[deelz]

The 800 number is prominently placed on the BCS site. Of course you need to have it there, but this is a matter of concern for affiliates. Do we somehow get credited for sales that are made if someone clicks through our link and places a phone order?

My suggestion would be to mirror your site for affiliate's use, sans 800-number.

I've put up a few pages of BCS stuff, and will leave them up and take what I get for it, but with the 800-number issue at hand, I don't see any sense in doing any more.

:confused:

[Bryan Rhodes]

Deelz,

I know the 1-800 number is an issue for Affiliates. When someone places an order through the phone we ask them how they were referred to us. If it's via an affiliate site, that site is entered into the database and I check that field for affiliate sites. Most of our phone calls are technical questions and the number of sales calls is expected to drop when we launch our new ecommerce platform in about 6 weeks. The new shopping cart is very easy to use and should eliminate the, "where do I put my credit card calls?"

Thanks,

Bryan

[jbresee]

One other solution we hope to be able to add in the future is that free shipping will only apply to online orders. That should just about eliminate phone orders. However it will be a couple of months 'til we can do that.

Phone orders are bad for us as well, they cost us a ton more, so we are completely in synch in wanting to get rid of them.

[TH Media]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>One other solution we hope to be able to add in the future is that free shipping will only apply to online orders. That should just about eliminate phone orders.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have suggested this solution to merchants in the past, and none of them want to hear it. I am glad you guys are making the effort. Even if you can't do free shipping (and it's good you are considering it) offer a discount for on-line orders...something like 10% There is a Map Company that I do a lot of business with. They had told me they want to get their phone orders down and web orders up. I suggested a discount, and they went even further with a huge discount. I think at that point, on-line sales went up, and phone orders went down to near nothing, other than a few folks asking a question or two. It worked out very well for them, IMO its great you guys are working on this /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[ibme]

It might help more than it hurts. It adds more credibility to a site and makes the customer fill more comfortable.