Care to Comment?

[SunshineGirl]

Today I got news that we have been dropped by Bath and Body Works. I know that they are popular with a lot of you. I can't get to the bottom of why they did it. I've tried asking them what we could do differently and they are not responding.

In response to that (and other times SR has been dropped or denied because we are not big enough), I wrote this blog post. If any of you shop through merchants ONLY when they are on SR, you might want to comment. The more that merchants understand what they are missing when they only choose to work with the VERY biggest sites, the better chance we have of getting them to work with us!

http://www.tricia.me/2014/03/14/dont-overlook-the-small-affiliate-in-the-big-field/

[gpp2001]

I commented. I hate it when merchants I like to shop at leave SR - I can't shop there anymore! :headache:

[turtleblue]

Is that why I haven't seen a credit from a purchase that I made a couple of weeks ago? I only purchased from them because they were a SR merchant... I would normally shop from The Body Works as I find their products to be better. Thanks for the update and post.

[barbaraapple]

I don't think you are the only one they dropped. I went to make a purchase earlier in the week and noticed they are gone from both of the reward sites that I shop through! :confused:

[SunshineGirl]

I don't think you are the only one they dropped. I went to make a purchase earlier in the week and noticed they are gone from both of the reward sites that I shop through! :confused:

I see them on some but not on others. I am guessing that they cut back to just the very biggest. Which makes no sense to me. But I guess as long as they still get the sales, they don't care where they come from.

[bartleby1]

I see them on some but not on others. I am guessing that they cut back to just the very biggest. Which makes no sense to me. But I guess as long as they still get the sales, they don't care where they come from.

I must be missing something. Do the companies pay something just to be listed on a site like SR? I was under the impression that they only paid IF/WHEN an order was placed. Is that the case? Or do they pay a monthly or yearly fee on top of that just to be included in the list of stores? If there is no monthly fee, why would they pull their "free" advertising off of any website when there is always a chance that someone may place an order if they keep their store listed? Even if they only get a few orders per year from SR (I have NO idea how many they actually did get), isn't a few orders better than no orders? I just don't get how they can lose by keeping their store listed. Unless, of course, they were tracking a huge amount of fraud through a particular site, but I can't imagine that was the issue with SR because I know you run a tight ship and I would also think fraud would be more of a problem with larger sites with more users to keep track of.

Now, if there is some kind of monthly fee that they pay which isn't being balanced out by sales, then I could understand them leaving. But, otherwise, I just don't get it!

[SunshineGirl]

I must be missing something. Do the companies pay something just to be listed on a site like SR? I was under the impression that they only paid IF/WHEN an order was placed. Is that the case? Or do they pay a monthly or yearly fee on top of that just to be included in the list of stores? If there is no monthly fee, why would they pull their "free" advertising off of any website when there is always a chance that someone may place an order if they keep their store listed? Even if they only get a few orders per year from SR (I have NO idea how many they actually did get), isn't a few orders better than no orders? I just don't get how they can lose by keeping their store listed. Unless, of course, they were tracking a huge amount of fraud through a particular site, but I can't imagine that was the issue with SR because I know you run a tight ship and I would also think fraud would be more of a problem with larger sites with more users to keep track of.

Now, if there is some kind of monthly fee that they pay which isn't being balanced out by sales, then I could understand them leaving. But, otherwise, I just don't get it!

That's exactly what we try to tell these companies! Unlike a lot of our big competitors, we NEVER charge a fee to the merchants. Not even to be included in the Daily Deals or anything like that. We firmly believe that we should only be paid if we make sales. So they lose NOTHING by continuing to work with us. And according to our network reps and merchants we work with, we have some of the lowest fraud rates of any rewards site out there. So the bottom line really is that it is just a numbers game for them that they can go to their bosses and say "Look! We got rid of all of the underperforming affiliates for you!" Then a year from now they will come back to us and act like they are doing us a favor by letting us back in the program only at a 1 or 2% commission.

[PSL1013]

I must be missing something. Do the companies pay something just to be listed on a site like SR? I was under the impression that they only paid IF/WHEN an order was placed. Is that the case? Or do they pay a monthly or yearly fee on top of that just to be included in the list of stores? If there is no monthly fee, why would they pull their "free" advertising off of any website when there is always a chance that someone may place an order if they keep their store listed? Even if they only get a few orders per year from SR (I have NO idea how many they actually did get), isn't a few orders better than no orders? I just don't get how they can lose by keeping their store listed. Unless, of course, they were tracking a huge amount of fraud through a particular site, but I can't imagine that was the issue with SR because I know you run a tight ship and I would also think fraud would be more of a problem with larger sites with more users to keep track of.

Now, if there is some kind of monthly fee that they pay which isn't being balanced out by sales, then I could understand them leaving. But, otherwise, I just don't get it!


That's exactly what we try to tell these companies! Unlike a lot of our big competitors, we NEVER charge a fee to the merchants. Not even to be included in the Daily Deals or anything like that. We firmly believe that we should only be paid if we make sales. So they lose NOTHING by continuing to work with us. And according to our network reps and merchants we work with, we have some of the lowest fraud rates of any rewards site out there. So the bottom line really is that it is just a numbers game for them that they can go to their bosses and say "Look! We got rid of all of the underperforming affiliates for you!" Then a year from now they will come back to us and act like they are doing us a favor by letting us back in the program only at a 1 or 2% commission.

This was my exact question on another thread....I don't get it! They aren't paying to be on SR and they just might get a sale once in a while. I sometimes will search SR for an item and order through a merchant link that I wouldn't otherwise order from if they have what I want at a reasonable price. There are plenty of older merchants that have been on here for ages that I'm sure almost never get a sale and they are still here....seems like the bigger more popular merchants are the ones jumping ship. If they could only work with you and offer to give you exclusive coupons etc. then maybe people would order more from them more often? I only order things when I NEED something, so I'm not shopping or ordering things every week, what do they expect? :confused: