[rcalentine]

Hello Everyone at ABestWeb!

My name is Richard and I am in charge of the affiliate program at baseballexpress.com, the largest direct marketer of baseball equipment at apparel in the United States. I am very excited to announce the launch of our program through the Commission Junction network, and would like to invite you to join our program. If you are looking for a top of the line baseball equipment and apparel merchant to send your visitors to, join the Baseball Express Affilate Program today!

About Baseball Express!
Baseball Express, Inc. is a distributor of baseball and softball equipment and apparel. We started in 1990 has been dedicated to providing fanatical customer service and ease of shopping to the baseball and softball players who demand the best performance products at reasonable prices. We pride ourselves on having the most knowledgeable customer service team and the broadest selection of baseball and softball product in the world.

Baseball Express, Inc. covers all the bases in offering the best selection of brand names players recognize and prefer, and rapid delivery of all orders shipping within 24 hours Monday through Friday. Some of our vendors include: Nike, Rawlings, Louisville Slugger, Wilson, Under Armour, Oakley, Easton, New Balance just to name a few. We just recent partnered with EA Sports for their new game MVP 06 NCAA Baseball.

Our Plegde of Commitment to you and to your visitors is to provide you with the best price, service and warranty available. Your complete satisfaction is our goal.

Why Join Baseball Express Affiliate Program?

Make money selling top of the line baseball equipment!
Enhance your website while you generate sales!
Easy to use tracking of traffic and sale!

Program Highlights!

Earn up to 6% Commission on all products!
Cookie setting is 45 days!
Professional banners, buttons, and text links!
Product datafeed will be available in February!
Auto-Deposit!

Please feel free to browse through our website at: baseballexpress.com (http://www.baseballexpress.com)

Once you have had a chance to review our site and program, I would be interested in hearing about any questions, comments and suggestions you may have regarding this program. We value your comments and your opinions, and want to be sure you have everything you need to succeed with our program. Please feel free to contact me through Commission Junction.

To join our program, Click Here! (https://signup.cj.com/member/brandedPublisherSignUp.do?air_refmerchantid=1660665)

We look forward to your participation!

Thank you.

Richard Calentine
Baseball Express - All Baseball All The Time!

[BurgerBoy]

Well - I can tell you right now that none of the affiliates here are going to like the 1-800-steal-my-commissions phone number that you have right at the very top of your page.

[rcalentine]

BurgerBoy,

I certainly can understand that and our goal is not to take money away from affiliates that rightfully deserve the commission. Though at this current time we cannot give credit the affiliate if the visitor calls the 800 number. But what I can say is that last year our internet sales of 42% of our overall sales and we fully expect them to be over 50% this year. So, with that being said, I am fully confident that a very small percentage of the visitors who come through the affiliate sites will call the 800 number. I hope this was a satisfactory explination. If you or anyone else has any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know.

Richard Calentine
Baseball Express - All Baseball All The Time!

[Gary-AvantLink]

Richard, I am glad to see this announcement that you guys are live!!

I'd like to catch up sometime.

Gary M

[finaidguy]

You know it is VERY easy to give commissions with an offer code. if 50% of sales are internet does than mean if my conversion rate was usually 10%, with you, it would be 5%. No Thank you

[dflsports]

I'm still having a hard time with the commission structure. I can't do much til the datafeed comes out but I was just looking at all the other baseball stores or those other sports stores with a wide range of baseball gear and they all start out higher (5-8%) and even the lower ones have tiers that go up to 8%. There is at least 3 merchants who pay 7% right off the bat :)

[jono]

..well said, finaidguy..not much to brag about there..and the 800 number at the top is a deal breaker....best of luck..

[rcalentine]

I want to clarify my statements so there is not a misunderstanding about what I am saying. First, finaidguy, when I say 50% of sales comes from the internet, I do not mean conversions are 50% less than what you would execpt. I mean that are total sales for our company across all channels, the internet side represents 50%, which is not a reflection on the conversion rate. Second, jono, I do not want to misrepresent who we are. We do mail out catalogs to a large portion of our customers, which is the reason for the 800. I have looked at it from your side and I understand your position completely. Now I will ask you to look from mine. Our 800 number helps us take care of our customer in any way we can. If a customer a question, we want to make sure we take of that customer. But a customer can still have a catalog and you can still get credit for that sale. For example, if a visitor comes through your site or link to ours and then buys something but then enter a catalog code on the website you still get paid your commission eventhough the internet does not get credit for the sale. Because ultimately you were the one who drove them buy. As using an offer code, unfortunately it is not that easy for us because of our backend system. But as our affiliate program starts to grow, I will request that this be done. Last, dflsports, unfortunately the datafeeds will not be done until February because we are re-launching a new site at the end of January or the beginning of February and all of the links are going to change and I am not sure about re-directs yet, so instead of sending your visitors to dead links, I thought it was best to wait until February.

