Dixons Poor Commission Rates Discussed

[gadget]

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How about....
Pixmania
Tesco Direct
Argos
Littlewoods

They all stock digital cameras although I don't know what they %ages are like in comparison.

I think Pixmania are owned by DSGi too and from memory also have 0.5% commission.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

I have been liasing with AW on this, and AW have sent an email to Dixons today asking them to remove products at 0% and 0.5% from the feed. In the meantime within the ShopWindow Toolset (beta) > Merchant Manager I have blocked Dixons from appearing until the merchant sorts it out. It's just a case of whether Dixons drag their heels hoping to get free sales from affiliates who have not blocked or not realised about the zero % commissions. For which neither network or affiliate earns.

"In 2006 DSG international plc acquired a controlling 77% stake in its parent company, Fotovista."

DSG International (retailer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

DSGi Group

Pixmania - most commissions set at 1% on Level 1
Currys - most commissions set at 2% on Level 1
Currys Partmaster - 10% default
Currys i-shop - 10% default
PC World - most commissions set at 2.5% on Level 1

Albeit Pixmania commissions are poor, Dixons seem to be the main one within the Group with unreasonable commission %'s. Not saying that the other's couldn't be improved though.

[gadget]

Sounds a good move but this thread isn't about shop window or feeds. Its about their low commission rates in general ( for certain products ).

[Bud]

I have been liasing with AW on this, and AW have sent an email to Dixons today asking them to remove products at 0% and 0.5% from the feed.

I don't mean to p on anyone's bonfire or anything but as a shopwindow user I'm really not keen that that should have happened!

I'm happy to take the good with the bad and do not appreciate this decision being made for me.

As far as I'm concerned having a choice is what my site is about and not just pushing products that earn. Some will, some won't. I want those items in my feed.

This is not the way to do things.

If I wasn't happy with Dixons I could block them - I didn't.

Can anyone at AW confirm this has been done?

[drivetowin]

I'd agree with Bud on this one - I think it's a mistake to remove the products from the feed.

I would rather have all of the products in the feed and choose to promote them /not promote them myself than have that decision made for me. The 0% commission ones are maybe arguable but the 0.5% ones (while I'm not happy with 0.5% commission) I would rather make a sale through Dixons at 0.5% commission than not make the sale at all.

Please leave the feed as it is and find a technical solution to blocking those products to those who want them blocked.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

[Mod Hat Off & Gauntlet Picked Up &The Bonfire is Nicely Stoked ]

Bud,

Am I hearing correctly, folk want or arguably want products in their feeds where 0% commission is earned like Wii's et al (for et al there are a lot of categories), well all I can say is that is very charitable, and perhaps we can open Pandora's box to other merchants to introduce the same thing.

Is that for out of stock items too?

Here we go Mr Merchant affiliate marketing is now a free marketing channel, we develop websites, pay staff & spend on PPC, it's all free & we expect negative ROI? Then the ones at 0.5% isn't this simply devaluing the affiliate marketing channel. If you want padding then do a bit of research for feeds available out there.

And whilst we are at it, when tracking goes missing, by the same token can I assume it doesn't matter at all does it? Because we are taking the "good with the bad" afterall ?!

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Keith & Bud

A technical solution, easy, If someone doesn't want commission, then perhaps take out the affiliate link for that merchant. Or a separate feed for 0% items. Reminds me of Loquax quote about 110% cashback (not 100%).

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Keith

Keith I was was a little confused by your response, should there be 0% commissions at all and / or should these be included within any feeds, I am reading a mixed message.

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Putting Sarcasm (the lowest form of wit, so please excuse) to one side gentlemen, have I just been in "Life On Mars" and returned missing something? And please nothing about user experience & product choice for which there are the same or alternatives probably on this or other feeds.

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Funkey Monkey,

Determining whether a merchant is rubbish depends how you personally promote that merchant and the return based on the visitors sent to that merchant, for us the bulk of the traffic they received from us is via shopwindow, so that is how we determine & put forward our answer to whether "Dixons Are Rubbish" or Not. With clicks being generated mainly for products on 0% commission or out of stock, together with those at 0.5%. Our personal point of view is that Dixons is rubbish & some of their commission offerings at Lvl 1 devalues the affiliate marketing channel. While other(s) via promotional codes have been successful. Even when we promoted on TD, it was still "rubbish".

But I am glad you started the thread as it brought to our attention how poor their commissions were which we didn't realise before together with the 0%'ers. So I do appreciate that & have appropaitely blocked them for the time being.

[drivetowin]

Paul

The reason I say leave them in and find a technical solution is if you have a price comparison site and one site features for the sake of argument Dixons blank DVDs and my site doesn't (as it's not in the feed), but say Kelkoo do (as they don't rely on the same feed) and that day Dixons blank DVDs are cheaper than everyone else, a visitor comes to my site and doesn't find Dixons DVDs, goes to Kelkoo and does, comes to the conclusion Kelkoo is a better bet than my site and from then on whenever they do price comparison they go to Kelkoo instead of my site - result, I have lost a 'lifetime' customer for the sake of taking 0.5% commission on one sale - bad result for me overall.

If AW put the commission band into the feed then it would be easy for those who wanted to exclude 0% (and 0.5%) items if you want.

No, I'm not happy at 0% and 0.5% commission and I've voiced that a number of times on here, to Dixons in person and to AW more times than I care to remember BUT at the same time I'm not going to cut my nose to spite my face. Dixons are not necessarily rubbish, it's a case of taking the rough with the smooth - I have one product they sell which at the moment is getting 15% conversion for me and I make a clear £5 profit on each one so while they can deliver products that convert like that I'm not going to worry too much about not making money elsewhere. I should add I don't actively promote their 0% and 0.5% items, but if someone does a price comparison then they do appear.

