Re: affiliate sites, specifically Affinia.com

From: Joel Gehman <joel_at_irant.com>
Date: Wed 29 Dec 1999 08:24:08 -0800

RANDY RENSCH WROTE:
> Where does Affinia.com fall within the discussion of
> affiliate sites (or not). Anybody have any experience
> with it? My most immediate interest is in regard to a
> consumer apparel site selling accessories.

Affinia sits somewhere between merchants and affiliates
-- the space that so far has been filled with
merchant-centric networks like Dynamic Trade,
Commission Junction, BeFree and Linkshare. But they
invert the model -- serving affiliates instead of
merchants. Affinia's model recognizes that affiliate
sites aren't looking for discrete categories of
merchandise (art, sporting goods, books, etc) -- but
rather a complete line of merchandise around the
particular theme of the site's content.

Vstore also wants to play in this space. Unlike Affinia
whichs relies on various merchants for fulfillment,
Vstore is structuring deals directly with distributors.
Where Vstore falls down in my experience is they simply
don't allow enough customization by the site owner in
terms of look & feel, or product selection. I've twice
tried to build a Vstore and have been so frustrated by
their tools and product selection that I've given up.

Affinia breaks down because its cost per click model
doesn't monetize site traffic as well as many more
traditional programs. For example, I run a Penn State
fan site which links to an Affinia-hosted store
carrying around 160 Penn State items. Looking at a few
recent weeks, my WeArePennState.com site sent just over
700 uniques to the Affinia storefront, generating over
2,000 unique detailed product views and resulting in
over 500 referrals to merchants -- for which my site
earned: $30. One of my other sites (USROWING.COM) sent
just over 700 uniques to Amazon, generating over 900
clicks and resulting in the sale of over 80 items --
for which my site earned over $80.

As to the product itself, Affinia is easy to set up and
configure. At times their servers are very slow or
seemingly unavailable, causing an inability to access
your storefront. However, in recent weeks they made a
point of notifying affiliates of a server upgrade and I
have not experienced these delays since. If they would
modify their compensation model I could see them
gaining even more traction in the marketplace...

Joel Gehman
Internet marketing & ecommerce consulting
http://irant.com






Received on Wed Dec 29 1999 - 10:24:08 CST