which seems to offer "discount vouchers "which are exchangable  for offers and clearly discount on contracted sites.

Does anyone have any experience of this?


ZN

Sounds just like coupon affilaites to me...

Never heard of it.

Oh come on!

We've all heard of this kind of thing before, we just hadn't noticed.

Allow me to throw one name into the air, lets see where it falls.

Ally ooop: Amazon

Theyve been doing this for years. .co.uk and .com can be paid out in cash or vouchers, but all the rest (.de, .fr, .jp) will only pay out in vouchers. .jp only pay out in vouchers that can be exchanged for Japanese books from the japanese site.

Its a way  of paying an affiliate £1 with 10p cost to the company. Such a rip.

Anyhoo, whos this latest one?

...I take your point, but this is different. The shopper can search in designated "Discount" shops and select a bargain so that the buy is "Discount " rather than "Need" driven.

Type into Yahoo or Google , DISCOUNT VOUCHERS and you 'll be given loads of sites like

LINKS GONE!!!!!!

You can go straight through to the sellers site and buy using the code to obtain a discount not normally avaiable by entering the site the traditional way.

Is this old hat?

Voucher, Coupon...Same thing.

Coupon Affiliate is what they are called.

ok so its voucher, coupon, discount etc..... is is successful, much used, growing, outdated, problematic, worth doing etc?

Oh i think I get you now!!

Youre talking about an incentive site, where members get paid in cash, vouchers, points sweets etc for clicking and using links on that site.

Am I right?

If so:

is is successful,

Yes

much used

Pretty good yeah

growing,

Mine is rapidly

outdated

Its probably got a year or 2 left before it goes flat (in my opinion)

problematic,

very, extremely, other words that mean yes. alot.

worth doing

Now that depends. the UK market is pretty much taken up. Itd be possible to insert yourself in there, but its a hard slog. If you're willing to spend 18 hours out of each day answering problems, researching, finding new offers and adding them, marketing, building, maintaining, keeping accounts. If you're prepared to be slagged of right round the internet by your cutthroat competition. If your prepared to be a cutthroat competitor. If you can build the systems that manage each and every intricate detail of that business. Then yes, it is worth doing. Just a small hint at the scale of work: about 2000 transactions per day to log, record and display to the right user. That was with about 10 new members a day. We've just signed a deal that is getting us about 60-80 new customers a day, haven't done accounts since.

I haven't had a day off in 3 months cos of that business. I haven't gone to bed before 2am either (its 3.30am now). There are 2 of us plus a few helping out and we're all knackered.

The 'discount codes' you can enter, are part and parcel of affiliating with the retailers. they send you them in the hope you'll push more traffic their way. The code would work if you went straight to the retailers site, but users wouldn't get any 'cashback' for doing so. So you've got to work out a way to pay them for using your links.

One thing. As a member of Site-reference, Im not allowed to post the URL of my site (see siggy) so I would appreciate it if you would edit the links in your post. I take part in these forums to learn to get ahead of my competitors, id rather not take part so they can get their lazy a**es some free publicity. If you end up going into this business, you'll understand.

It IS a legal minefield though, be warned!! get a good solicitor early on and run everything past them. You'll need a decent accountant too one day.

they had one here in OZ where they gave away jelly beans (yep little lollies) ....went VERY, VERY well

matte wrote:

they had one here in OZ where they gave away jelly beans (yep little lollies) ....went VERY, VERY well

Theres one here in the UK called sweets collect. Bit of a rip if you ask me. when you know what the retailers are paying the site when someone signs up for a newsletter, then see that theyre only giving a smartie for doing it, you realise youve got to earn the site about £90 before you earn a Lion Bar!!

Infact theres 100's of different ways to do it.
Like the "get a free widescreen tv" type sites.
You go there, give em your details and sign up to all these offers. youve got to do like 5 bronze offers (all free newsletters) 4 silver offers (all free site sign ups) then 2 gold (all take out a 30K loan, buy a car etc) then refer 10 people to that site and you get a free tv.

Thing is 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of people do the bronze, silver and referrals but no-ones gonna take out finance just to get a free tv, so they end up getting nothing at all. but the site ends up with a hel of alot of commission from the first two lots of offers.

We prefer the more honest approach of giving them cash for what they do. we end up with repeat custom and very satisfied members who refer all their families and friends. Wouldnt be suprised if we make more out of it this way either!

It was Sweet Collect here in OZ
I make some good money from their affiliate program

I've removed the links!

Ok so this is the reply I expected form the UK....is that because everything here is so badly organised? I am an Accountant and can see the scope for disaster........, so well said, but also the opportunity to increase sales.


I asked  about this because I was with some techies the other day who say they never buy anything without first surfing to see if there is a discount voucher available somewhere - when I looked at the various sites offering them, there were loads with good discounts on desirable brands and products.

Is it a problem worlwide I wonder?
Its intersting that the sweet incentive worked in OZ.

Anyone else got a tale?

What are the 3 worst problens with the scheme?