Retailer cutting affiliates out of Black Friday period - Fair?

Is it fair? Yes. The company runs their affiliate program and can do as they wish with it.

Is it smart? That remains to be seen. If a lot of their affiliates leave and stop promoting them, they may end up losing more money than the 5% commissions that they'd pay.

Impossible to know for sure, but unfortunately as an affiliate, you're at the mercy of the company that you promote. They can pull the rug out from under you whenever they want.

I guess what I'm asking is, would you do business with a company who does this?

I'm thinking about going through and removing their products from all my articles and replacing them with other brands. I figure if they'll do this to me this time of the year, they would have no qualms about doing it again throughout the year for any reason at all, or screwing me over in plenty of other ways.

But if this is par for the course, maybe I should just accept it as reality, take the blow, and expect every other retailer to treat me the same.

Hi Squeebo:

The answer to your question is a little complex. But to make a long story short, most retailers are not making their regular margins during the week of Thanksgiving. If you have noticed over the past few years retailers are starting earlier and sometimes extending their sales longer or giving away more.

So they usually don't have 5% to give away during this time period. You should be concerned if they cut the commission outside this period. It's the biggest shopping day/week of the year because they give away so much to compete for the business.

I used to own a large supermarket 10 years ago and we gave away products at cost during the week of Thanksgiving just to get people in the door. Once they are in the store they usually buy other items that are marked at regular price.

If you are dealing with a digital product then there is no real reason they should be cutting your commission because they really just make the product once and then sell it millions of times.

If you are totally unhappy then you could check out another retailer in that line of business and see if they are cutting commissions. If they are then it's across the board in the industry. If your retailer is the only one cutting then you can start promoting a competitor's products. You could also let your current retailer know that you have decided to switch to the competition.

Good Luck,

Dan

That is not typical at all and sounds incredibly lame actually. Not to mention 5% is a pretty small cut of the sale in the first place, I'd use your efforts elsewhere!

I think it's BS and definitely not standard practice. I would dump them and find a new partner.

Not a good idea to name and shame just leave it be and move on