Quidco no longer working with Affiliate Window

[Cheapdvds]

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quidco statement is trying to rally its members and saying its all about doing whats best for the consumer etc , it stinks

do whats best for the consumer? how about REALLY giving the members a 100% cashback then surely that is also best for the consumer

[aotagain]

In terms of other sites 'filling the gap'...
Where did all the affiliate transactions come from before cashback and for that matter voucher code sites got going ?

There is quite frequent mention that cashback and voucher code sites can provide incremental revenue.

So my question is quite simple... although I guess the answer might not be.

Has there been any proven research and published figures to show that cashback and voucher code sites are responsible for any increase in total sales through the affiliate channel ?

Or is it just that the sales have increased organically anyway and those two site types have just taken a bigger share of the pot ?

[Jasonorris]

Out of interest how many affiliates or merchants have chosen to only work with one network (as easier to manage) or have a deal in place to be exclusive to one network? We work across a few networks to make sure we pick up any affiliates that are exclusive, but AW is not one of them.

Just trying to get in idea for how many merchants will be lost from Quidco where they cannot move to another network. Would it be a similar 80/20 rule but for Quidco instead of the merchants, where Quidco loses a handful of key merchants unless they transfer?

It will be interesting to watch this one as the economy and marketing budgets fall off a cliff into the sharp rocks at the base, before being dragged out to sea never to return (slight overstatement), as wonder if other big names would follow suit.

[monkeyprojects]

Ah, but you're missing a major point. People don't "pay" a membership fee to QuidCo every January. People don't "pay" QuidCo anything. It's simply deducted from their earnings.

"pay" not be the right word but all cashback sites using the quidco model charge a membership fee. Once the fee has been taken any income after the 1st £5 is paid out to the member.

Quidco's hope is that people won't want to lose multiple amounts of the £5 charge which would be the case if people joined multiple sites.

Are you sure you are not Quidco's PR company. The only people I've every met who are so predantic over the slight misuse of a verb are libel lawyers and PR "professionals".

[chrismockford]

do whats best for the consumer? how about REALLY giving the members a 100% cashback then surely that is also best for the consumer

Do you have any evidence that Quidco do not pay 100% cashback?

Chris

[smarties]

Are you sure you are not Quidco's PR company. The only people I've every met who are so predantic over the slight misuse of a verb are libel lawyers and PR "professionals".

I was putting forward a counter-argument to something you said. It's an important point. If members did "pay" QuidCo then come January, they might decide not to due to the missing merchants. In the actual scenario, members would just have an extra £5 deducted. This happens automatically, so I doubt it would have any real effect with members just carrying on as they do.

I don't know how QuidCo works exactly but I'd suggest that they charge the £5 fee from when the user signs up rather than from the beginning of the year. If this is the correct scenario then I suppose your theory about it being interesting to see what will happen in January would also be incorrect.

Interesting case indeed.

[monkeyprojects]

I think the reference to not being 100% cashback is the annual £5 membership fee / requirement.

[8601cam]

Whilst I agree that airing your dirty laundry in public is never a preferred route to take this does have to be balanced against the fact that it’s the route one has been forced to take by another party. Plus what is considered ‘dirty laundry airing’ by one, can be considered transparency of information by another.

I've tried to stick with Quidco's 'reason' for severing ties with AW and to some degree we have had issues with the SureShop agreement. In principle, however, we still adhered to the turnaround time and to that end have a total of ZERO outstanding transaction queries through Quidco for all of our merchants at the point this whole issue surfaced. As they said themselves;

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXX XXXXX [mailto:xxxxx@quidco.com]
Sent: 15 July 2008 12:28
To: Kevin Edwards
Subject: Quidco Outstanding Sureshop

Hi Kevin,

I would like to pass on my appreciation and thanks to you and your team for clearing down the Sureshop oustanding enquiries to one.

You have made a lot of members very happy.

Kind regards,

Dominic

XXXXXX
Head of Quidco Member Support

You’re welcome Dominic, it’s what a good network is supposed to do.

So what’s the real reason behind AW’s removal?

Well, firstly I have to say that we work in a commercial world and what a business will do to take an advantage over their competitors is down to them and is fair game. I have no issue with sharp commercial acumen or revenue sharing, we know it goes on.

Quidco have for a long time operated on the basis of member sign up fees, a struggle for a company offering a supposed 100% cashback to their members. However at present we believe that Quidco have agreements with a number of networks to share override revenue generated from member purchases through the merchants they manage. This would exclude Affiliate Window as we ultimately declined a proposal for this for a variety of reasons, including;
1. We don’t do this with any other affiliate, cash-back or otherwise.
2. We felt involved parties would have a right to know (agencies don’t hide their fees from their merchants).
3. A large number of AW merchants are exclusive to the network

Again I reiterate that I’m not saying there is anything wrong in this, it is business after all and I make no apology that point 3 is important to us; after all we’re a business too.

