Quidco
July 22nd, 200824th July: A further response from Affiliate Window
Whilst I agree that airing your dirty laundry in public is never a preferred route to take this does have to be balanced against the fact that it’s the route one has been forced to take by another party. Plus what is considered ‘dirty laundry airing’ by one, can be considered transparency of information by another.
I’ve tried to stick with Quidco’s ‘reason’ for severing ties with AW and to some degree we have had issues with the SureShop agreement. In principle, however, we still adhered to the turnaround time and to that end have a total of ZERO outstanding transaction queries through Quidco for all of our merchants at the point this whole issue surfaced. As they said themselves;
—–Original Message—–
From: XXXXX XXXXX [mailto:xxxxx@quidco.com]
Sent: 15 July 2008 12:28
To: Kevin Edwards
Subject: Quidco Outstanding SureshopHi Kevin,
I would like to pass on my appreciation and thanks to you and your team for clearing down the Sureshop oustanding enquiries to one.
You have made a lot of members very happy.
Kind regards,
Dominic
XXXXXX
Head of Quidco Member Support
You’re welcome Dominic, it’s what a good network is supposed to do.
So what’s the real reason behind AW’s removal?
Well, firstly I have to say that we work in a commercial world and what a business will do to take an advantage over their competitors is down to them and is fair game. I have no issue with sharp commercial acumen or revenue sharing, we know it goes on.
Quidco have for a long time operated on the basis of member sign up fees, a struggle for a company offering a supposed 100% cashback to their members. However at present we believe that Quidco have agreements with a number of networks to share override revenue generated from member purchases through the merchants they manage. This would exclude Affiliate Window as we ultimately declined a proposal for this for a variety of reasons, including;
1. We don’t do this with any other affiliate, cash-back or otherwise.
2. We felt involved parties would have a right to know (agencies don’t hide their fees from their merchants).
3. A large number of AW merchants are exclusive to the network
Again I reiterate that I’m not saying there is anything wrong in this, it is business after all and I make no apology that point 3 is important to us; after all we’re a business too.
So for the past 6 months or so we have seen Quidco’s traditional stance of maintaining original link relationships for merchants, eroded as every significant non-exclusive AW merchant we managed was switched to A.N. OTHER Network. Hopefully you will note that there was no public discussion regarding this fact as we chose to raise it with Quidco privately as it was an obvious concern but as I have said before, it’s business.
This culminated with Quidco operating with AW for our exclusive merchants, aside from a couple of new dual network merchants, where link switching was restricted. Considering the brands we’re talking about here this was not an insignificant amount of commission for Quidco members. However, with AW, Quidco would not make anything extra from these merchants.
So reviewing the current scenario, AW is to be dropped as a network from the 1st of September. No discussion with us, no review, no tender, we merely find out because Quidco have chosen to contact our merchants directly and it is posted on the a4u forum.
SureShop is cited as the reason and we responded. Merchants are now being called by Quidco who are offering more detailed ‘reasons’;
a) SureShop
b) Poor tracking
c) Relational issues
AW works with a broad range of affiliates and I’m hoping that the monumental effort we put into our progressive attitude and stance, our robust technology and innovation and our partner appreciation and service will hopefully dispel these comments for the myths that they are.
Quidco members – ask yourself this. If it’s questionable merchant practices you are concerned with why would switching to track from one network to another fix your problem. On the Quidblog a situation was outlined by a member regarding a merchant tracking issue with the comment
“anyway if this move will stop this happening, I’m all for it”
Unfortunately it won’t stop this happening as we are NOT the network who tracks this merchant.
How has this affected you? Well, when one merchant chose to move from network X to AW the commission offering changed from;
£40 though Network X to £65 through AW
Single transaction type paid through Network X to all transaction types paid through AW
Yet, Quidco continued to promote through network A for the duration of the overlapping closure period, despite direct calls from the merchant to Quidco to switch.
Finally our affiliates are like our members and we pay them for all our merchant’s transactions faster than anyone else and that includes payment to Quidco. I’m sure there are other 100% cashback portals offering faster payment and the same levels of service so you decide. 100% Cashback, Cashback News
It grates when the very relationships and technology Quidco have benefitted from over the past years are not recognised and actually cited as negatives.
