112 replies to this topic

[kjegbert]

What is an affliate account?

If you're on GD and click on a link to say fye, GD gets a small percentage of what you spend.

[hinman]

Thanks.

[samisma]

f.y.e. just e-mailed us terminating our affiliate account. again, no advance warning, and their ad has been up for weeks now.

darn.. they actually had some stuff that i wanted. had even done a store locator and was planning on going there (even tho it's far away).

if they don't want to play nice, i'm not going to waste the gas money.

[friholic]

Sorry that this site is taking a hit from retailers pulling business. What they don't seem to get is that you are giving them business. Just since the ad yesterday I have been to Target twice, WHY? Wanting to see if they have some of the items in stock. I will happily pay the price it is now. They have some items that no other store has and there everyday price for it is ok with me. But, if it weren't for this site posting the ad, I wouldn't have even gone to Target once this week, let alone twice. Each time finding other items I wanted/needed and spending $80 each time. The marketing depts. of these retailers should have Brad's phone number and fax on speed dial or hand deliver the ad to him personally. What better advertising can you get?

[antkim]

Question: Do these Cease and Desist orders only apply to this year or will they have to send a new one every year.

[conj]

This is sad, but my BF shopping is mainly for the fun of it ( and the thrill of a good deal): As long as the loss of affiliation does not cause such a financial hardship to your one-man operation.... let them go! I want to do business with retailers who are willing to join us in this century, and work in partnership, instead of isolation.

[Brad]

Question: Do these Cease and Desist orders only apply to this year or will they have to send a new one every year.

as far as i'm concerned they apply to only this year. although i was talking to the owner of another BF site and they said one of these stores wanted them to sign a contract saying they would never post the ads, this year or in the future (which is a big joke).

[samisma]

This is sad, but my BF shopping is mainly for the fun of it ( and the thrill of a good deal):

As long as the loss of affiliation does not cause such a financial hardship to your one-man operation.... let them go! I want to do business with retailers who are willing to join us in this century, and work in partnership, instead of isolation.

I have been thinking about this - how does their pulling the affiliation impact GD? Is it a major blow? And if so, do you need us to contribute in anyway?

I've become addicted to this site, it has helped me cut corners in ways I never would've imagined - I don't like to think that it might be getting financially crippled by the affiliate losses.

[antkim]

as far as i'm concerned they apply to only this year. although i was talking to the owner of another BF site and they said one of these stores wanted them to sign a contract saying they would never post the ads, this year or in the future (which is a big joke).

woo hoo! Good news then.

[Brad]

I have been thinking about this - how does their pulling the affiliation impact GD? Is it a major blow? And if so, do you need us to contribute in anyway?

The impact depends on the store. For Target, it's a big impact as we've been an affiliate of them for years and have sold large amounts of their items through the site. I can't give out exact numbers, but it's a major loss to be sure. For a store like F.Y.E, the impact is minimal because they are not a major retailer for the site and because most if not all of their BF items wouldn't have been available online anyway.

If this kind of thing continues, it could get to the point where I have to decide that all the ads can no longer be posted in order for the site to be financially successful for the rest of the year.

As as for contributions - no I don't need you all to contribute or donate anything. Just tell everyone you know about the site, and when you shop online, do it through the links on this site, which helps us out greatly. You can get our affiliate links for many of the most popular online stores here

[hwolf6330]

As much as I look forward to seeing BF ads ahead of time, I think we would all understand if you couldn't post them anymore. I get such great deals all year long from here that I would rather have that than the BF ads.

[Gporter34]

Man, first WM and now all of this. These stores and their crappy ads have really started to put a damper on my holiday spirit. I would love to tell them where to put their precious ads. You would think that if they were going to act like this they would at least have decent sales. JMO, but for some reason, this year seems to be the worst in a long time for sales, even from the stores who usually have the best ones. At this point I'm about ready to go ahead and do my shopping from anywhere except the stores listed and just sleep in on BF. They are taking all of the fun out of it, and I'm not giving them my money if it isn't at least a little fun.

