, but only in one of the 2 following circumstances:

1. Someone who has been given permission to manage the webshop's Shopseal profile by the webshop manager or the webshop owner, the webshop manager or the webshop owner has decided to claim the Shopseal webshop profile.

2. After violating Shopseal's Terms of use or Privacy policy. A warning will be submitted to you before we take any steps.

Yes. As long as you're selling and have a website, you're welcome. Note that B2B still is a minority group on Shopseal, mostly it's B2C.

Yes, you can, although Shopseal is not focusing on offline shops. We prefer shops in Shopseal to at least have a representative website.

We won't remove offline shops from our system.

We act upon all copyright violation reports. Please use the following guidelines to report a copyright violation.

Send a plain text e-mail to support@shopseal.com containing:

1 Your personal information: Your name, e-mail, full address and telephone number.

2 A signature of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on their behalf.

3 Details of the copyright claimed to have been infringed. Characteristics and location.

4 Your written confirmation that you believe that the use of the content that you claim to be a copyright infringement is not authorized by law, or by the copyright owner.

5 Your written confirmation that you believe that you are either the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on their behalf.

Tell people about Shopseal! Shopseal depends on the interest and goodwill of its community.

Maybe you know someone who works at a webshop or someone who is planning on starting a webshop. Tell him/her about our site ..

Use our on-site contact form.