Surf the Mind

Archive for May, 2008

I’ve recently been bombarded by links to Russell Brunson’s Affiliate Evolution offer from other marketers. For $10, the package certainly is a steal. I no more than glanced at what was offered for the price before I hit the buy now button.

And then I saw that the payment system was NOT Paypal.

Now, I don’t have anything particular against using my credit card for purchases like these. It’s just that I’ve noticed a lot of forced continuity offers popping up in the marketing arena recently, and if the marketer isn’t using Paypal, there’s no telling how insanely difficult it might be to unsubscribe from a costly subscription if you happen to get sucked in.

So as soon as I see a non-Paypal payment page, I take a second, or even third look, before entering my credit card.

Affiliate Evolution is actually ABOUT continuity offers so it’s obviously going to have one. To Brunson’s credit, the page does not have a FORCED continuity offer. It’s just a little sneaky.

When you get to the payment page, you’ll notice that the total on the shopping cart is not $10, but actually closer to $40 because of a shipping charge. The shipping fee is NOT for Affiliate Evolution, but rather for a “trial month” of a monthly newsletter plus a DVD. After the ‘free’ month (which you pay a huge shipping fee for), your credit card will be charged ANOTHER $40 a month until you unsubscribe. And remember, this isn’t a Paypal subscription, so you will have to do something that’s likely more onerous than going to Paypal and hitting the cancel button to ditch the extra fee.

I nearly stopped the purchase process right there, but I took another look, and below the cart, there is a checkmarked box where you can choose to select the bonuses.

If you deselect that checkbox, you can continue the payment process for only the $10 you wanted to pay for the products advertised.

Your shopping cart will immediately show only $10 once you do this. You’ll still be required to enter a shipping name and address, but since you’re not being shipped anything, you can just enter “NA” for the address, city and postal code.

Then all you’ve got to do is wade through the one time offers (yikes! are there really that many of them!?) and grab your files. For a mere $10 it is well worth the price, even if you’ve got to jump over a few minefields to get them.

After all, you can learn about continuity offers without getting sucked into them, can’t ya?

Image via WikipediaToday, I am sitting outside watching a few tables at a community yard sale.

Usually, I must admit, I am a ‘throw it out’ kind of gal, but I suppose this is somewhat better for the environment.

The last time I participated in any sort of junk sale was when my parents moved out of their home and into an apartment. I hope I don’t get wrangled into anything like it for another 10 years. Tire kickers and bargain hunters are not my favorite people to deal with.

What I was quite pleased and pleasantly surprised to discover, however, is that my 5-year-old son is a natural pitchman. He was as happy as a clam selling toasters and jewelery to unsuspecting passers-by. I had no idea he could be so assertive and bold. And he asked for the sale every time.

He came home with enough money to buy a few Lego sets, and enough confidence to make me feel incredibly good about the whole experience… tirekickers and all.

The state of New York just passed a bill that could cause no end of grief to marketers who use affiliates to promote products. Amazon is challenging the bill as unconstitutional, and New York based affiliate marketers should be on their knees praying Amazon wins.

In most states, a company only has to collect taxes if they have a physical presence in the state.

New York has passed legislation re-defining physical presence to mean a company has a physical presence if it has even a single affiliate based in the state, or if a New York based site “earns a referral fee for sending customers to an online retailer.” Think Google Adwords on the New York Times?

If Amazon.com fails to defeat the state, it isn’t far fetched to suggest that Amazon might cut off all New York affiliates rather than lose sales by effectively raising prices for all the customers in that well-populated state.

And if Amazon.com does lose, look to other states to follow with a tax grab of their own, making Affiliate programs a lot less appealing for a lot of larger companies that currently run them.

Related links on:

• Slashdot
• NY Times
• News.com
• Arstechnica.com
• ValleyWag
• Gothamist