[fairydustcrissy]

Wow, I am really shocked that Target dumped you like that. This site has a HUGE Target base. Thr longest thread on the site is what....Target related. I <3 Target, but that bothers me

[hinman]

If one was to email target would they give you a reason for not wanting there ad out there? Just wondering if it is worth the time.

[kscarlett]

I personally think they are in cahoots with the Thursday newpapers and the credit card companies. What other reason would there be for them to care if you knew ahead of time? The only thing (and best thing btw) that GD does for me is help me plan ahead of time with my time and $$$. What good does it do me to see all those goodies and have no prep time to put back extra money for those things. I won't stretch my credit card but there are LOTS out there that will. It's just a shame really and I agree with a previous poster - we should boycott those folks that are pulling ads on GD. I could shop PepBoys with no problem.

[loved1]

This makes no sense to me. The last thing I will have time to do on Thursday, Thanksgving Day, is spend my time mapping out where I want to shop the next day. Between entertaining family and friends, and cooking a ginormous meal, the last thing I will have time to do is think about shopping at 4 a.m. the next day. If I don't have access to the ads beforehand , I will let that turkey and eggnog kick in and enjoy the company of my guests and MAYBE I will stop at the stores later in the day to pick up a few DVDs. I will be skipping the stores that are super aggressive about this.

[Adamtanderson]

Wal-Mart - threatens legal action and affiliate account closure if ad is posted
Target - terminates affiliate account with no warning after ad is posted
F.Y.E - terminates affiliate account with no warning a couple weeks after ad is posted

What is an affiliate account and what is it's significance?

[lennon2004]

What is an affiliate account and what is it's significance?

When someone buys something through and affiliate link, the owner of that link receives a small percentage of the sale.

[Brad]

When someone buys something through and affiliate link, the owner of that link receives a small percentage of the sale.

Exactly. These commissions are pretty much the only way this site makes money. So when stores terminate the affiliate relaitonship, we can no longer receive any commission from items ordered through the links on the site.

[abentley]

Brad..if more affiliations are severed, is GD going to vanish? I think I might be having a panic attack over the thought of it.

[DB_Cooper]

OfficeMax has nothing good on sale, why have sites take down their bad ad.

I think that is precisely why they (and others) want their crapola ads pulled - they are relying on spur of the moment Black Friday frenzy to kick in, rather than allowing people time to carefully consider the deals, and in most cases, how bad they suck.

In addition to my eternal boycott of Best Buy (who welshed on a rebate, even though I had copies of ALL proper documentation) I will add these bums, and gleefully avoid them not only on Black Friday, but throughout the rest of the year:

Wal-Mart - threatens legal action and affiliate account closure if ad is posted Like I will miss 400 pound whales on motorized scooters loading their baskets with ChiCom crap. WM has NOTHING I need, and their prices can almost ALWAYS be bettered elsewhere. Why put up with herds of shoppers who do not bathe?

Target - terminates affiliate account with no warning after ad is posted Better than WalMart, but essentially the same crap, albeit with slightly slimmer clientele.

OfficeMax - sends cease & desist order demanding ad be taken down OfficeMax? Are they still in business?

F.Y.E - terminates affiliate account with no warning a couple weeks after ad is posted Not much to say, never shopped there, not interested in trying em out, this certainly doesn't make me interested trying them out

Linens-N-Things - sends cease & desist to several other sites (not us, yet) Nobody will stand in line for bath towels or Cheap kitchen appliances. Or genuine imported imitation faux granite soap dishes. OK, maybe women who live alone* (*if you don't count their 6 cats)

Macy's - sends cease & desist to several other BF sites (not us, yet) The last time I was in Macy's, all I saw were "urban shoppers" wearing big puffy down "how much can I steal" parkas. Department store dinosaur.

hhgregg - sends ad to us directly, then demands it be taken down Never heard of them, but if their store staff is as bipolar as their marketing, might be worth checking out just to see what mental disorders develop.

