[Joey]

quote:

---

Dear KBtoys.com publisher,

You are receiving this message because KBtoys.com has changed your individual commission rates. These changes will go into effect on 9/13/02.

Your current commission rates are:

Pay-per-sale: $0 or 5%
Pay-per-lead: $0
Pay-per-click: $0

The new commissions rates will be:

Pay-per-sale: $0.01 or 0.0%
Pay-per-lead: $0.0
Pay-per-click: $0.0

If you have any questions, please contact the advertiser directly.

Best regards,

Client Services
Commission Junction

---

This is pathetic!

Let's see, now I've got 1 day cookies and a $.01 maximum commission.
Yep, sounds like a real winner.

What KBtoys is doing will LOWER their EPC - which means only one thing: KB Toys is only in it for free branding and sales! I can't see how they have any intrest whatsoever in actually paying affiliates.

-Joey [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_mad.gif[/img]

[eaglefire]

A penny a sale? Someone's got to be playing a practical joke here. Don't they? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

{

"Laziness, Impatience, Hubris. Pick any three" ~ YAPC 19100

[Cedric]

quote:

---

You are receiving this message because KBtoys.com has changed your individual commission rates.

---

It's not a network wide change... wonder how many people received this?

I'd recommend contacting them directly and inquiring as to why your individual rates were changed... seems if there was a problem, they'd just drop you.

Or, actually, I'd probably just drop them.

-------
Dawn is nature's way of telling you to go to bed.

[parentsworld]

quote:

---

Or, actually, I'd probably just drop them.

---

No doubt. Wouldn't give it a second thought. I used to get a few of those, I'd drop the merchant and let them know why.

They usually came back saying "oops, it was a typo" but I have very little patience for an Affiliate Manager who wouldn't double check their numbers BEFORE sending out such an email.

'Veni, Vidi, Velcro' - I came, I saw, I stuck around

[Jakpot]

I would drop them.

[deelz]

Just dropping them is a cop-out.

In a sense this lets them off scott-free for this type of behavior, and soon enough we start to see a trend with other merchants pulling this BS stunt.

Better to virtually parade them around town and burn them in effigy; other merchants will see that what they did is not such a good idea.

AS SEEN ON SE!!!

[Thomas A. Rice]

On the upside, maybe it's just a typo. Maybe they meant to raise your commission to 10%..... okay, that's an incredible long shot, but contact them before dropping.

Make sure you have their attention before smackin' them upside the head, otherwise they don't even notice you.

If you try to please everybody, someone won't like it -Rumsfeld

[webmarm]

That is extremely rude. After you show them how much more you can earn selling through Amazon.com, send them some salt and tell them to salt the earth after their affiliate program burns to the ground.

- - - - -
42. Yup, the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

[Cedric]

>>Just dropping them is a cop-out.

Bull-hockey. As far as we've seen this is an action taken by one merchant against one affiliate. And, to-date, we don't know the details of why the action was taken.

So what exactly are we burning them in effigy for? Killing Joey's commission instead of dropping him? Sorry, I left my bic at home on this one. Show me a pattern and the bad merchant behavior that caused the pattern and I'll see what I can muster up... until then?

If I have a problem with one merchant and no-one else is having that problem, I'll just drop them and figure some partnerships were just not meant to be.

-------
Dawn is nature's way of telling you to go to bed.

[ecomcity]

I have to along with Cedric on this one til KbToys/eToys shows their true colors. They have in the past dropped their affiliate program right during the Christmas holiday rush period. Obvious reason was to get FREE traffic & branding a simple to remember URL from banner and text links not immediately removed and negating commission exposure.

They must feel they have a lock on the Toy affiliate market. Maybe it's time to see if WalMart can step up to the plate and follow thru on their promise to convert affiliate traffic by better creatives -landing pages and individual product links. Love to see some DHTML auto updated displays for toys, games and hobby items from the formerly lazy Walmart folks like Overstock uses at LS.

