I prefer NOT sign up with CJ. My question is if someone log into my homepage @ CafePress and for some reasons, he or she ends up clicking the "Marketplace" and bought from there (from someone else) ... DO I GET ANYTHING FOR THAT (call it referral or sales lead originated from me!)

Please ...

Nope.

Even if you sign up for Commission Junction, you would not get any affiliate sales for the scenario you posted UNLESS the visitor got to your site with an affiliate link of yours.

Doesn't sound like a fair deal.
Also, I wonder why must CP farm out the so call 'referral' service to a third party? Every major ecommerce sites has their own in-house program eg. Amazon etc. And I doubt it's very a difficult program to implement ... Any clue? Or will you introduce something like that?

if you do a forum search you'll come up with a lot of references to the switch from an in-house program to a 3rd party. I don't know a single shopkeeper or affiliate that was happy with the decision, but it's how it is and they're not changing back. The kicker is that you can't have CJ links on your CP hosted page.

I was happy with the decision. Some may have preferred another affiliate program besides Commission Junction, but quite a few like the reporting from CJ much better, and trust it more (except for people using the redirection linking system).

CJ does affiliate stuff. Period.

I want Cafepress to do fulfillment of my products. Period.

And there are quite a few big companies that use a third-party for their affiliate program for just that reason. CP isn't the only one.

And CP made a mistake in letting people put affiliate links in their CP-hosted page in the first place. Shouldna done that.

I am quite happy with the new program as well.

I am really shocked that these questions and debates come up as often as they do after so much time.

Hugs
Susan

I was very skeptical at first with the change, but I've done well under the (not so new now) CJ program. There are many talented SKers here and I love promoting their wonderful designs and making some $ at the same time.
Also, there are definitely a lot of BIG retailers who use CJ for their affiliate program. I sell for them as well as for CP. And CP's 15% is still generous compared to many other companies.
I've had some reporting problems but otherwise, much success with the program.

not to tear this thread off-track, but these "big dog" affiliates are nowhere to be found... i'm not talking about a 15% sales commission, that's not the point at all. My sales through affiliates have tanked. I used to sell quite a bit more of my own stuff through affiliates. No increase in traffic that I can relate from the switch. I hardly think "well i'm still doing well" is really a thumbs up for the program. The only plus I see is if you affiliate things other than CP.

i DID go to the trouble of creating a CP account and setting up an affiliate website, and i'm not worried about how i'll sell things. Just that we were promised more traffic from big timers and i haven't seen any.

we can talk and talk, but until i see the numbers, i'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree.

spice of life and all that

Hopkins: if you want to be an affiliate, sign up at CJ and promote things on your own website. Don't put links to other shops in your onsite CP store unless you're just a really super nice person.

The fact that people used to make more referred sales before the switch to cj was probably due to the fact that the cookie was floating every which way but loose - it was a bad setup and cost CP money, it wasn't actually sending any new traffic.

As an affiliate I luuuuuuuuuve the new program over at CJ - and now I'm all hooked up the their API it means I can sell more. It's beautiful.
It has many more plus points for me now, ones I didn't imagine before and I too was skeptical at first.

Try it out, make your own decisions. That's all I recommend.

I was skeptical of CJ as well. However, after giving it a try, I am also loving how things are going.

As a SK, affiliate sales of my products has gone down slightly. Based on my overall numbers, however, I believe a lot of those old sales were shoppers that got cookies on the premium shop level and got to a Lekker shop through the MP. I feel much more confident now that the affiliates who are making a commission of my products are doing so because they are putting at least a little time and effort into affiliate marketing, rather than just get the built in benefit of being an affiliate when opening up a shop, ya know?

Affiliating is something I am really enjoying and I look forward to doing lots more. Feel free to PM me your shop or fill out the form on Lekker Blog if you want me to sell some of your swag.

quote:

we can talk and talk, but until i see the numbers, i'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree.

Just for clarification, the only reason I posted was in reply to "I don't know a single shopkeeper or affiliate that was happy with the decision,". I don't like leaving something like that out there when there are people who are happy with it, whether they were from the beginning or came to be happier with it. I know there are plenty of people that aren't happy at all with Commission Junction at all, and that's their call to make and I am certainly not one to tell them or you that that opinion is wrong. I'm just sayin' it isn't an 100% foregone conclusion that everyone doesn't like it...

And to just finish out the original topic question, CP is never (again) going to pay referral sales for sales coming from your CP-hosted site unless you got them to it from your own marketing efforts via an affiliate link.

quote:

Originally posted by Suzzie:
not to tear this thread off-track, but these "big dog" affiliates are nowhere to be found...

I beg to differ..one of the top so called big affiliates frequented these forums for awhile...but got ticked off trying to set up an affiliate site when he found so many mis-tagged designs in the marketplace and html in descriptions. SO they have been trying...unfortunately the marketplace is filled with problems.

quote:

My sales through affiliates have tanked. I used to sell quite a bit more of my own stuff through affiliates.

Mine haven't...mine have increased. If you get me a link to your shop I will let you know why I think you aren't getting affiliate sales.

quote:

No increase in traffic that I can relate from the switch. I hardly think "well i'm still doing well" is really a thumbs up for the program.

And my affiliate income from selling other people's products has quadrupled. So have alot of other shopkeeper's affiliate sales.

quote:

we can talk and talk, but until i see the numbers, i'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree.

We are not gonna show you our numbers...and i honestly doubt CP will show you theirs...but I can say we are not setting up all of these sites for just the fun of it

Hugs
Susan