Hampton Wicks : Dix-o%-ns
posted in Affiliate Marketing |
If you haven’t had the unfortunate opportunity to do so yet, when you have a moment, take a peruse of the Dixons merchant information page. Whilst gleaning, to your disatisfaction you will then notice a number of products set at 0% (zero) commission as well as those set at 0.5%.
Naturally disapproving of this, I continued to ascertain if these products were appearing in the product feeds, well I’ve just searched one example of the product lines, which was DVD RW … and unfortunately, yes it is.
What the heck? This is quite concerning. The products really should not even be in any product feeds.
In my humble opinion & without a doubt, their commission rates are quite lousy compared to competitors & are exploiting affiliates. There perhaps should be a bar commission rates have to raise to in order to qualify for any product feed feature or as a merchant on a network at all, yet some affiliates, like plums, will still feature them.
The subjest of 0% (zero) and 0.5% commission, should maybe treated separately as they may command slightly differing viewpoints.
The main point I would like to draw attention to is that it was all well & good in principle when commission groups on product ranges were initially introduced acrossed different networks, and it was fairly warmly received by affiliates.
But, a few merchants … how can I put it politely .. are taking liberties. When the margins are small they squeeze as much cheese as possible to affiliates to lower commissions, where instances 0% commission are simply intolerable.
Will the merchant or network be yielding? It’s unlikely, and both parties will try to dispate any decent discussion until after the christmas period, at least. i wonder if The Sun would be too happy to hear they are listing 0% commission items & whether any of teh cashback sites receive flat rates to offset these.
However wasn’t the purpose of these commission structures to be reflective of the profit margins?
So, where are the juicy commissions on products with higher profit margins, nowhere to be seen of course! What? Did you actually believe some merchants would play ball? I remember it was not too long ago that LCD & Plasma TV’s were at least double the price they are now .. where were the proportional increases to be seen then?
Look there it is .. and once again there goes the oinky sonic boom of another pig flying past the window (cheers again Kirsty)
Big Brand does not equate to big conversions. My EPC with Dixons isn’t even 1 pence though most of that is attributed to Wii’s being in the Shopwindow feed which has since been removed, though when the program was on Tradedoubler it was still a lackluster performer from our perspective. I don’t know how Shopwindow weights merchants in their feed, but with commission levels like that .. hmm .. the term bottom feeders comes to mind (referring to merchant).
Don’t me wrong Shopwindow is a terrific product & I urge more merchants to join or add their products to it … & … more affiliates to utilise it. As we personally look forward to further development of sites incorporating Shopwindow.
I would like to quote Renegade in response to Keith’s blog post
Given the nature of our sites we’re not going to drop stores BUT we can and do structure our page layouts to encourage our visitors towards merchants which make us the best commissions. Case in point this week has been the first Bennetts discount code which co-incided with Dixons removing some of theirs. It won’t surprise anyone to learn we sold more Bennetts stuff than we ever have and those sales were are the expense of DSG stores. So as some stores squeeze commission opportunities for other stores become available and it’s up the other stores and affiliates to take advantage of the opportunites this presents. Any store which takes its affiliates for granted or squeezes commissions can’t expect to get away with it for long. We’ve been affiliates a lot longer than the stores which make most of our income and we’ve seen them come and seen them go but we’re still here, and happy to work with any merchant that treats us as partners rather than a resource to be exploited.
The Silver Lining
The biggest merchant we have indentified is 24 Studio, their website may look like some old fashioned arbitrage site when you initially look at the homepage, but it does convert fairly well and is on our recommended list at the moment. And their affiliate manager seems a nice chap.
Remember : “Use Affiliate Window links not Commission Junction.”
It would also be appropiate to point to to Lee’s Blog : Wii Wars – It’s Only A Game To Some, But Livelihoods To Others.
I anticipate I shall be blogging about a Wooly merchant in the near future pertaining to Wii’s, as it maybe some while before the dust settles on this Dixons saga with more chapters unfolding.
My Top Tip Merchants for Today :
24 Studio on Affiliate Window & Children’s Rooms on Paid On Results.
My Merchants to Avoid for Today : Waitrose Entertaining (Tradedoubler), PC World (Tradedoubler) , Play.com (Buy.at) & Dixons (Affiliate Window)
The Phoenix Rises from the Ashes
On a positive note, I think there is the potential for Affiliate Window to turn this around to their good advantage, though my concerns are directly aimed at Dixons. Affiliate Window have a very good tool continuously being developed in ShopWindow, imagine the potential if this tool could allow affiliates to predetermine the commission levels on any given category, knowing the ranges on offer. That way perhaps feedback could fed to a merchant knowing they were not included in a product range by X% of affiliates because their offering was too low, it might actually make merchants appreciate the value of the affiliate marketing channel & increase commissions appropiately (within an affordable level) in order to be included on a wider number of websites. That way the commission structure for any category might find it’s natural equilibrium / level. Not the complete answer but maybe something to consider & expand upon in future discussions.
Unfortunately, I will suspect that neither will truly address the 0% question until the bulk of the christmas trade has ker-ching’d in the merchant’s cash tills & network’s over-ride coffers.
