No more commission for Wii at Woolworths

[neoone]

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Hi,
Got this email via Awin, for woolworth.

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Due to stock and customer services issues Woolworths have decided to cease selling Nintendo Wii's through the affiliate channel.

As from 1st May 2007 Woolworths will no longer pay any commissions on the sales of Nintendo Wii's, please could you ensure if you are promoting this item through the Woolworths programme all links or PPC ad's are removed straight away. We have requested the removal of the consoles from the product feed.

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The thing I don't understand is why is affiliate commission stopping if they are having stock and customer service issues, shouldn't they stop selling it or sort the problem out?

Or am I missing something here?

Would be great to hear your views

[jonsp]

Presumably they're selling all they can get in their stores or natural traffic to their site so don't want to pay a % commission for extra sales?

[getvisible]

At least Awin and Woolies communicated their decision and gave us forewarning of stock issues. There are some merchants (no names) that wouldn't even think about informing us of stock issues.

[Darren M]

It's a bit worrying that merchants can just decide to stop paying commission altogether on a product because it's popular. There's obviously nothing in the contract with the network to stop them doing this, maybe there should be.

Come Xmas time what’s to stop merchants refusing to pay commission on all the top toys? As there's always going to be stock shortages for certain products, eg.Tickle Me Elmo etc.

[neoone]

I guess it shows the lack of commitment affiliates have, sure they told us which is great but nevertheless it is unfair.

[stevebrowne]

I'm fully expecting Woolies to have a container load of Wiis arriving in the next few days, and just wanted to make sure that they wouldn't have to pay out commission on a product that will fly out the door.

As I have said in other places, I hope that Woolies remember this when they need help shifting no-name brand LCD TVs and the like when they have an overstock sitiuation.

[Jazz]

I think this is wrong of the merchant and if any of the merchants
I promote did this I would be very upset. From reading every ones views guessing what the reasons why could be, its a shame Woollies have been so vague with their reasoning to drop the program.

Nice idea Steve I wonder if your on to something....

[darrat]

I have found Woolies hard to work with

• Woolworths stopped PPC affiliates in the run up to Xmas
• Their site is laden with ad banners that they have sold
• I have found them to be very, very slow in confirming sales
• Confirmation of sales, for some spooky reason, is often just after a cut-off date

Now it would seem that they are trying to keep the better products for themselves and save on commission.

[aclements10]

Hi All

Woolworths aims to be as transparent with our affiliate partners as possible, which is why we have taken this decision regarding the Nintendo Wii’s and communicated it as clearly as possible. Stock and the popularity of certain products is clearly a big issue for Woolworths (and most other retailers) and these are issues we are constantly working on to improve.

One other issue is margin – we recognise the importance of our affiliate partners in generating orders for Woolworths, but as I’m sure you can appreciate, we have to be conscious of the margins we make on certain products. Therefore staggering commission by certain categories is something that we are working on for our affiliate program, which will reward affiliates at a higher commission level for selling higher margin products, but at the same time protect Woolworths against paying a high commission on a product with very low margins for us. At the same time we are looking at improving our payments to affiliates, so that the process is much smoother and efficient. We expect these changes to be implemented over the summer and will, of course, keep you up to date on all improvements to the Woolworths affiliate program.

We believe that Woolworths offers a very competitive commission to our affiliate partners currently and are constantly looking to improve the efficiency of our affiliate marketing for all parties concerned.

Kind Regards
Mark Batty
Woolworths Group plc

Affiliate Window would like to add that the success of any affiliate program depends on striking a balance between margin and commission, and Woolworths have taken this course of action to ensure that balance is protected for the long-term future of the program. As a network we encourage transparency between merchants and affiliates and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter further to resolve any outstanding issues.

Should you require more information on this please don't hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards
Anthony Clements
Manager, Key Accounts
Tel: 020 8269 4846
Email: aclements@affiliatewindow.com
MSN: aclements10@hotmail.com