You’re a business, at least have the common decency to come out up front and say;
‘We get a better deal with networks A, B and C’ so want merchants business to come through these partners rather than AW’.
Then let the merchants make up their own minds and weigh up Quidco against the alternatives. But this route doesn’t get so much member or merchant sympathy I guess?
Before anyone says I could have handled this directly and privately, I chose not to because arguing around false issues is a disgrace and insults the intelligence of those who know better. This is nothing to do with ego and everything to do with principle. What this post hopefully does is to redress the balance and offer a level of clarity which changes the landscape.
The outcome may still be the same for AW, Quidco and merchants but at least some of us would be comfortable to say our actions have reflected our business principles, would Quidco honestly want to say the same?
Kind Regards
Mark
After successfully working with many cashback and loyalty scheme operators for over eight years the decision by Quidco to stop working with us is highly regrettable, however it does not have to hit you in the pocket. All our retailers who have historically worked with Quidco value your purchasing power and want to ensure you get the cashback you deserve.
It’s a shame that you as the consumer won’t be able to continue to benefit from this through Quidco, however the great news is that you will still be able to earn cashback from the retailers being dropped by using an alternative cashback site. We’d be delighted to help anyone concerned about this and show them how they can still benefit.
Some alternative cashback sites are
www.cashbackkings.com
www.froggybank.co.uk
www.topcashback.co.uk
www.wepromiseto.co.uk
Please drop us an email at partnerships@affiliatewindow.com so we can let you know how you can still get cashback against all your online purchases.
This post is in response to a communication sent, without our knowledge, to our merchant and associated partners from Quidco. You can view a copy of the email here… http://www.affiliatewindow.com/documents/quidco.php.
Affiliate Window have a long and successful history with Quidco that dates back to March 2005. We have always been advocates of the cashback model and in particular the value cashback can bring to this channel. As one of the network’s partners we have watched cashback interest grow over the past few years to a point where an affiliate is able to leverage considerable influence and restrictions over both networks and merchants.
However, over the past year it has only been Quidco’s influence over our merchants that has concerned us. Whilst we do not doubt that Quidco have a strong commitment to its members, Affiliate Window have become increasingly concerned how Quidco are prepared to sacrifice protection for merchants in favour of members by securing cashback to its members, in some cases where no cashback is due.
This was highlighted eight months ago when Quidco asked all the networks they work with to enter into the Quidco ‘SureShop’ agreement. This was an obligation designed to guarantee members that networks resolve any Quidco member transaction queries within 28 days or they would be auto-approved. As I am sure you are aware, transaction approval should strictly lie with the merchant and cashback users can often submit requests for transaction queries because they have not received their cashback after making a purchase. The reasons for this are varied and often NOT associated with network tracking but more likely the user failing to access a merchant site via a Quidco link or the user clicked another affiliate link prior to sale, such as a discount voucher site. Nevertheless, we were happy to assist Quidco in processing these queries and as you have seen over the past few months we developed a solution to submit these queries into our system to be reviewed by merchants on the basis that you control how and when this occurs.
Our concerns regarding SureShop were heightened when Quidco members began submitting queries for transactions that had already been presented and declined by merchants. This effectively meant merchants declining a transaction and then subsequently having that same transaction auto-approved if they are unable to review it within the 28 days or bogus/fraudulent transactions being submitted on the off-chance of their approval. I am sure you agree, this system offers no protection to merchants and will inevitably end in a situation where the merchant is paying Quidco members commission for sales that are not valid.
After all any network has to feel confident that it tracks a very high percentage of sales (thus raising a serious question mark over the volume of Quidco transaction queries) or admit that their tracking is flawed and agree that Quidco members should be allowed to submit erroneous transaction queries.
As such, and after careful consideration, Affiliate Window decided to opt out of the SureShop agreement. This meant that the onus for the validity of member transaction queries was also shared with Quidco rather than our merchants alone. We felt this ensured transparency, accountability and above all protection to our merchants, something that we feel has been eroded by Quidco’s representation of the cashback market of late. We would ask all merchants operating in the affiliate industry to consider not just the merit of SureShop but the obvious disadvantages it brings.
