A New Low - Best Buy Laptop & Wii Commissions Dropped to 0.25%!
Just got this from Best Buy:
"We are all facing one of the most trying economic climates in our nation’s history. Best Buy is challenged with the task of remaining profitable while continuing to offer competitive pricing to help you drive sales. To do so, we must make difficult financial decisions. One of these is our decision to reduce commissions on Notebooks/Laptops and Wii Hardware from 1% to 0.25%."
So, for a $1000 laptop, we'll earn $2.50? How unmotivating.
I got the email but didn't read it yet. That's crazy. And with Walmart doing what they did. Go Amazon. 4% electronics and this month I'm getting 7% on everything else.
Actually I'm getting 1.76% on laptops at Amazon. Ah, I keep forgetting, they have a maximum of $25 commission for a computers sale.
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leeann
Saints Pledge:"I pledge allegiance 2 da Saints & 2 da great city of N. O. & 2 da Super Bowl, 4 which we'll win, 1 city, B low C level, under God, with Mardi Gras, gumbo & alcohol 4 all."
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Affiliates - you have a long list of GAN merchants at your disposal that are listed with other networks.
"We are all facing one of the most trying economic climates in our nation’s history. Best Buy is challenged with the task of remaining profitable while continuing to offer competitive pricing to help you drive sales. To do so, we must make difficult financial decisions. One of these is our decision to reduce commissions on Notebooks/Laptops and Wii Hardware from 1% to 0.25%."
So, for a $1000 laptop, we'll earn $2.50? How unmotivating.
And I thought 1% was bad already.
But, you always will find some affiliates here, that would say that 0.25% or $2.50, it's still better than nothing...
I got the email as well. Though I don't promote laptops or games, I had the same initial reaction. But after thinking about it, they really don't have much option. The prices on laptops and gaming consoles have dropped which lowers what was already a tight margin.
I know it doesn't help those who do promote those items, but in this case I don't think they are doing this out of ignorance about affiliate marketing or to squeeze us. On a typical laptop that is likely to be sold online, BB is probably making around 2% to 4% net profit.
Imagine if car salesmen got paid like that. They'd get $50 for selling a $20,000 car. Now, I don't know what car salesmen make, but I'd have to guess it's more than that!
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-Don't criticize anyone til you've walked a mile in their shoes. Then when you do criticize them, you'll be a mile away and have their shoes.
That's pretty crazy. I sold my first laptop this month through amazon and it will probably be my last unless one of my other links converts. I got less than 3.5% at Amazon and I thought that was bad. What is the point with Best Buy even offering a commission on those. They should just send a tootsie pop or a cookie for every laptop sold. That would save them some cash.
just think about how many millions of laptops are sold online, and how many of those will be affiliate sales. Some sites are still going to make a lot of money.
It is just hard for most affiliates. For some, the Best Buy name is too important to drop
I noticed they are offering their corporate employees "voluntary" severance packages. What a nice thing to worry about over the holiday season...
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leeann
Saints Pledge:"I pledge allegiance 2 da Saints & 2 da great city of N. O. & 2 da Super Bowl, 4 which we'll win, 1 city, B low C level, under God, with Mardi Gras, gumbo & alcohol 4 all."
----------------------
Affiliates - you have a long list of GAN merchants at your disposal that are listed with other networks.
In lean times, you motivate commission sales people. This is redunklulously backwards.
I cannot be convinced that cutting to essentially nothing (0.25%) has a value basis in it's underlying analysis that is anything but negative for us collectively. I think the perceived value of the channel continues to erode, thanks to the scum among us.
I need an avatar like Donuts, it really gets the point across on threads like these =)
I can't help but wonder how close Best Buy is from filling for bankruptcy. Offering 0.25% I think will put them one step closer. Why would anyone promote that at this point unless you already have a large amount of promotions in place and were too lazy to change it?
Have you ever read BB's return policy - complete rubbish!! I can't understand why anyone would shop there anyways. They are a great place to goto and window shop though =)
Let's see - Best Buy pays us no healthcare, no 401k, no contributions to health benefits, etc. and expects us to sell a $1000 laptop shipped direct from a warehouse for $2.50 in compensation (minus income tax.) Meanwhile, an average Best Buy employee who visits the restroom for 15 min/day gets paid more than that for peeing and pooping. Here is the most outrageous affiliate plea of 2008: Please pay people who make sales more money than those who are in the restroom.
For the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would want to market laptops or Wii's for such a piddly amount.
OK let's give them 50% credit for name recognition and that's probably generous, now let's find a program paying out at 2.5% or ten times their commission rate. Now let's assume that we actually know how to market (I mean come on, we call ourselves affiliate "marketers") and are able to actually convert the 50% that didn't run as soon as they didn't see Best Buy on our sites. So on what would normally be $1,000 in sales you'd lose half or $500 in the new world order. Your net loss of commissions would be.....(insert drum roll here)......an increase of $10.00.
You'd have to lose 90% of your sales to make replacing this merchant for these products unprofitable.
Yep, a no brainer.
-rematt
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A New Low - Best Buy Laptop & Wii Commissions Dropped to 0.25%!
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