[rplumridge]

Hi everyone

This thread has raised a number of differing views which have all been taken on board. For clarification, we have contacted Dixons regarding this and Julia and I are meeting with them on Thursday and will discuss in more detail - no final decision has been made.

Ultimately we want to find a solution that everybody is happy with - judging from the comments we have a difficult task ahead of us!

As you can appreciate, ShopWindow will always be work in progress as we seek to add more and more functionality to improve it. Feedback such as this is really useful and will help us plan for further developments moving forward.

Richard

[gadget]

Richard

Thanks for taking this on board and for the forthcoming planned meeting. As you say, there are a lot of issues.

From a personal point of view, this isn't just about Shop Window - it's about commission rates less than 2%.

Thanks.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Keith,

If you a bit scouting around and you'll see where you can get 15 - 20p commission per click as against zilch which we have just found & will implement. Win Win.

I can't agree with the Maths & lost visitors as this month alone we have had over 18000 wasted clicks to Dixons, so you are telling me that is 18,000 wasted lifetime customers to our site. I just don't think so.

Also I think this goes deeper with Dixons, maybe knowingly allowing 0% products in the feed.

No price comparison site will ultimately give the cheapest price or least all feasible merchants, hence maybe more appropiate to be called product search (as it is referred to sometimes as not all merchants are ever listed). All I can say if affiliates let the odd merchant treat them like a monkey then they can only be expected to be paid peanuts.

Nice sig btw.

But echoeing Funky Monkey yes it's about having acceptable commission rates & affiliates not being taken liberties with as well as your suggestion Keith, that as future development on Shopwindow (a wonderful tool) affiliates can decide the minimum commission rates they wish to receive (appear in the feed).

Oh btw ... by blocking Dixons yesterday, we had a record day on some items.

[Gavinio]

If anyone wants to promote DSGi Business brands, paying 5% on all items (except clearance items) then let me know. The sites are PC World Business, MicroWarehouse and MacWarehouse

Sorry to thread-jack, but thought this was relevant. DSGi Business are a separate part of DSGi, the affiliate programmes are run by R.O.EYE and are on various networks. You don't have to be a business to purchase from any of the sites.

[Bud]

Qui Gon Jinn,

Whilst I appreciate your argument and agree in many respects, my view was only as a Shopwindow user. I completely agree about the very poor levels and if we accept these as standard it is a slippery slope.

However, without going over old ground, I think Paul summed it up well. If our site is not seen to offer good comparisons/checks then the whole basis of our site is undermined.

There are limits to what we can accept as affiliates but some of us have to be pragmatic at times.

I know it was possibly tongue in cheek but out of stock items are just a big no no that I've already raised with AW a number of times - these definitely need to be removed.

I hope that's a little clearer as I do not wish to undermine the push towards fair commissions. I do not promote any of these low paying items in my PPC activities or bespoke sites (ie. non comparison), and will not until the levels are improved.

Richard - appreciate your comments, have a good meeting!

Thanks

[gadget]

Richard - whilst I'm sure you'll represent the views hear at your meeting, it may be worth asking Dixons to read this thread so they understand the depth of feeling.

If they do read it, I'd be interested in reading their comments.

[Shane]

I find empathy a wonderful tool .. let's try and get dixons to play the empathy game and put the shoe on the other foot :

present scenario to suit dixons :
They have added products where no commission is due .. therefor will get sales and make a profit and pay ZERO for those sales... personally methinks that's out of order and should at worst case be able to choose if you show them and they should be OFF by default (frankly why you would choose to push someone's products for free is beyond me, and the start of a slippery slope I would not be playing on for sure ! .)

wishfull scenario to suit us :
how happy would dixons be to find out that affiliates had someohow done something equally sneaky and managed to double the commission percentage that was payable on the most profitable items and instead of the 3% they thought they were paying out it was now 6% due to us.. would that make feeling of the situation clear to them you think ? you expect something but find out you are out of pocket.. doesn't feel nice

guess they'd not be very happy methinks.. well that's how pushing stuff for free works.. it sucks.. it's not on, affiliate marketing is a business, so if you can't afford to pay the rate then don't expect us to flog your wares.. for gods sake how much cheaper can it get than being paid only when a sale happens !? it's free right up to the point a sale is made so if the market can't manage a couple of percent then the whole industry is in trouble !!

we should be paid for what we sell.. it's a black and white concept ! not grey.. .. this you get paid on this you don't.. if you can't make enough cash on those to pay even 2/3% for receiving the sale then stop selling them

if affiliates are happy to push products for free then perhaps they need a registered charity number instead of a ltd company number.

[drivetowin]

Let's be clear - I'm not "happy" about pushing products at 0% or even 0.5% come to that and I most definitely do not 'push' them but I would rather have them there, send someone to Dixons and maybe just maybe they will buy something else while they were there which does pay commission and/or they go back and buy something else which does pay commission from Dixons during the cookie period.

Yes, in an ideal world Dixons would pay 3% (or more on everything) - I'm not sure what magic you think removing them from the product feed is going to do, the products will still be on Dixons website, people will still be able to buy them and you will still get 0% commission on them......yes those products are not getting space on your website (nor do they get space on mine unless someone explicitly searches for them) but with all due respect to everyone here, I can't imagine that will exactly have Dixons quaking in their shoes.