Networked Affiliation.

Steveorr

I recently joined an online shopping network affiliate scheme, where not only do I earn cash back on all my online purchases, I am rewarded with profit sharing from purchases made by the people I introduce.

I thought this was agreat idea and just the sort of thing that MSE should be telling people about. So imagine my surprise when even the mention of this network's name is banned (censored) here. Why?

I own and operate my own company and the sort of things I buy online are specific to me and my line of business and I can be 99% sure that I will not get cashback from any other site unless I set up as a direct affiliate and I don't have the time nor the patience to do that.

For every day domestic purchases yes sure I could trawel though a cashback site (there are loads mentioned on MSE) and buy the deal of the day. Again I don't have the time nor the patience to do that all I want to do is go to a retailer buy what I want and know I am getting something back.

Let me put it this way what was the last thing you bought online? How long did you spend looking for it? How much did you save?

If your answer is a CD or a book and you spent 30 minutes and you saved a pound. Well thats fine and probably pretty typical. I charge my time out at £50 per hour so in my case I would have lost £25 to save £1 with network affiliation you give up a little financially now to gain a hassle free purchasing method as you just use the site and do not worry about what the commission is. Then in the medium to long term you will make Much Much more than those using any cashback site.

So my question is why are we not allowed to mention it here - is it because MSE are getting the affilate commission?

geordie_joe

If it's the one I am thinking of the, reasons are.

People were posting their referral links in here, and that is not allowed. The referral links were links to their own shop, advertising your own online shop is not allowed in here.

I'm not sure talking about the site is banned, but placing links to it certainly is. The ban was a result of the sites members spamming this forum. We got so much spam the admin got sick of deleting it and set the software to not show a link to that site.

Even if we hadn't got all the spam posts, placing a link to your shop breaks the rules.

geordie_joe

Steveorr wrote: »

I want to do is go to a retailer buy what I want and know I am getting something back.

Yes but we want to get the best deals. Suppose your shop has an item for £100 and you get £10 if you buy it. That may be good to you but we want to make sure we can't buy the same item for £80 else where.

Also the site you are talkingabout only give you 45% of the commission back, there are cashback sites that give 10% of the commission back.

So you may feel good buying that £100 item and getting £10, but we know we could go through another site and get £20 back.

Steveorr wrote: »

If your answer is a CD or a book and you spent 30 minutes and you saved a pound. Well thats fine and probably pretty typical. I charge my time out at £50 per hour so in my case I would have lost £25 to save £1

Well that's your fault for doing your personal shopping when you could have got £25 for working.

Or are you saying you charge yourself by the hour for doing things for yourself in your free time?

Most of us do our shopping in our free time, or when our boss is paying us to do other things.

In my case, I would have saved £1 on the CD and my boss would have given me £7. Not a bad deal really.