BlackStar - Difference between billed and ordered figures.

05-09-02

What's the difference between your 'billed' and 'ordered' figures at BlackStar?

Let me provide some of our stats. for one site:

Click-throughs 32739
Registrations 263
Purchasing Customers 61
Orders £4,050.67
Billed £1,642.96
Commission Earned £82.15

I queried the massive difference between the 'Orders' figure and the 'Billed' one (on which we receive our 5% commission minus VAT).

I was told by somebody at BlackStar:
"Ordered items includes all orders made by the customers who are registered to you. This includes pre-orders, orders that have been declined or cancelled, orders placed on items that have their release dates delayed, and video hunts.

Billed only reflects those items that have been paid for and sent to a customer. Ordered also includes VAT while billed does not. For these reasons there can be a large difference between the two and they will in practice never meet."

Still doesn't satisfy me. Why would TWO-THIRDS of orders go on to be cancelled/not succesful for one reason or other? People don't go through the lengthy process of making an online order for fun, only to cancel later.

Are other people have a similar problem with converting sales at BlackStar...?

05-09-02

for me the surprising thing about your stats is you actually managed to get a registering customer and then convert them to a purchasing customer ;-)

when I first found blackstar it sounded like a great idea but it's never worked out, my stats are

Click-throughs 993
Registrations 2
Purchasing Customers 0

and then I gave up. I find Bensons World (TD) converts much better - not great, but better!

£82 from 32 thousand visitors is a nightmare EPC.

05-09-02

I think something is wrong as that's a big gap in orders to real orders, however what I would like to point out that at my domain name company we get people that order .ltd.uk and .plc.uk for personal use (you can have these unless your the real company) and it's not a short sign up form. We also get what we call the "drunk on names buyer" who will be ordering domains (and this can be any time of day/night) only to cancel them a few days later.. major problem as by then we have got them and very little we can do when the charge back happens.. however it not any place close to a 60% ratio.. more like 0.6%.

One place we do have a major issue is "Invoice Orders" we don't get the name until we get payment but very often the payment never turns up. I don't know what the going rate on people not paying after ordering via invoice is but I think after they have had time to think about the purchase may see it as a bad idea. Yet to find out from my peers as to why because so many don't offer the invoice option like we do.

05-09-02

Bit of topic Nadeem, I heard you was opening a Video/dvd shop yourself.. is that true.. with stats like that from Blackstar sounds like you could make a bundle selling the stuff direct... at 32,000 clicks you got a good amount of visitors. Theres quite a few dvd/video wholesalers around your way so you dont have far to go.

I used to deal with a few wholesalers on brick lane around the corner from espottings offices and theres a good one just of Oxford St plus a load down commercial St ... cant remember where they all are as its been a good number of years since I closed my last shop.. pick up the Trader magazine down your local newsagents for the addresses.

The nice thing about dvd and vids is there such low value goods it dont cost you a fortune to stock up on em'

Click-throughs 11596
Registrations 145
Purchasing Customers 97
Orders £7,126.82
Billed £5,084.39
Commission Earned £254.22
epc £2.19

06-09-02

Thanks for the tip, 'aquanuke'. The amazing thing is that while we are receiving 4% commission (after VAT), the physical cost of producing a DVD is something like 50 pence. They sell for nearly £20 in rip-off Britain. Think of the mark-up!

Of course, the movies cost stacks of money to make. But somebody, somewhere along the chain is certainly making a killing... and it's not just those actors who get £10 million a film.

It's certainly not us poor affiliates. 4% is not very appetising.