[Geno Prussakov]

Alright... I know that at least 100 of our affiliates are viewing and/or participating at ABW boards. Tell me in one sentence how I can make Russian Legacy's affiliate program better.

Thank you in advance for being sincere.

Best regards,

Geno

[elbowcreek]

Wow, although I am not participating in your program yet, this forum is nicely put together. Very professional, and the colors are quite soothing. Well done!

[lstolze]

Geno, I just signed up since I've decided to put together a new gift site. I signed up because quite honestly, I think you are in the top 5 of my favorite AMs on here, and your program set-up is great! You are pleasant, down to earth, and I think you portray that through your program too. I mean, just joining I saw how thorough your program description and agreement was - certainly a rare thing!

I guess if I had to pick one thing to change, it would be the 60 day cookie to 90 day. I seem to see that 90 day cookie alot more with my merchants these days. Of course my opinion doesn't matter and I really have nothing better to comment since I'm a RL newbie.

Keep up the great work!

~Lisa~

[Geno Prussakov]

Originally Posted by elbowcreek

Wow, although I am not participating in your program yet, this forum is nicely put together. Very professional, and the colors are quite soothing. Well done!

Thank you, elbowcreek and looking forward to working with you soon.

Geno

[Geno Prussakov]

Originally Posted by lstolze

I guess if I had to pick one thing to change, it would be the 60 day cookie to 90 day. I seem to see that 90 day cookie alot more with my merchants these days. Of course my opinion doesn't matter and I really have nothing better to comment since I'm a RL newbie.

Keep up the great work!

Lisa, thank you for your kind words and thank you for joining. It it good having you on the team of our affiliates.

I am looking into 90-day extension of cookie's life for select affiliates. Asked Brian the question of select affiliates' cookie extension (http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=61940). Looking forward to his response. If it is at all doable, I promise to extend them for you (and anyone else who asks me for it) to 90 days.

Geno

[Geno Prussakov]

Any other suggestions? Anyone?

[Ebudae]

it may be trivial but... I would like larger pictures on your site so it catches the shoppers eye.

[Geno Prussakov]

Originally Posted by Ebudae

it may be trivial but... I would like larger pictures on your site so it catches the shoppers eye.

Why would you want them larger at our site? It is your site that you're going to use thumbs at and - after a poll proposed at ABW some time ago - we've made all of our affiliate thumbs 150 pixels at their largest side. You may find them all here:

http://www.russianlegacy.com/catalog/images/thumbs/

Please have a look and let me know if this size is better than what you see at the website.

Thanks,

Geno

[Ebudae]

Yes, those size are a lot better :-)

[elbowcreek]

With shareasale's make-a-page, which I use for sites as I flesh them out, I would like to see more descriptions with the products. Some do not have any descriptions, other than the price.

[Geno Prussakov]

Originally Posted by elbowcreek

With shareasale's make-a-page, which I use for sites as I flesh them out, I would like to see more descriptions with the products. Some do not have any descriptions, other than the price.

I do know about this, Tom. We're working on the descriptions and will be notifying our current and prospective affiliates of new datafeeds uploaded to Shareasale.com as they are uploaded... In fact, I have personally forwarded Michael at Shareasale our newest feed (cleaned of weird characters + containing full descriptions of the items that had trunctuated descriptions before) this morning, and will let everybody know as soon as SaS tells me it's up.

Thanks,

Geno

[elbowcreek]

One other note, you seem to have 1 small leak on the front page, a link to eBay, where you hold auctions. It looks like you haven't actually auctioned off anything since 2004, so I don't see it as much of an issue, other than some of the traffic may see that, and wander off your site and buy Russian stuff from some other seller at eBay, perhaps someone already located in the US.

Just my opinion, but, you would be best to make use of a link like that heavily, and count on losing some affiliates, or cut the link out completely to please affiliates.......... ( my vote is for the latter, of course )

[Geno Prussakov]

Originally Posted by elbowcreek

...Just my opinion, but, you would be best to make use of a link like that heavily, and count on losing some affiliates, or cut the link out completely to please affiliates.......... ( my vote is for the latter, of course )

Tom, if other affiliates believe this is an issue, I have no problem removing it... Looking forward to other people's thoughts on this.

Geno

[lstolze]

Am I missing something...? I don't see the ebay link. **scratches head**

[elbowcreek]

http://www.russianlegacy.com/catalog/

Under 'Hot Items', click on 'Items On Auctions'

Actually, I didn't notice it before, but there are quite a few outbounds listed on their links pages.... here is one of the pages...

http://www.russianlegacy.com/links/


Several other pages as well.........

Geno, it's just my opinion, but my best suggestion to you would be to cut out any outbound links from your site, if you are going to have an affiliate program. The reason I say this is that, when you are on your own, you want to exchange links with as many companies as possible, to help generate traffic. But when you have affiliates sending you traffic with their inbound links, they do not, in general, like to think that that traffic will be able to wiggle it's way through the pages of your site, and find a way onto some other, non paying site. They want a dead end, where the surfer finds what they are looking for and are forced to backpedal onto the affiliate's site once again, or forge ahead and buy from you.