And as for every law firm making $$$ off this lame-brained marketing suicide: YOU SUCK! EVEN MORE THAN MOST LAWYERS!!!

And that, dear friends, is all I have to say about that!

[xkambul]

Brad, can you make the shopping list and then maybe have someone host the ads at a non affiliated site? Then you can just include a link. No point in risking your business if there's a way to get around it.

[DB_Cooper]

ETA: 1 vote for stickying this thread to let everyone know who the clowns are in the retail world and also suggest sending this link to the CEO's of every company involved (to let them know how incompetent their marketing stooges are) and post this on the financial boards for the companies in question. Retail is cutthroat, and these dingalings make a HUGE chunk of their profits between now & Christmas. Precisely NOT the time you want to be pi$$ing your potential customers off. Face it, they don't give a rat's patooey about us lowlife scum customers, all they respond to is WALL STREET, and the last thing they want is investors getting skittish because they are farting around with their primo selling season. So far I have seen precious little this season that makes me want to break out my wallet, perhaps I will get up early on Black Friday and just go outand clog traffic for the hell of it. I will be the one in the beige minivan driving 25MPH in the fast lane with my left blinker on

[friholic]

Brad, if a member on this site had the ad information and posted the information in a thread, would you have to delete that post? Why are they so hyper over the BF ads? All year long I check here for ads that will be coming the next week or so. Of course, those are from links provided by other members. If the same thing happened with the BF ads, would you still take the heat from them. The TRU Big Book was posted without problems right? So why do the retailers let that continue, but when it comes to the BF ads, they have a cow and have their lawyers call.

[DramaQueenLucy]

We are going to be doing something similar to that in the coming days. On the main BF site, you'll start to see little green dollar bill icons () next to certain items. Those items will be available for ordering online (from a different, but GD-approved and trusted web site) for the BF price or less. As you said, keeping something like that updated is a lot of work, so I'm trying to catch up with all the other ads and deal with everything else before we start rolling out this feature.

I am loving that idea..the ads don't look that good to me this year..but that is partially because I have hung around gotta deal for a year and have now found out that BF isn't the only time to get good prices..that you can get them all year. I now prefer ordering online then shopping at a B&M...JMO

[Tangogirl]

Honestly, this is the first time in my 13 years of BF shopping that I have not had to worry about enough money to spend-and not because I just won the lottery!! I have never been so disappointed in the quailty of BF ads in my life. Target ought to be ashamed of themselves-they are usually our first stop! Mistreatment of Brad and this site aside, there might be 2 things I want in their ad-last year and years prior there were tons!! For all the sword waving, you'd think they would be trying to hide some killer deals...Every ad is lacking this year-even BB and CC haven't whet my appetite.... Nothing like big business trying to make life a little harder for us little folk in this less than stellar economy....I hope it's worth it....

[guilliam]

I sent an email to Target letting them know that I have made several high dollar purchases at their stores and on target.com BECAUSE of Gottadeal!! I let them know that since I don't have a local Target this site is the only way I find out what they have for sale because I don't receive their ad!! I would never see Target's Black Friday ad if it wasn't posted here!! It may not do any good, but I let them know they wouldn't have gotten any of my money if I hadn't seen the deals on Gottadeal!!

[LyLMyssChaos]

I personally think they are in cahoots with the Thursday newpapers and the credit card companies.

I don't know so much about "the Thursday newspaper" thing. I deliver newspapers and I just got notice that starting with Thanksgiving day (and for the next 5 Thursdays) that all of my customers will receive a Thursday paper at no charge(which really stinks because Thursdays are just slightly smaller than Sunday this time of year.)

[Brad]

after other sites got it last week, we got our Linens-n-Things C&D today. Yipee!

[uscboy]

You should just stop checking your mail this time of year.