I am wondering if PF has ever thought about a system in which individual shop owners would be able to offer their products to other similar shop owners like a referral or affiliate program? A tracking system would need to be set up so the referral shop would get a percentage of the commission on a sale. It would be a win/win proposition in which the original shop designer would get more traffic and sales and the referring shop would be able to offer more selection + get part of the commission.

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Starlark

New Age Empowerment T-Shirts
The Body Shop
Free Thinkers
www.starlark.com

Just to reiterate.

We can always do it ourselves. Well any shop that has access to hit logs. If I wanted to track and credit you for affiliation all you would have to do is use the URL for my shop with ?starlark on the end of the URL. Some of the larger shops might do it for themselves.

Its not as easy and impartial as it would be if PF took it on themselves to add such tracking to their server load. But it is possible. (I only add this because it was posted to the general discussion marketing forum instead of webpage suggestions)

Gandalf Parker
--
Any one can internet
www.Any1can.net

Gandalf, that's interesting. I was under the impression that the shop would need to be processing the transactions.

Are there any software packages or systems you can think of that would be easily adapted to use with a PF store?

Thanks,
Marc

__________________
Murchada Outfitters - Viking, Celtic, Spartan T-Shirts and more!
Duncroft Masterworks - Pendants honoring warrior cultures!
The Ultimate Scotland Shirt - the most awesome Scotland t-shirt you'll see in this lifetime!

Im usually working with shops that are part of a personal domain website. Those usually have direct access to the web logs with tons of info. There are also various hit-tracking links that can be added to shops which provide variable levels of info.

Short Answer:
If you have logs or hit-tracking links then try this test. Lets say your shop is:
http://www.printfection.com/testing123
now try opening the shop and add to the end of the URL a question mark and anything else. See if your log or tracking software shows the entire link.

Long Answer:
A question mark tells the web hosting software that there is additional information which needs to be passed on to the webpage for further handling. Lets say that you want to track how many referrals I send you. My usual code is gp1628, or oddthotz. So if you put
http://www.printfection.com/testing123?aff=gp1628
into your browser (your shop of course) then your log or tracker should show that line. In a log it might show up in the error log instead of the access log as something like "cgi not found" but it doesnt matter since it still tells you that the hit came from me. There doesnt actually HAVE to be a program to recieve that info and handle it. Just so it logs the hit.

But of course you could create such a cgi and have it record the hits to a file in case you want to have hundreds and hundreds of affiliates. You can add all the info you want to the URL seperted with & such as
/testing123?site=oddthotz.com&aff=gp1628

It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. Of course, we cant actually track sales, just hits. But that way you could have some web-addicted high schooler posting your url everyplace they can find, and see how many hits it generates. You can also use this method to keep track of the efficiency of using a blog vs forums vs newsgroups vs newsletter etc etc
/testing123?forum=example.com
/testing123?forum=testing.invalid
/testing123?blog=we-r-testers
/testing123?ng=alt.test
/testing123?aff=gp1628

I havent been asked to consult on this to a PF shop yet. So I havent done extensive tests here. But its usually workable. If you find that a tracking software works for this and works with pf shops please mention it. I can also get into some ways we can offer rewards.

I will keep looking into a workable affiliate setup as I believe it's very valuable.

I don't see the point in tracking hits if the goal is to pay for sales. I can see the point if the goal is to pay people to send you traffic. I'd prefer to give the referee money if they send me a customer who buys.

There's too much emphasis on traffic. What's the point of 1 million visitors if they don't spend a cent? I'd rather have 10 visitors who buy a shirt each. (less bandwidth too!). I suppose targeted traffic is the name of the game!!!

__________________
Murchada Outfitters - Viking, Celtic, Spartan T-Shirts and more!
Duncroft Masterworks - Pendants honoring warrior cultures!
The Ultimate Scotland Shirt - the most awesome Scotland t-shirt you'll see in this lifetime!

It was suggested by Gandalf on another post that you could offer your affiliate an incentive such as free t-shirt for x number of sales made from his referrals. It would mean looking at your stats daily and then keeping a tally. Granted software to do this would be best. It would be a BIG plus for PF if it were implimented.

I was thinking more like some of the shopkeepers on cp had a way of making a shop made up entirely of other folks designs (like a co-opperation). They then took a percentage of the sale (not sure what it took from the shopkeepers commission if anything). Also I think cp dropped it and partnered with commission juction affiliate program. Perhaps Gandalf knows??? Anyway it would get us more possible buyers, because the affiliates are working on the marketing also. Also traffic to conversion is a percentage that takes lots and lots of traffic.

Sorry to hear about your problems with merchandise. Perhaps voicing it will make the print opperation more efficient in the future.

__________________
Starlark

New Age Empowerment T-Shirts
The Body Shop
Free Thinkers
www.starlark.com

Yes CP dropped their program which I dearly loved in order to partner with CJ. I think it was an error since they were willing to be the one-stop-shopping for pod items, and were willing to be a full website for the shop rather than emphasize being an addon to a domain. They should have stayed the one-stop route IMHO.

On the other hand PF tends toward the 'addon shop' thing so some of the partnership sites might work well for them.

I was really unhappy with CP though. First they killed my lucrative referral on new shops where I made most of my money with them. Now I have to create the shop then sell it to the customer.

Then CP killed the commission on items which was one of my more enjoyable pastimes. I used to enjoy and recommend as a business the finding of unadvertised gems to make money on. Most of my large sites for it are down now since they involved paying host charges but here is one of the few examples still up just because I might use the domain again some day.
http://www.airt.biz
check out the "Found" items.

This had the advantages of
A) a domain
B) a blog
C) VERY different descriptions (in these cases usually the only description)
D) sparks my creativity which tends to be in verbal areas
E) it was lots of fun
These sites did well on the search engines and the comments posted by people on the older larger versions were lots of fun (and also boosted search engine rating). Depending on what I found and how I wanted to treat it I had different sites like this for charity orgs, or hate items, or love items, and this one for slightly off-color or weird items that might make the shop owner hate me even if I did get them sales.

Gandalf Parker

Hi, I finally got around to setting up my affiliate program. It was a bit of work but will hopefully pay off. I don't know how to set it up with my shirt store.

If anyone wants to use my affiliate program, here's the sign-up page:
http://www.duncroftmasterworks.com/affiliate.html

They're pendants aimed at guys (good Christmas gifts too!)

I'll see how this goes. If it's a good thing, hopefully there will be a PF affiliate program too someday.

__________________
Murchada Outfitters - Viking, Celtic, Spartan T-Shirts and more!
Duncroft Masterworks - Pendants honoring warrior cultures!
The Ultimate Scotland Shirt - the most awesome Scotland t-shirt you'll see in this lifetime!