Battle of the Presidential Web Stores

Both candidates for the 2008 Presidential Election have online stores selling merchandize to support their campaigns. All purchases from these official campaign web stores count towards the legal $2300 personal contribution limit. This page compares and contrasts various technical and social aspects of each web store.

This report will be continually updated until 4 November 2008. The last update was on 19 June 2008.

Please feel free to leave a comment or suggestion about this report

Setup:	store.barackobama.com	store.johnmccain.com
Title:	Store.BarackObama - The Official Online Store for Barack Obama for President Campaign.	John McCain 2008 - John McCain for President
IP:	66.216.117.226	69.49.183.187
Registrant:	Public Registration Obama for America 233 N. Michigan Ave Suite 1100 Chicago, Illinois 60601 United States	Private Registration Domains by Proxy, Inc. DomainsByProxy.com 15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 United States

Vendors:	store.barackobama.com	store.johnmccain.com
Shopping Cart Vendor:	Volusion - Includes SSL validation link - Featured on shopping cart vendor homepage, client showcase, and official blog - Includes required link to shopping cart vendor	Volusion - Does NOT include SSL validation link - No reference or link found on shopping cart vendor site. - Does NOT include required link to shopping cart vendor. -- A hidden div is used on every page to remove the link. According to the Volusion Terms of Service, this link is required to be visible. -- Specifically the following text is found in the source code of every page on the site: "Customer has agreed per Volusion’s Terms of Service (http://www.volusion.com/agreement_monthtomonth.asp) to maintain a text hyperlink to "http://www.volusion.com" in the footer of the website. The link must be standard html, contain no javascript, and be approved by Volusion. Removing this link breaches the Volusion agreement." -- Volusion will neither confirm nor deny that the McCain campaign has permission to disable this required link, citing client privacy concerns.
Materials Vendor:	http://www.democraticstuff.com/ - Site online.	http://www.goptrunk.com/ - Site offline for redesign.
Design/Integration:	tigereyedesign.com	Unknown
Tracking Vendor:	google-analytics.com	None.

Users:	store.barackobama.com	store.johnmccain.com
Privacy Policy:	Yes. - Linked from homepage - Links directly to Privacy Policy of barackobama.com	Yes. - Linked from homepage - Duplicate of Privacy Policy of johnmccain.com
User Comments:	- Moderated comments until late 07/early 08. - Currently all user comments are disabled. - Samples of comments: archive.org	- Unmoderated comments until approximately 11 June 2008. At that time, a majority of comments found on the site where negative of the McCain campain. - Currently all user comments are disabled. - Samples of comments: dailykos.com rawstory.com balloon-juice.com snarfd.com crooksandliars.com wonkette.com gawker.com flicker 1 flicker 2 flicker 3 flicker 4 flicker 5 flicker 6 flicker 7
Wish List:	Yes.	No.
"Email a Friend":	No.	Yes.
Browsing History:	Yes.	Yes.

Products:	store.barackobama.com	store.johnmccain.com
Product Descriptions:	- All products include detailed description, usually 2-5 sentances. - Some products include notices on back orders and/or current delivery times.	- Most descriptions are duplicates of the product name. Some highlighted products include 1 sentance description or height/width measurements. - Very minimal number of notices of back orders or deliver times.
Related Products:	Yes	Yes
"Support Packs":	Yes	No
Bulk Pricing:	Yes	No
Price Range:	$2.50 - $125.00	$5.00 - $200.00
Most Expensive:	Barack Obama Support Pack 4 - $125	McCain Nautical Lapel Pin - $200 McCain Embroidered Fleece Jacket - $200
Compare: Baseball Hat:	Barack Obama for President Logo Embroidered Hat - $15	McCain Hat - $25
Compare: Lapel Stickers (50):	Barack Obama for President Logo Lapel 2-1/2" Stickers - $5	McCain JohnMcCain.com Lapel Sticker - $10
Compare: Bumper Sticker:	Obama '08 Bumper Sticker - $3	McCain Logo w/ Website Bumper Sticker - $5
Top Level Categories:	Artists for Obama State Shirts Winter Gear Shirts Buttons Hats Lapel Pins Signs & Posters Stickers Support Packs Media Accessories Vote For Change Women For Obama Students For Obama Gear For Less	Apparel Buttons Stickers Signs Accessories Parents for McCain Armed Forces Coalitions Apparel Go Green

Traffic / Search Engines:	store.barackobama.com	store.johnmccain.com
Google InLinks:	~ 3,030	~ 477
Google Indexed:	~ 713	~ 782
Yahoo InLinks:	~ 110,031	~ 28,052
Yahoo Indexed:	~ 1,810	~ 472
Hitwise Marketshare:	79.72%	20.28%
Alexa Store Traffic:	6% of total domain traffic	1% of total domain traffic
Alexa Rank:	# 1,564	# 14,425
Alexa Page Views per User:	~ 3.75	~ 2.72

Future Research Topics:
- use of Advertising and Marketing. Until approx ?8? June 2008, McCain site promoted site with link to "Golf Gear" from McCain main site.
- Sales Volume democraticunderground.com politico.com
- User experience. Reports of Obama store refusing and/or refunding purchases by users who are registered lobyists, or have exceeded $2300 contribution limit.
- nyt.com
- long waits at obama store.. primetimepolitics.com
- waybackmachine obama
- Javascript usage
- Design / Color usage / product design nytimes.com nymag.com
- Legal / $2300 contribution limit... overflow sites (http://www.barackobamamax.com/)
- Domain info http://whois.domaintools.com/barackobama.com - http://whois.domaintools.com/johnmccain.com alexa compare

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