SHOPPERS from Bradford are being given the chance to shop in malls around the UK - without leaving the comfort of their armchair.

The Digital Media division of Newsquest - owners of the Keighley News - has launched its Shoppers' World site nationally, which currently has 160 shops from throughout the UK selling 4,000 products.

Staff at Bradford & District Newspapers, which publishes the Keighley News, have put more than 20 shops on its This is Bradford site at www.thisisbradford.co.uk.

Customers include Empire Electrical, Gain Travel, House of Lyness and Vision Multi-Media. The site is attracting Internet users from as far away as Australia and the USA.

People can shop through the This Is gateway and using the Shopping World site on www.shoppingworld.co.uk.

The local launch of Shopping World was last October and last month Newsquest Digital Media launched the Internet shopping malls nationally, using sites created by staff from the publishing group's 180 English newspapers.The national site is attracting 2.7 million page impressions a month and the This is Bradford site 150,000 in the same period.

Shoppers can click on a list of stores in the Bradford mall and visit each of the sites to buy goods - just in the same way as a conventional shopping mall.

Retailers, now also known as e-tailers, can promote up to 300 items on the local site. Each one has a description of the product with up to three pictures of it. Another click will produce a whole page of information about the product and give details of how to buy it. The system uses a secure transaction server, which means shoppers can safely leave credit card details.

Taz Azmi, Bradford & District Newspaper's digital media manager, said: "A retailer can have 50 product descriptions in its "store" on our site for £200.

"The beauty of this system is that it gives retailers a second shop window, which can be seen by people across the world, using the site created by web designers working for the local newspaper in an area."

Anyone interested in further information should contact Taz Azmi on 01274 705245 or e-mail at taz.azmi@lancashire.newsquest.co.uk.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.