Best Buy alienated affiliates last week when they slashed the commission rate for the Wii and laptops from 1% to .25%.
Affiliate Michael Coley of Amazing-Bargains.com started up a thread on ABestWeb about the issue (A New Low – Best Buy Laptop & Wii Commissions Dropped to 0.25%!, and is not being received well by affiliates.
Personally, I haven’t used Best Buy affiliate links. I prefer Amazon and Buy.com, where I am a customer and I see both of those companies actively participating in the affiliate marketing community.
But this sort of move by Best Buy reinforces my support of Amazon and Buy.com.
It reminds me of a move that I considered to be decidedly anti-affiliate by Apple last year when they didn’t make the iPhone available for affiliate to promote when it came out.
I get why these companies want to hold back their hottest sellers. They don’t think they need any help selling the iPhone, Nintendo Wii and laptop computers.
But what they don’t get is that affiliates take a hit with lesser conversions for traffic they deliver to these companies on other products.
So, in essence, the more popular products help to pull the overall EPC back up. But when the big sellers are taken off the table, affiliates are left with low conversions on less popular products.
And guess what, Best Buy, that scenario might sound great to you, but it’s lousy for affiliates, and they’re not going to stick around.
Angel Djambazov has a good take on the Best Buy issue on Revenews.com: Best Buy Gives Affiliates a Slap in the Face.