Fonetastic and mobileshop bolt ons

[T.J.]

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I haven't done much for mobiles lately, but are thinking about getting back in to them. I just did a quick check at fonetastic and mobileshop and you don't appear to be able to get a contract without a minimum £3.00 a month bolt on, and without taking out insurance. How long has this been the case?
I also notice the fonetastic interface hasn't been updated since November and that my conversion rates are terrible.
Are any fonetastic affiliates making sales and can people get a contract without the bolt ons?
I don't really want to switch merchants, but if worst comes to the worst which are the best to be working with?
TIA.

[Gavinio]

Hi TJ.

You don't actually have to pay for the bolt-on, it's quite simple to remove it - fairly standard practice I'm afraid - the same for the 3 months free insurance - you just have to cancel it, and it's quite normal in the industry to do this - not something that's going to be changed.

As for the interface, I see you mean the news articles - we don't see these, so they're easy to miss, but I will update these, and you should've been recieving regular newsletters.

As for conversion rates - FTM over reports the click rate substantially (as it includes spiders etc as a visitor) but for targeted traffic we do have a number of affiliates who very successfully promote FTM and do significant volumes, as well as a host of smaller affiliates. Mobileshop is doing cracking this month - both FTM and www.Mobileshop.com have got some great deals, FREE line rental phones, and the new Nokia N91.

Regards,

Gav

[T.J.]

Thanks Gav,

I went to the buy page with the choice of add ons about 5 times
and didn't realise you could uncheck them
I thought you could only chose from one of the 3 options.

Is the N91 in stock yet? it's still showing as a pre-order with a next expected delivery date of 26/04.
I updated my page on Saturday and are probaby pissing a lot of people of by saying it is in stock.

[Gavinio]

No probs about the check/uncheck thing, we've all been there!

As for the N91 - it isn't in stock yet, but then it's not in the UK yet, and anyone that says they have it in stock is probably telling porkies. AFAIK Mobileshop are the only retailer to be even taking pre-orders, they've got an excellent record of getting the phones out for when they say, and their excellent customer service record -
http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xMR-44042~MRD-44042~S-1
- helps, and we are taking lots and lots of orders for these at the moment!

It's been one of the most popular in the last week, after the free Motorola L6!

[T.J.]

As for the N91 - it isn't in stock yet, but then it's not in the UK yet, and anyone that says they have it in stock is probably telling porkies.

So when you say

"both FTM and www.Mobileshop.com have got some great deals, FREE line rental phones, and the new Nokia N91"

do we have to assume your just telling porkies?
Why tell us they have these things if they haven't, it makes us look silly, and I dare say I will be getting reversals now.

[Gavinio]

I don't think anyone ever said that the N91 was in stock. The status on the website has always been shown as "pre-order" and there is a date there. I appreciate I could've made this clearer, but it's not wrong. As for the great free deals, no - they're definately there.

As I said, there is no-one else selling these at the moment, so numbers of applications have been high.

Feel free to email me if you've got any specific questions.