Yahoo! to Give Shop At Home Online Boost

For its first foray into Internet cross-marketing, TV and Internet shopping channel Shop At Home, Inc. is teaming with one of the biggest online search engines. Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Shop At Home (Nasdaq: SATH) announced a one-year agreement to promote each other’s Internet sites. It was also announced that Yahoo! will help Shop At Home launch its new www.collectibles.com site later this year.

The Internet’s first search engine, Yahoo! averages more than 235 million page views per day. While the move marks Shop At Home’s first Internet alliance, Yahoo! already has joint marketing partnerships with several thousand online shopping companies listed in nine categories on the Yahoo! Shopping site.

Yahoo! Coming to a TV Near You

Shop At Home will use its television presence, where it is the number three TV shopping channel behind Home Shopping Network and QVC, to promote Yahoo! Starting this summer, the shopping channel will feature the “Totally Yahoo! Hour” to display Yahoo! merchandise, auction items and items from the Shop At Home Yahoo! Store.

Online, the cross promotion will be more than just advertising on each other’s sites. Shop At Home opened a new online store at shopathome.yahoo.com and also offers its products through Yahoo! Shopping, a page on the Yahoo! site where several Internet shopping companies are located. The duo will also launch a co-branded “One-Dollar Auction” on the Yahoo! Auctions page, with bidding for all items starting at $1.00 (US$).

Shop At Home and Yahoo! will also produce celebrity chats on the Yahoo! Chat page, and Shop At Home will promote them on its TV channel.

About Shop At Home

Nashville, Tennessee-based Shop At Home reaches more than 60 million cable and satellite homes.

The company said in its first quarter earnings statement released this week it plans to “focus additional senior management personnel on its Internet initiatives” in an effort to improve its presence there. “This agreement demonstrates the power of combining traditional media and new media to market products and services,” Shop At Home President and CEO Kent Lillie said, noting the company is looking for similar cross-promotional agreements with other Internet-based companies as well.