So for the past 6 months or so we have seen Quidco’s traditional stance of maintaining original link relationships for merchants, eroded as every significant non-exclusive AW merchant we managed was switched to A.N. OTHER Network. Hopefully you will note that there was no public discussion regarding this fact as we chose to raise it with Quidco privately as it was an obvious concern but as I have said before, it’s business.

This culminated with Quidco operating with AW for our exclusive merchants, aside from a couple of new dual network merchants, where link switching was restricted. Considering the brands we’re talking about here this was not an insignificant amount of commission for Quidco members. However, with AW, Quidco would not make anything extra from these merchants.

So reviewing the current scenario, AW is to be dropped as a network from the 1st of September. No discussion with us, no review, no tender, we merely find out because Quidco have chosen to contact our merchants directly and it is posted on the a4u forum.

SureShop is cited as the reason and we responded. Merchants are now being called by Quidco who are offering more detailed ‘reasons’;
a) SureShop
b) Poor tracking
c) Relational issues
AW works with a broad range of affiliates and I’m hoping that the monumental effort we put into our progressive attitude and stance, our robust technology and innovation and our partner appreciation and service will hopefully dispel these comments for the myths that they are.

Quidco members – ask yourself this. If it’s questionable merchant practices you are concerned with why would switching to track from one network to another fix your problem. On the Quidblog a situation was outlined by a member regarding a merchant tracking issue with the comment

anyway if this move will stop this happening, I’m all for it

Unfortunately it won’t stop this happening as we are NOT the network who tracks this merchant.

How has this affected you? Well, when one merchant chose to move from network X to AW the commission offering changed from;
£40 though Network X to £65 through AW
Single transaction type paid through Network X to all transaction types paid through AW

Yet, Quidco continued to promote through network X for the duration of the overlapping closure period, despite direct calls from the merchant to Quidco to switch.
Finally our affiliates are like our members and we pay them for all our merchant’s transactions faster than anyone else and that includes payment to Quidco, who are an affiliate after all. I’m sure there are other 100% cashback portals offering faster payment and the same levels of service so you decide. 100% Cashback | Cashback News

It grates when the very relationships and technology Quidco have benefitted from over the past years are not recognised and actually cited as negatives.

You’re a business, at least have the common decency to come out up front and say;

‘We get a better deal with networks A, B and C’ so want merchants business to come through these partners rather than AW’.

Then let the merchants make up their own minds and weigh up Quidco against the alternatives. But this route doesn’t get so much member or merchant sympathy I guess?

Before anyone says I could have handled this directly and privately, I chose not to because arguing around false issues is a disgrace and insults the intelligence of those who know better. This is nothing to do with ego and everything to do with principle. What this post hopefully does is to redress the balance and offer a level of clarity which changes the landscape.

The outcome may still be the same for AW, Quidco and merchants but at least some of us would be comfortable to say our actions have reflected our business principles, would Quidco honestly want to say the same?

Kind Regards

Mark

[monkeyprojects]

I don't know how QuidCo works exactly but I'd suggest that they charge the £5 fee from when the user signs up rather than from the beginning of the year.

The way Quidco describe it is a £5 annual fee. From experience (I've used Quidco for home insurance) it seems to be taken from the first transactions in a calendar year that their receive monies for.

The real question is how much loyalty do cashback users have. Considering the desire people on certain forums have for finding loopholes and freebies from which they make a few pennies a time my guess is very little.

[Rich79]

Does anybody know exactly what the "100% cashback" refers to in Quidco's value proposition?

What cash is the customer actually promised to get back??

[purple]

Quidco was created. An ad-free cashback cooperative that passes on all referral commissions in exchange for keeping £5 a year as an admin fee

This is from the quidco story, I would have thought they only pass over the basic comm rate, and the higher tiers, or % of the override they get they keep? as pure 100% would just not be a viable business model shirley

[ian]

Does anybody know exactly what the "100% cashback" refers to in Quidco's value proposition?

What cash is the customer actually promised to get back??

From the T&Cs

"We receive an amount of commission from the merchant for generating the transaction and we pass that amount on to you, our member"

Technically they are passing on 100% of the commission paid by the merchant. Any bonuses they may, or may not get paid by the networks have nothing to do with the cashback commission from the merchant

[Rich79]

pure 100% would just not be a viable business model shirley

Perhaps not, but don't call me Shirley

Couldn't resist that one!

[monkeyprojects]

Mark,

Quidco have deleted a comment on their blog asking them about the override and Dialaphone issue.

Hardly surprising but it does confirm your suspicions.

[ian]

Looks like someone has just removed the entry on the quidblog regarding the 'bonus payments' and '£65 vs £40' mentioned by Mark. They asked Quidco for feedback on the two issues, guess they got it