WebMaster Mike

[JJJay]

I don't know who is worse, KB Toys for cutting the commission rate or CJ for allowing them to cut the commission rate. The merchants must really love CJ for all the freedom and free traffic CJ allows them, merchants can cut cookies, cut commissions and reverse at will. CJ doesn't give a damn as long as they get their $4,000,000 or so in annual fees. Concerning merchants scamming affiliates, there plently of evidence on this board yet CJ still allows merchants to run their programs as they like. Anyway I think KB Toys cut your commission in the hope you wouldn't notice it, I for one rarely read any CJ mail.

[perfectG]

KB toys are tossers who still have not paid their LS affiliates what they owe despite them continually promising me they will. Drop their sorry @sses and say good ridance to bad rubbish.

Andy Williams

Keyword DARTs - New search engine optimization software
http://www.affiliate-masters.co.uk/k...timization.htm

[Cedric]

>>who still have not paid their LS affiliates what they owe<<

They did pay some of them and without any instigation on the affiliates' part. Because otherwise, they wouldn't be on my site.

Have you brought up this issue with Sarah?

-------
Dawn is nature's way of telling you to go to bed.

[perfectG]

Cedric
Nice to hear that some of you got paid. I brought it up a long time ago on these boards and the LS person here said they would look into it. Or am I dreaming? Anyway, I have had a comedy of exchanges with KBToys at CJ. Even to the point of me contacing Ebony at LS to tell her what KB Toys had told me and then going back to KBToys and saying Ebony said....
KBToys say they have tried contacting LS but do not get a reply. LS say basically it is up to the merchant now they have left.

I was owed $90 when they left LS, they paid $55 and put the other $35 on hold as it was below minimum payment. May not be much, but will keep at them until they just decide their life will be easier to pay me.

Andy Williams

Keyword DARTs - New search engine optimization software
http://www.affiliate-masters.co.uk/k...timization.htm

[Dynamoo]

You get 5% commission on Toys R Us products sold through Amazon.com.

You can build individual product links too, like this: 18" Schlepp fairly easily too. OK, the maximum commission is going to be $10 on an item, but you do have an advantage that once you've got them to Amazon there's always a chance they'll actually buy *something* [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

dynamoo.com - geeky stuff for umm geeks.

[webmarm]

It's the rudeness of communication upon which I'm commenting. True, we don't know the story from the side of KB, and I am assuming that had there been some previous communication Joey would have indicated such.

So for a first communication that there is some problem, I find the notice rude on the part of the merchant. I worked with someone once whose favorite form of expressing his disapproval was to say something to the effect of "Burn it and then salt the earth it was standing on". Sort of amused me at the time, suppose it does sound a bit violent in the world these days.

Merchant pattern or not, if a merchant wants some different result or behavior from an affiliate, I'd say that sending such a notice that commissions were dropped to $.01 is not the best way to achieve any such result.

My particular personality would indicate marketing the competitor and then thumbing my nose at them. In the language of my ex-co-worker, "burn their links and then salt the ground they were standing on". Sorry if it sounds a bit more violent than it's meant.

- - - - -
42. Yup, the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

[cowox]

lets drop em
but do you have good merchant alternative?

[perfectG]

quote:

---

Originally posted by zervo:
lets drop em
but do you have good merchant alternative?

---

AMAZON - and they convert better than KBScrew you

Andy Williams

Keyword DARTs - New search engine optimization software
http://www.affiliate-masters.co.uk/k...timization.htm

[chinaski]

quote:

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You get 5% commission on Toys R Us products sold through Amazon.com

---

Sounds like a much better plan, drop the loser merchant

[Joey]

I'd had no previous contact with KBToys and I've done nothing (like using coupons) that I can see would give them a reason to kill my commissions.

As far as I'm concerned, KB toys is history. I'll be launching several new toy sites in time for the holiday season and Toys R Us will be seeing the sales.

-Joey