Now, because your outbound links are not overtly obvious, and because your products are fairly unique - and a high commission rate helps, too - you will still get many affiliates to join you. But many of the more important ones, IMO, will not.

[Geno Prussakov]

Originally Posted by elbowcreek

http://www.russianlegacy.com/catalog/

Under 'Hot Items', click on 'Items On Auctions'

Actually, I didn't notice it before, but there are quite a few outbounds listed on their links pages.... here is one of the pages...

http://www.russianlegacy.com/links/

Tom, I appreciate your thoughts on this. May I hear other people's oppinion(s)?! I would highly appreciate other people's comments on these two "leaks": the links pages and the 'Items on Auctions' link.

If other affiliates (current or potential) feel like removing these would strengthen the attractiveness of our affiliate program, I will be happy to take care of these for you. Honestly, this is the first time I hear this (unhappiness about these two) about our program. I would like to hear oppinions. Y'all know I'm here to make this program as comfortable for you as possible. Please help me to.

Thanks in advance for your feedback, everyone!

Geno

PS: "Y'all" comes from my time in the South. I studied in North Carolina.

[lstolze]

Well, I certainly see Tom's point on this. IMO, it's not a big deal, because they are not overtly obvious. With that being said though, the ebay link bothers me slightly only because it is listed under Hot Items, right under Clearance, etc. For our customers that are well - cheap - this section might grab them right away, and if they are that frugal and hit the ebay one, they may very well run their Russian item search there.

If the link were placed elsewhere, it really wouldn't bother me at all. As for the other links, I think that the Russian Legacy site is designed so well, and content rich enough, that people won't stray too easily to other info sites. And the gift sites in the links sections are so different, I don't think shoppers visiting RL because of the interest would hop onto one of those sites without shopping RL first. Of course, this is just MHO.

[Geno Prussakov]

Thank you, Lisa. Anyone else?

Geno

[Leader]

I think the ebay link IS quite obvious, with its placement high in the standard nav list and under the "Hot Items" header. This would be a deterrant to me when considering signing up.

As for the links page, that little link at the very bottom that I see isn't likely to draw many views, but the preferred state is still to have NO outside links for the customer to just wander off to. It's better to have no leaks at all, just like it's better to have a bucket without any holes than to have one with even a pinhole leak. Especially if those links on the links page go to any sites people may actually want to visit!

Speaking of the nav, there's so many links on it that it's hard to pick out what is what. My normal reaction is to just use the search when I see those overpacked nav lists... But with the ebay link so close to the top it didn't take much to find it--and, if I was a customer, the heading "Hot Items" would practically guarantee that I'd click it!

[Geno Prussakov]

Would anyone else have any other suggestions on "how I can make Russian Legacy's affiliate program better" for you?

Geno

[Rhia7]

Originally Posted by elbowcreek

With shareasale's make-a-page, which I use for sites as I flesh them out, I would like to see more descriptions with the products. Some do not have any descriptions, other than the price.

Yes, I would agree. Some of the products are defined well as to the dimensions, the materials, etc. but if a webmaster puts a whole row of the painted Easter eggs/nesting dolls (as an example) it's not always easy to distinguish one from another.

'Easter Eggs & Kulich' (set 1) (the description)
ND-SPS096
Russian Legacy, Inc.

is very similar to 'Easter Eggs & Kulich' (set 2)
ND-SPS095
Russian Legacy, Inc.

and

'Easter Fairy Tale'
ND-SPS160
Russian Legacy, Inc.

If similar products are listed one after the other on a page dedicated to that type of product, the make-a-page description for each one resembles something like this:

Size: approx. 4'' Metric: 10 cm Consists of: 3 pieces Finish: glossy (lacquer) Availability: ships within 5-10 business days Origin: Russian Federation PRODUCT DETAILS: As all of our nesting dolls, this one is handcrafted in the heart Russia. It is handturned from linden wood and then handpainted by ...

That's an excellent description in terms of what the item is made of, where it is made and the shipping time (there's nothing wrong with the description) but descriptions could be enhanced very simply.

Edit: You don't have to change the nake-a-page descriptions if you have additional descriptions on the main page that could give the webmaster more to work with (the webmaster could edit the description but needs to know where to find the material in order to create a more exciting "ad copy.")

ND-SPS160 -- in one sentence: what Russian Fairy Tale is depicted on the dolls?

N358-1 is only described by "Easter." The doll looks like a Grandmother with a cake and Easter eggs. Am I right? It would be nice to know what is depicted on the doll -- at least a word or 2 more than "Easter."

Just a thought

[Geno Prussakov]

Rhia, having 800 nesting dolls featured there, it is not easy to make unique descriptions for all of them (especially when very at times the only thing that is different about them is the way eyelashes are painted on it ). That is why we developped the universal description you've quoted...

Having said this, you have a point there, Rhia. Unique desriptions would be nice, and we are working on them. Also (as in the case with the N358-1) around 90 (out of of 3,051 products) are still missing their descriptions. We'll get them up soon...

Thank you for your constructive comments, Rhia!

Geno