Streets Online

Anyone pulled up any trees with the Streets Online program?

Their reporting is pitiful (no idea of clicks etc.)

Jason
--
Loquax - The UK's Competition Portal
www.loquax.co.uk

We abandoned Streets Online over 12 months ago . Very simply we bought some CD's ourself and the company that have the office downstairs followed our link to GamesStreet and bought a couple of games. Neither sale ever showed up in the stats.

I emailed them on several occasions without reply (except of course for that darn autoresponder) and finally spoke to someone there who admitted that there WAS problems (how many times do your hear that ...WAS..) and that the problems were now sorted out. As we send loads of traffic there , she apoligised and said that they would make a compensation payment to us of £200. We chased it for a few weeks and then I was told that the person I had spoken to had now left and they didnt know anything about the compensation payment.

I told them to shove it and I dropped them off our sites. As I say that was over a year ago now.

Funnily enough as often happens they contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if we would consider putting them back on our sites, claiming that there program was a winner and that there were no tracking problems.

I said NO THANKS!

Interesting stuff.

It just goes to show how easily a reputation can be damaged through tracking faults. Its far better in my opinion to be upfront and honest. If there is a tracking problem then merchants must inform their affiliates. We all track our programs and we should all know when programs are not performing as usual, or to a standard equivilent to their competitors. Even if they do not communicate this annoyance to the ASP, ot program manager, they will have a suspision in the back of their mind.

It comes down to one simple sentence; Those that *really* build relationships with their affiliates will win at the end of the day, hide important information like that, and well.........we know the consequences.

Streets Online pay 15% commission on the purchase of the first item from their site, 5% thereafter. This compares favourably with Amazon, who pay 4% on all items except books (5% less VAT) and other UK entertainment retailers such as Buy.com who are in the 4-5% range.

Also P&P at Streets Online is a flat-rate £1 - on Amazon et al it's usually closer to £3 (no commission on P&P of course).

Our earnings from Streets Online thusfar have been exceptionally good. As most people only buy one item, we get a whopping 15% commission on their purchase!

I agree the tracking stats. are abysmal - actually, that would be a compliment - they are non-existant. Also they don't always respond to your emails.

Have other people noticed dodgy tracking with Streets Online? I'm asking, because we are thinking of changing links from merchants offering 4-5% commission to Streets Online.

Yeah I found them to be very iffy tracking

amazon is v good, apart from the issue i have with them atm, but lots of great resources when u join, on linking direct to products, search boxes, banners and a great brand to be associated with.

I might try them can anyone suggest others

I think you should use Tower Records.
But I'm only saying that because I think you're one of my second tier affiliates on CJ!

Actually the Tower Records site is crap. It's a bad conversion of their American site. It's written in American English, and when you register it asks for your date in the American format.
The worst part is that you have to pay for stuff in dollars - even though it's supposed to be a UK site! Some credit card companies charge extra for transactions in foreign currencies (often this charge is hidden, they add it in when they convert the currency), so they may be more expensive than they look.


I thought it might be worth promoting the new Simpsons series 1 DVD set that came out today, so I compared the prices at a few online stores, and here's the result, including postage costs:

Jungle £33.64
Amazon £33.73
Bensons £34.99
Tower records £39.09
Woolworths £41.49

I'm not sure if this one product reflects their prices in general, but it looks like Woolworths is pretty expensive, and Amazon and Jungle are the cheapest.

If you think people won't order from Jungle because it's not a well known name, it's worth mentioning that Jungle is owned by Argos.

I have promoted all the merchants mentioned in this thread and a couple of others - these are my experiences:

Streets Online - have been an affiliate for 2 years, reporting is awful, but from what has been tracked my commission for the past 2 years is £253.53. However, despite passing their very high (£100) miimum earnings before payment barrier ages ago, I have still not been paid anything by them ever!!
E-mails, to them are not answered. This seems a bit odd because my experience of them as a customer has been good.

Jungle - my experience of them as a customer has been awful. Ordered a printer which arrived with an american lead instead of a UK one - literally dozens of emails to Jungle asking for the correct one and at first they replied saying it was in the post, then they just ignored the e-mails. Eventually, I emailed the printer manufacturer and the correct cable arrived in the post the next morning! 2 months with no printer though thanks to Jungle, so no way am I risking my reputation by putting them on my site. I know lots of other people who have also had customer service problems with Jungle too.

Tower Records - I agree with the comments made by JF - I have yet to make a sale with Tower Records.

WH Smith - as a customer they have been very slow to deliver, as an affiliate programme average at best, conversion ratio is quite low.

Countrybookshop - either their tracking does not work at all, or they do not convert - have not made one sale through them and therefore removed them from my site.

JustBooks (2nd hand books) - just started to promote this (via CJ). Has potential as a similar american site (alibris) has a good EPC on CJ and I have also done quite well with Half.com on a site with usa visitors.

Amazon - seldom the cheapest due to high postage charges, but their customer service is excellent and they are widely recognised as a brand name. Not the best earner as you mostly get 5%, but at least you can recommend them with some confidence and their site is a model of usability.

Other options - Bensons World is pretty good for Dvds/Videos (Tradedoubler) and Blackstar is good too, because they pay lifetime commissions. Their customer service is good but their prices are not particularly competitive.

On a side note - the Simpsons box set is much cheaper on Region 1 (if your player is multiregion), Play247.com has it for £17,99 with free postage, for example, but unfortunately they do not have an affiliate programme.


Mark.

clickprofits.cjb.net
Affiliate Program Reviews.

I agree with JF about Tower Records. See what my colleague wrote about them here:

www.UKHotMovies.com/features

You mentioned that you're interested in selling entertainment products. Well the above webpage compares the level of service of a few major UK retailers, all of which have affiliate programs. (I think it's a bit harsh on Amazon, but that's my opinion.)

Clickprofits, I agree with you about Streets Online. Their tracking and calculation is dire and often inaccurate (they often calculate 15% commission as 5%). I have complained repeatedly about it and the affiliate manager has acknowledged there is a problem. But it keeps happening.

Have other people noticed their commission not being worked out correctly: calculating, for example, that 15% of a £10 sale is 50p?

In the last month I have tried to email them about six times, to various email addresses, and I have not received a single response.

Anybody else had luck getting in touch with Streets Online's affiliate dept.? What's the best way to contact them?

always had a good relationship with them they always paid up in end

We have just started pushing them and earned about £200 in time for their September 30th Payment, however their commission calculations are incorrect.

The comments on this thread are quite disconcerning..

Has Anyone on this forum ever been paid by them ?

yeah they pay in the end