This is obviously a carefully timed email designed to apply undue pressure on our clients. This is what we have come to expect of Quidco over recent months. We continue to work with all the other cashback partners many of whom appreciate our stance regarding the protection of merchants. It is well known that cashback users are not loyal to just one site and you will still be able to engage the broader cashback community through alternative partners with added peace of mind.
We would like to take you through this in more detail and ensure you have full visibility on the issue so we can address any concerns. Therefore, if you would like to contact us directly to discuss this please don’t hesitate to do so.
Kind Regards
Adam Ross
Client Services Director
adam.ross@affiliatewindow.com
020 7553 0359
Mark Walters
COO
mark.walters@affiliatewindow.com
020 7553 0360
Kevin Edwards
Partnerships Director
Kevin.edwards@affiliatewindow.com
020 7553 0354
Anthony Clements
Manager, Key Accounts Team
Anthony.clements@affiliatewindow.com
020 7553 0353
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Very informative article and it is very reassuring to hear the network concerned speak out. I would have expected other networks to not comment publicly. Hats off to AW.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
[...] Re: Quidco no longer working with Awin As I posted on their blog, I think AW has handled this very well. Not all networks would have responded in a public manor. [...]
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
nice article. Is it normal for large cashback sites to try and pressurise networks/merchants into these unfair positions?
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Well done AW. The way Quidco treat networks has been a bone of contention for many months and I am glad AW has the chutzpah to not be bullied.
The article below this in the blog refers to a cashback site, Cashback Kings, who does function in a more honourable way.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Great to see AW standing up to Quidco, I hope others will follow. I’m sure you will gain much kudos with both affiliates and merchants for taking this stand. I hope this doesn’t cost you too much in the short term, but in the long term these cashback users are sure to move over to other cashback sites.
In this 3-way relationship it’s not good to see any one party getting the upper hand, whether it be the merchants, affiliates or the networks. IMO AW sometimes need to stand up to some of it’s merchants when they enforce new and unreasonable T&C’s.
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I do see the point of both the Merchant and Quidco but as a cashback follower and a loyal one, (I only purchase from suppliers on Quidco, otherwise wasting the £5 Admin fee or greater from each Cashback Site) I do agree with Quidco that the pressure needs to be applied to the Merchant.
In these cases Quidco is representing the smaller minority, the consumer and the merchant who is following the affliate route should have adequate business resources to undertake queries within an agreed period.
I have experience many a time where the technology has let me down. An example is a item tracked but at the incorrect rate, it rightly rejected, but under previous cashback rules could not be resubmitted with the correct claim value on.
—————————————————————————————-
At the end of the day market forces will prevail and Merchants will have to decide to give way to Buyer power ( which appears to be greater in the online market place) or to establish a working protocol across the industry which all agree to.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Very good article although I don’t think quidco are doing anything wrong by requesting things be resolved in 28 days – it seems quite a reasonable time frame to me?
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Excuse me but My only concern is that when I make a purchase (my purchases are always genuine to the best of my knowledge) therefore screw any affiliate that declines my % back when all criteria is met to receive Cashback.
If you do not join sorry to say your gonna get left behind and marked as affiliate that has something to hide or is just plain too lazy in sorting out problems for customers once you have what you want
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
If you did not have so many dodgy merchants who want to hold on to genuine cashback this would not have happened.
Your decision is down to corporate greed on the merchants part and an unwillingness to just offer goods and services at lower prices without the need for referral systems.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I with Quidco on this one rember the customer is always right even when they are wrong………….
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I am baffled by the short term tactics that QuidCo seem to be operating. Seems they must be worried that the odd lost commission/cash back might result in a disenfranchised user. Surely this is not what cooperatives are about?
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Let me start of with stating that not all affiliate companies are so honnest. I know of several (that i have worked with in the past) that have had technical problems and when someone out side comments on poor leads they deny to save face.
I’m not saying any company here does this, I’m just saying having a company defend it’s members is no bad thing and quidco has the right attitude!
July 24th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Surely taking steps to make sure transactions are reviewed within 28 days would prevent AW from losing out? Plus, people purposely abusing the system could be identified more easily this way and ultimately have their cashback accounts closed.
You have to remember that there is a reason why Quidco is the largest cashback site in the market… and it’s not just because they were one of the first!