I know you probably do not like some of the aswers, but at I hope they make a little more sense know. I hope you will still consider our program. If not, best of luck to you.

[rcalentine]

I wanted to announce a change we have made to our program. We are now offering an 8% commission on all sales. Anyone who has signed up for our program already will receive a new offer shortly. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know

[Akiva]

Richard,

If you heed the advice of ABWers, the results will show in your revenue. WTG on the commission increase.

[Bill]

...reason for the 800...As using an offer code, unfortunately it is not that easy for us because of our backend system. But as our affiliate program starts to grow, I will request that this be done...we are re-launching a new site at the end of January or the beginning of February and all of the links are going to change...
Changing the back end might work well re-launching a new site. A few extra hours of coding could do the trick. :smash:

I have been using (coded and distinct) toll-free numbers with four of my affilate suppliers since 1999 -- and fully 1/3 of my sales are through these numbers. If I were to send 100 customers to you who make purchases I would only be commissioned on 65 of them. 35 of them would "leak" to you. Even at your 8% rate I would be losing out -- dropping my effective cut to 5.2%.

Leaks are not good in this industry -- no matter how they are explained away. Sorry, just my 2-cents.

[dflsports]

I thinks its great you were able to get the commission increase. 8% is probably the best we could ask for as I know the margins on the higher end bats are not as great as it could be :)

I am looking forward to the datafeed ;)

[rcalentine]

Thank you everyone for the comments and the concerns. Our revenue is growing steadily on a daily basis. We are not close to where I want to be, but we are improving.

I fully appreciate that "leaks" are not good in this industry. I want to try to do everything I can to make the affiliates as happy as possible. I am sure no explination will be good enough, but I will try to explain our system without going into to much detail. Please keep in mind that we are mainly a catalog company, so our backend system is set up to track catalogs and we fit it to track internet sales. The ineternet has started to coming into its own over the last couple of years, so maybe in the future that would be a possilbility.

As I mentioned before, we are re-launching a new website soon, which a lot more features and functionality to keep your visitors on our site through conversion.

Here is a sample of what our new site is going to look like.

http://www.baseballexp.com/baseball/comingSoon.do

I know my explination will not completely satisfy you, but hopefully with our new website will lower some of the concerns.

I am very excited about the datafeed as well and after reading several posts about affiliates look for in the datafeeds I think I am well prepared. :D

[rcalentine]

Thank you to everyone who has applied. The response has been great. If you have applied and you have not heard a response, please bear with me. I am still going through the applications.

[rcalentine]

Thank you to everyone who has helped get the first couple of months of our affiliate program off to a great start. Now is a great time to sign up for our affiliate program, with Spring Training starting last week our sales are starting to pick up. We know we can do more and would like you to be a part of that. Also, our new site is only a couple of weeks away.

[rcalentine]

I want to announce that we just launched our new website this morning. Go to http://www.baseballexp.com/home.jsp to check it out and let me know what you think. With the new website, we will have better promotional capabilities.

[Naffiliate]

I like Baseball Savings.com - it's easier to navigate- looks like they have more products.

[dflsports]

How's the datafeed coming along?

[rcalentine]

I like Baseball Savings.com - it's easier to navigate- looks like they have more products.


Naffiliate,

Thank you for comments and taking the time to look at our website. As far as being easier to navigate, that is your opinion and I will respect that. :cry:

But as far as having more products, I am going to have to disagree. Though I do not exactly how many products they have what I can say is that they have 23 manufactures listed and we have close to 100.

Again, thank you for feedback. :smiling:

[rcalentine]

How's the datafeed coming along?


I have been working on it, but unfortunately I have had a lot of projects come up and I was out of town last week, so it is putting me further behind on the datafeed. :bonk: :stars:

Thank you for checking. I have a couple of additional affiliates that are also waiting on the datafeed.