[PetsWarehouse.com]

Last nite someone placed 9 orders for about $800.

From One affiliate.

The tel# was bogus but there was a CC.

We were going to email the customer for verification, but now we just looked and all 9 orders were canceled by this customer, which they can do.

The problem now is if we reverse them our stats won't look to pretty.

Is there another way to delete these sales on SAS?

[Robert Drumm]

Same problem here...

[PetsWarehouse.com]

Ok, spoke to Michael, he said to just reverse them.

Not to worry about the stats showing a high reversal rate for a month.

Do you agree with the postion that most affiliates don't pay that much attention to the reversal rate?

.

[rematt]

I do now. I was getting high reversals in some programs and thought I was doing something wrong until I checked their overall reversal rates. Now I check all programs reversal rates BEFORE I join and start promoting them. A one month blip on the reversal radar probably won't change my mind on a program though, just make me keep an eye on them for a while.

-rematt

[Robert Drumm]

Maybe not current affiliates but I'm sure new affiliates take that into account before joining. It also affects the "Power 100" which to some extent could influence new affiliates.

We haven't had a major issue with it yet but I'm waiting for the day when we have to reverse 100+ fraud orders and we get hammered.

Bob

[PetsWarehouse.com]

Just spoke to the affiliate one of his people was testing the coupons.


Brian, this needs to be addressed I think wherein bogus orders get deleted someway.



.

[loxly]

Reversals happen. Hopefully most fraud orders and declines are found before the confirmation page, but you can't stop cancelled orders.

[Robert Drumm]

Originally Posted by PetsWarehouse.com

Brian, this needs to be addressed I think wherein bogus orders get deleted someway.

I doubt Brian could do anything about it really. How would they determine between a fraud order, test order, or legitimate reversal which should be counted? What's a legitimate reversal? etc etc

Bob

[PetsWarehouse.com]

Easy, in this instance here we an affiliate and merchant agreeing they were test sales that should not have gone thru.

Therefore, SAS need not determine the issuance of a delete.

[Jorge - SHOPiMAR]

Bob,

Canceled orders happen all the time and most affiliates know it's part of working online. Fraud orders and bad CC does make it a challege for merchants most times. Also some programs and products have higher reversals than others so each case is a case by case. I think pet products would be one with a lower reversal rate, not sure just me thinking, so I would not worry too much about reversing the orders and explaining it to affiliate in a quick email since this perhaps does not happen often.

My suggestion would be if you are concerned about the EPC, which is true it does affect it, but also most affiliates know not to always count on that, would be to instead of reversing all 9 orders at same time do them gradually within then next few weeks. Remember you have about 30 days to reverse before they lock, but perhaps reversing one as you make some sales like 3, 5 or 8 orders, it would not show a big negative reversal EPC.

If you are making lots of sales weekly, then it's no big deal even if you reverse all 9 at one time either, since your EPC will be back to normal soon.

[TI Master]

I do agree that it would be nice when all parties involved agree, to be able to remove these without affecting stats. I'm the affiliate that caused Bob the grief (one of my new part time hires was trying to test their coupons and evidently ended up placing a number of actual orders), and I hate to see their stats affected by this.

[Eathan]

Bob,

I agree it can be a pain, but I can also see where the network wouldn't want to get involved on a case by case basis.

I hope most affiliates look at the trends rather than just the numbers, but overall I think it's one of those stats that does as much harm as it does good. Obviously it helps prevent merchant abuse, which is great, but it also makes legitimate reversals a painful experience.

The question should never be: "What will cost more; paying commissions that should be legitimately reversed, or the loss of joins over a spike in reversal rate?"

As for this situation, I wouldn't spread them out. A single spike on the trend graph may look better than a consistent hump. Also, 7 and 30 days will roll over faster on a single day's spike.

Good luck!

[Eathan]

Be nice if there was a graph that showed daily rate for 100 days or so. A 100 day graph of daily rate instead of rolling average would paint a much clearer picture of rare spikes vs consistant reversals.

[PetsWarehouse.com]

I worked it out with the affiliate, but this problem is not resolve for future situations.

[coolmasti]

It might sound a bit odd but it actually happens.

Suppose there is a company X & a company Y.
Both competitors in the same industry.

X has great figures in programs like shareasale/others

Y does not like that.....what Y does is that it employs fake affiliates and purposely create a helpless situation for company Y by forcing X to reverse a lot of the amount. This would spoil the figures of X.

I have no idea about the situation here. But would just say that cheap competition like this exists.

AMEET SHIVRAM