July 24th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Long live quidco.. the best site around.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:35 am
There are 2 problems that need addressing here.
1 are quidco trying to unfairly instigate a cashback claim they are not entitled to?
2 Are AW merchants not honouring their cashback obligation?
Sureshop is an excellent model to ensure merchants honour the cashback arrangement, and prehaps a similar model is needed by AW for the merchants as a method for trusting a cashback claim is genuine.
It is a shame to see AW and quidco seperate from what should be a situation of financial benefit to both parties.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:00 am
I cannot understand how 28 days could be considered an unreasonable amount of time. With the correct systems in place queries should be resolved well within this time frame as well as identification of fraudulent queries.
I am wholly with Quidco here and their Sureshop policy will only help to drive improvements in the system.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I’m worth Quidco 100% on this. Root out the cheats by all means, but that includes cheating merchants who take every opportunity not to pay what they promise. AW is wrong if they think many of us will leave Quidco.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Completely agree with AW on this one, as far as I see it it’s not just the fact that they didn’t agree to the 28 day turnaround, it’s more due to the fact that there were too many fraudulent tickets being submitted where people either went via another cashback site or via a voucher code site hence were not entitled to the referral they were putting tickets in for.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
What a lot of the Quidco backer’s don’t seem to get is that the merchants don’t promise to pay anything, not cashback anyway. Merchants provide commission to affiliates who promote merchant offers on their sites, anyone in the affiliate industry knows commission can sometimes not track, it’s not 100% and never has been it’s just accepted.
For Quidco to burn bridges with one of the larger networks like AW is surely a bold move and counts on certain merchants acting accordingly otherwise Quidco will no longer offer cashback for some of those key online merchants.
I understand Quidco’s stance and the promotion of Sureshop after all it’s a unique selling point above the other 100% cashback sites but surely some discussion could have taken place with an alternative rather than the approach taken.
To contact the merchants the way they did without the prior knowledge of AW is a poor business decision which could have been handled a lot better than it has up to now and may have the wrong effect later down the line, we will have to wait and see.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Interesting to see Quidco asking their member’s to post in places they don’t really know anything about but are keeping quiet themselves.
I’m very much with AW on this. If it’s true that Quidco no longer have any outstansing SureShop enquiries why is SureShop even being mentioned as a reason for them not working with AW any longer? If it’s because AW have said no to sharing their override then maybe it’s about time Quidco got out of their pram and started to grow up a little. Unless the hundreds of exclusive AW merchants are going to go dual Network or do direct deals with them then I don’t see how Quidco are going to be able to function. Especially as there are some big competitors out there. You just have to look at the blog entry below this one to see one of them.
July 25th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
The cashback contract is between the Member and Quidco. That is it.
What we’re actually talking about is commission, and all cashbackers would do well to remember that fact.
The transaction with the merchant is completely seperate to the cashback contract you have with QuidCo (or GreasyPalm, cashinco, Quidsinuk, Freefivers, wepromiseto or any other cashback site out there)
You have all got QuidCo’s and Affiliate Window’s obligations very wrong indeed.
If QuidCo promise and Guarantee you cashback, then it’s QuidCo that owe you it.
Not the Network, Not the merchant, but QuidCo. As with all Cashback sites.
simple as that.
because of Quidco’s small margins, giving 100% of their commission as cashback, they tried to bully money out of networks and merchants.
Was this just to keep afloat? In My Opinion, any company who does such high profile complaining and dummy chucking must be in financial difficulty. there’s no other real explanation for rocking this boat in this way.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:05 am
As a user of cashback sites for several years now, all I need is confidence that my financial decision will worl out as planned. If the Quidco SureShop scheme provides that assurance then that’s where my allegiance will lie.
Quidco seem to have a good system and have resolved all my queries, although one took over 12 months – prior to SureShop.
I personally use the Money Saving Expert Cashback Sites Maximiser http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cashback-sites-comparison/ to check out the best deals.
July 26th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Just saw the reply made on Quidco’s blog… removed within one minute! Obviously Quidco don’t want their member’s to hear the truth.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
[...] their site who are on the Affiliate Window platform. Awin have posted indepth responses via their blog whilst discussions have popped up on consumer and affiliate [...]
