If I try this project, am I going to lose my shirt to scammers?

November 9, 2007 4:54 PM

I am implementing a home-grown 'affiliate' program on my website - with payments to affiliates based on commissions, rather than clicks - but I am a bit concerned that it may be possible for people to think of ways to abuse it that I haven't thought of.

I make a living selling items that I have made. At present, orders for my products are placed on the website through a simple shopping cart system that I created myself (in php / html), with the payments coming in through Paypal. It's all working very well.

Because I am such a 'low budget' operation, I can't afford advertising. So to help increase the number of visitors to the site during the end-of-year gift season, I am going to try running an affiliate system, to encourage other people to advertise on my behalf. I have created some sample ads in a selection of sizes/shapes, and make them available for people to use on their own sites/blogs. Anybody who wants to join the project gets an affiliate code that they use in the URL attached to the ad images.

In my shopping cart, I keep track of the customers who came to the site via one of these ads, and keep a record of sales referenced by codes. The particular product I wish to promote is priced at $30, and I offer the affiliates 10% of each sale, so they would get $3 for each one sold. All in all nothing complex, just a very simple system of the same sort that Amazon uses in vastly more sophisticated form.

But I have to think about how this might be abused. At present, I don't really see how 'anything could go wrong', but I've got plenty of experience with 'systems' to know that things don't always go the way you expect, and I certainly don't have any experience with people trying to 'game' a system. Can the devious minds of the MeFi hive offer any advice/warnings/recommendations about this idea?

posted by woodblock100 to computers & internet (6 comments total)

How do you handle returns? Could I buy 100 of your things, then return them and keep the commission?
posted by procrastination at 6:24 PM on November 9, 2007

How do you handle returns

I've never had such a thing as a return, not in the nearly 20 years I've doing this business. What I thought I would do is delay the commission payments, maybe pay them at the end of the month following each sale, giving time for each deal to be cleanly 'finished'.
posted by woodblock100 at 7:00 PM on November 9, 2007

One way it can go wrong is for your affiliates to advertise via spam. I'd just ban all email promotion by affiliates.

There are many services out there who will run your affiliate program for you (and who already have thousands of affiliates signed up). Is there some reason you're not using one of these? Don't re-invent the wheel if you don't have to.
posted by winston at 7:23 PM on November 9, 2007

I've never had such a thing as a return, not in the nearly 20 years I've doing this business.

You've also never had affiliates before, who might buy things themselves and then return them themselves (or via a relative or a friend). If you don't have a 'no returns' policy written down, get one before you start. If you do have a 'no returns' policy, make it clear in your affiliate agreement that if something bought via them is returned, despite the no returns policy, they'll lose the commission.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:53 PM on November 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

Is there some reason you're not using one of these?

I researched a bunch of them (Googled around) and got the impression that those businesses are just so rife with fraud attempts, that I would never be able to trust many of the transactions.

In my own case, the whole thing is on a very small scale; it's a 'one man show' and I myself actually ship every order. There are no truckloads of stuff going out the door, and there is thus no point at all for anybody to try to 'game' this. When orders come in, I end up 'talking' to the person by email, and it should be apparent to me pretty early on if somebody has been abusing this system. I can then simply pull the plug on that particular 'affiliate'.

advertise via spam

This I hadn't thought of. Again, because the affiliate people can see the small scale of my operation, I can't imagine that any of them would be so dumb as to think that they can generate a huge pile of orders, thus earning big commissions. I'll make it more plain on my relevant web page that this is all pretty small potatoes. Perhaps that way, the jokers will let me alone ... Perhaps.
posted by woodblock100 at 11:12 PM on November 9, 2007

Affiliate marketing draws spammers like flies to honey. If there's one thing I'd do, I'd make it absolutely clear that any spamming would mean automatic termination of their account and loss of all commission not yet paid.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 6:34 PM on November 10, 2007