John Lewis ditches voucher sites

[Mogga]

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Please be advised of the following changes to the John lewis programme policy.

As of 5pm Friday 3rd July John Lewis will no longer be working with Vouchercode directories.



A vouchercode directory is defined as the following:



· The URL Contains the following or derivatives of these terms: ‘code’ ‘vouchercode’ ‘promotional code’ ‘voucher’ ‘coupon’

· Website appears in search engine listings under any of the terms or derivatives of those outlined above

What position in the listing? 10, 100, 1000000?

· Website’s primary focus is to promote the use of vouchercodes



John Lewis ceased working with cashback affiliates in May 2008 in order to uphold their tradition of 'treating all customers equally'. They still however continued to use coupons to offer customers discount through johnlewis.com. This notice is to inform you that John Lewis will no longer be offering coupons or promotional codes online and therefore request to end their partnership with vouchercode directories.


Therefore if you are a vouchercode directory please ensure that you remove all John Lewis links by 4.59pm Friday 3rd July. Please note that all cookied sales within the 30 day window will be honoured.

[loquax]

Worth noting is that Awin do include

"Please note - If you're main affiliate account is listed as a vouchercode directory but you wish to continue promoting John Lewis through another website please email Rachel providing your affiliate id and details about the website you wish to use".

Which is spot on in terms of communicating with affiliates about the issue and light years ahead of the email from t'other merchant this morning.

Jason

[Rachel Humphreys]

Thank you for those vouchercode directories who have emailed me with any URL's they wish to continue promoting John Lewis on. I have made a note of all the information you have provided and am reviewing this with John Lewis.

If you are yet to email me, there is still time so please do so on Rachel.Humphreys@affiliatewindow.com

[ash]

I found the latest email a little condescending.

The time is now 5.15pm on Friday 3rd July therefore there should be no John Lewis affiliate links present on vouchercode directories.

The time is 7.32pm and i still have john lewis links on my voucher code directory. Largely due to the fact that the original email got lost amongst the 100's of other emails i receive everyday.

I will remove the links, its now on my todo list. Much like i assume its on AW's todo list to update the John Lewis T&C's which are still showing:

Coupons/Promotion codes

John Lewis is keen to work with all publishers to accurately promote special offers, discounts and promotions.

[Lawcom]

at last someone is seeing the light :-)

[buspassjohn]

Nice for a tiddler like us to be followed by someone as big as John Lewis Partnership, now perhaps more merchants will take back control of their own promotions from voucher code directories and kill them off once and for all.

[ash]

Nice for a tiddler like us to be followed by someone as big as John Lewis Partnership, now perhaps more merchants will take back control of their own promotions from voucher code directories and kill them off once and for all.

Yawn, your posts are getting really boring now.

I have'nt seen John Lewis pull their whole affiliate programme from the network (so they are not following you), they are doing as you should have done (if your decision was solely made because of the behaviour of code sites, like you make out) and stop issuing vouchers / working with voucher code sites.

I doubt we'll seen John Lewis staff popping up on every voucher code thread having a pop at code affiliates.

[ash]

Nice to see that someone at AW is on the ball at the weekends, John Lewis listing now reads:

John Lewis has ceased working with sites designated as 'voucher code directories' as John Lewis does not issue voucher or promotional codes any longer.

Although there is still a load of now non-relevant text relating to voucher codes being listed in compliance with iab guidelines.

[buspassjohn]

Yawn, your posts are getting really boring now.

I have'nt seen John Lewis pull their whole affiliate programme from the network (so they are not following you), they are doing as you should have done (if your decision was solely made because of the behaviour of code sites, like you make out) and stop issuing vouchers / working with voucher code sites.

I doubt we'll seen John Lewis staff popping up on every voucher code thread having a pop at code affiliates.

Sorry you feel that way, I have never said that we pulled out of our program with AW solely because of the behaviour of code sites, there were many reasons, the behaviour of code catalogue sites was merely one aspect.
Taking our program in house has clearly not worked so I was obviously wrong in doing that and we are still considering how to progress promotion by the affiliate channel, nothing is written in stone, we may well come back to a network in future and I'll definitely have to stop being really boring for you.
Our sales so far in 2009 are up 106% on 2008 so our customers must think we do something right, it's a shame most affiliates don't agree with them.

[Librate]

Yawn, your posts are getting really boring now.

I have'nt seen John Lewis pull their whole affiliate programme from the network (so they are not following you), they are doing as you should have done (if your decision was solely made because of the behaviour of code sites, like you make out) and stop issuing vouchers / working with voucher code sites.

I doubt we'll seen John Lewis staff popping up on every voucher code thread having a pop at code affiliates.

I agree with Ash this POV is very boring and quite broadbrush in just tossing aside a online channel such as code sites ... why cant voucher code sites be used in a managed and strategic way for merchants - using restricted codes for the affiliate channel that can only be paid out if the source contains correct affiliate crudentials for the network who issued the code.

I understand the frustration of media being blurred with offline codes being abused online etc- this is all part of the maturing process and used in a really focused way codes can give great pull for affiliate traffic- and dont forget consumer offers (with relevant content) also feature heavily on such sites so its not all 'cowboy' stuff.

With John Lewis their brand is very unique in the way they promote themselves with the equal offers to all mantra across all channels. Their brand values are their biggest asset so although frustrating to swallow they are standing by them for the online channel too. Plain and simple as that - i dont think they are making a stand against any vouchercode channel just protecting their brand.

Im not aware of the history of the inhouse move but looks like being short sighted didnt payoff the first time round

[IntroSites]

I dont get it tons of voucher sites with John Lewis listed in search engines

[KevinEdwards]

The situation is being monitored.

You'll also notice one affiliate is redirecting John Lewis traffic to a competitor. We have informed John Lewis of this.

[LearnAffiliateMarketing]

The situation is being monitored.

You'll also notice one affiliate is redirecting John Lewis traffic to a competitor. We have informed John Lewis of this.

No prizes for guessing who!

[Lawcom]

It's common sense, voucher code sites are distructive to the business ... they have no added value, they take percentagw with out generating traffic, customers or developing the brand, they do nothing for the business other than give customers something off and then take their percentage at the point of sale..

The sooner more companies get on board with this and realise this the sooner they will be closed down..

They stifle growth, impact on affiliates that generate content and build a companies brand and profile, affiliates who genuinely direct new traffic are hijacked by VC sites..

The only people it benefits are the networks and the VC site owners, certainly in the long run not the companies that give them out codes or affiliate marketing as a whole, good riddence, well done John Lewis, now if the rest of you merchants can wake up to your self and stop throwing money away to voucher codes sites the better..

[MattSweet]

The sooner more companies get on board with this and realise this the sooner they will be closed down..

We've created a monster...

Don't forget voucher code sites only exist because voucher codes exist. Who created all the voucher codes then?

Mark Pearson thats who. No, only yanking, it was actually the merchants. Maybe some had a bit of pressure from networks and agencies though.

If you let something loose without any control then this is what happens.

It's up to merchant what channels they use and who they work with but I do think all these following posts about voucher sites being as good as vermin are unneccessary.