Prezzies Plus Termination

[mdrussell]

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As of today Existem Affiliate Management will no longer be managing the Prezzies Plus affiliate programme.

We have decided that management of the programme was not in the interest of both parties and we would also like to notify you that the Prezzies Plus programme will be closing on 9th February 2009.

If anyone has any questions please contact John Ayres john@prezziesplus.co.uk.

Thanks for all your support on this campaign.

Cheers
Mark Russell
Existem Affiliate Management.

[Keith]

Thanks for letting us know Mark, at least we have best part of a month to swap links to another merchant better then the 24 hours that sometimes happens.

[pratish_solanki]

Hi all,

As Mark has said above unfortunately the Prezzies Plus programme will be closing on February 9th 2009. All affiliates on the programme will be e-mailed about this shortly.

Kind regards,

Pratish

[Spency]

Really dissapointed by this.

We had a load of sales with them just before Xmas, would have been triple if they hadnt of run out of Slankets.

This is a big loss to me and my site, really gutted to be honest.

[purple]

Interesting item the slanket, I wonder if merchants would have sold out with out affiliates promoting

[buspassjohn]

Just by way of some explanation, we are cancelling our affiliate program for several reasons.
Our program did not get the support and promotion we expected from affiliates, in spite of our offer being competitive and our products being in great demand from the public. We have come to the conclusion that this was primarily due to the established allegiances of affiliates to other merchants in our sector and their reluctance to promote a competitor, regardless of our offer, this attitude would take too long and be too expensive to change. Mark at Existem has worked hard to try and overcome these obstacles but it has become clear that we are all flogging a dead horse with this.

We had already made the decision to stop all voucher codes, based on our analysis of the usage of these and the cannabalisation of our ppc sales and sales by other affiliates, those sales being overwritten by cookies from certain voucher code directory sites. The decision was delayed to see what happened under the new code guidelines on the 1st January, nothing seems to have changed however and voucher code directories are still playing all sorts of tricks to get cookies dropped, mainly now claiming they don't know an end date for a code so 'click here to find out'.

This is going to be a very tough year for us all, having traded through recessions since the 70's we are determined to continue our growth this year but there is only a certain amount of margin in every sale and we need to maximise the proportion we keep for ourselves, it is a sobering thought that the margin paid to affiliates on sales is far higher than our own net margin!! perhaps we are in the wrong business.

Big thanks to all the affiliates that did support us, this is going to be a year full of changes, we will continue to monitor the affiliate scene and hopefully it will be possible for us to re-enter it at some stage.

If anyone wants to promote our site and products via non voucher code means, we do have the means built in to our site to track and reward private affiliates, together with automated product feeds, please get in touch if you are interested.

[buspassjohn]

Interesting item the slanket, I wonder if merchants would have sold out with out affiliates promoting

The Slanket was a one off, we would have sold three times the amount if they could have been manufactured and delivered in time, with or without affiliates promoting them.
Most of the sales were made before affiliates twigged on to them but these sort of crazes only occur every one or two years, I am old enough to remember the first Christmas for 'Dancing Flowers' we sold on Christmas Eve, between 9.30 am and 12 noon a total of £30,000 worth and had people fighting over them so much we had to have a security guard, those were the days!!

[gunneradt]

Really sorry to see you're going. I had more allegiance to prezziesplus than other merchants as I liked the attitude and help I got. I had only started promoting gift merchants and had picked prezziesplus above others for the reason above.

Hope it works out for you.

[buspassjohn]

Really sorry to see you're going. I had more allegiance to prezziesplus than other merchants as I liked the attitude and help I got. I had only started promoting gift merchants and had picked prezziesplus above others for the reason above.

Hope it works out for you.

Thanks for that, we're not about to curl up and die though, only stopping the existing affiliate program, we've spent over 20 years bringing the public what they don't even know they want before it becomes a craze and they all want it, we will still continue to do that.

[befuddle]

I too had more allegience to PrezziesPlus over the Christmas period as John made a personal effort to communicate.

I'd like to thank John for getting in touch with me to say that a a sale had been referred via my site but it hadn't shown up in the system so he gave me a manual commission.
(It was because the customer had disabled cookies whilst buying a Slanket).

Merchant's don't have to do that and so it stands out when they do.

[purple]

John

Never got to work with you really as I dont do much in the gifts/ gadget space, but you have been a breath of fresh air, and I hope you can return with a new programme, maybe in a more limited way in the future.

All the best with the business in 2009 dont be a stranger!

[benfriedman]

How do we get involved with your private programme? This was a programme i just never really got round to looking at properley but would be good to work with you John.

Cheers,

Ben

[getvisible]

Most of the sales were made before affiliates twigged on to them

It pays to be ahead of the game.

[buspassjohn]

It pays to be ahead of the game.

The Slanket only really took off when we got them on a morning TV program, then the response almost killed our server! it amazed me how many people have the time to watch mid morning tv!!

Due to the number of messages of support we have received, I have decided that we must carry on an affililiate program for the people that have promoted us so far, it will be a small in house private program, for content or ppc affiliates only - NO voucher code directory sites will be allowed.

If you are interested in taking part and have not already contacted me, please let me know, the more affiliates willing to join, the more priority we can give to this - as it will be in house, non voucher code, we will offer very attractive commission rates.

[John]

John - Maybe I'm looking at things a little too simplisticly, but if the problem was with voucher code affiliates, then a simple change to your T&Cs/program terms (i.e the same way merchants decide whether to allow ppc/brand bidding/cashback/incentives/direct linking) would have the same effect without potentially losing the very affiliates you really want to attract?