July 27th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
What Quidco uses who are saying good riddance to non paying networks are forgetting is that AW had no outstanding queries regarding unpaid cashback when they were dropped by Quidco and even received an email from Dominic at Quidco to say thank you just days before they were dropped.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Stop slagging off Quidco. Much more generous levels of cashback than any other place i’ve looked at. The membership fee is only only £5 it is worth it you can make that in one deal.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Personally I’m a little disturbed by how Quidco are behaving. I’ve made over £500 on the site this year so I’m not the biggest earner on there but neither is it considered small beans (not by me anyway!). I know that where some merchants are concerned Quidco are definitely not offering as much back to the consumer as other cashback websites. Given how big Quidco are, if they can’t get the best rates then no-one can.
My thinking is that Quidco are getting the higher cashback rates but are taking the opportunity to skim some of the commission for themselves. This would be a real shame and it would certainly fly in the face of the supposed open policy Quidco operate, but sadly the situation seems to back this up. It isn’t hard to check, just look at comparable commission rates or cashback amounts offered by competitors to Quidco. And it would make sense of why some seemingly reputable affiliate sites are getting pressure from Quidco.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Yes but a good affiliate network is being falsely accused of having dodgy tracking, not passing on cashback etc when ironically they were the only network not to have any outstanding sureshop queries. If Quidco are really thinking about their users interests why would they get rid of a network that had no outstanding queries whether they had signed up to sureshop or not.
Why are people bashing AW when there was an email from Quidco themselves stating ‘You have made a lot of members very happy’. I’m sure things couldn’t have changed so drastically in the week after the email was sent.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
[...] Affiliate Window blog including our official response to Quidco’s email [...]
July 30th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
This is certainly a very interesting article. I have for some time thought that the 100% cashback sites might end up causing the networks a lot of hassle. Now wait until Awin launches it’s own cashback site and doesn’t need to bother with affiliates.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Maybe they are going to be sold to another network
Doug
September 24th, 2008 at 11:34 am
This is the first I have come across this little ’spat’. I am not attached to either Quidco, AW or any other network, but am researching cashback sites and affilitate marketing for a number f large projects.
I have to say I am totally disgusted with the childish and public nature of this whole argument. Moreso from the AW side as I fail to see what they gain from this other than negative publicity and a massive hit to their PR image.
Initially I thought the ‘SureShop’ agreement could be restrictive and unfair to merchants, but after researching I can’t see anything wrong with it. Merchants are given a whole month to respond to the query before having to pay out – in my eyes this should be an industry standard and AW should be FORCING their merchants into it in the first place. Where is the consumer goodwill and protection from AW?
AW comes across as it does not care one bit about the end consumer. Yes, it’s business model is that it has merchants and sells it products to merchants. It has very little to do with a consumer as it deals with an intermediary (advertising website or cashback site). It does need to ‘protect’ it’s merchants – but not at the expense of the end user, who without their vital input the whole cashback/affiliate model would not work.
I also disagree with the blog post above for it’s misleading nature and it’s lack of business integrity. They published an email from Quidco in it. As a business person, how can I trust in AW if there is a possibility of an email being published on a public blog? This is a SERIOUS integrity problem for the network in my eyes and a despicable thing to do.
Also, they trumpet that they have cleared all their SureShop enquiries. Well, yeah – THAT’S WHAT SURESHOP IS ABOUT. Well done. Why are you complaining about SureShop if you were adhering to it’s standards anyway. Plus, if you’re adhering to it’s standards anyway, that says to me that there IS a problem elsewhere, be it the tracking or anything else, but SOMETHING is fundamentally wrong if you are rejecting SureShop on this basis when adhering to it, in my opinion of course.
Bearing in mind the last two paragraphs here, I seriously question the ethics, morality and integrity of the network and believe that merchants, sites and consumers should to.
A month to respond is more than reasonable for any merchant. That said, I do understand the point of duplicate enquiries – but again a good network/merchant will ensure that THEY TOO are dealt with in 28 days anyway, so what is the problem there?
Only problems I can decipher are from AW here. I was looking for a network to work with on my projects here; however – as Duncan Bannatyne and co. would say – I’M OUT.