View Full Version : Phone numbers in description
By chance, I found that prezzy box have a customer service telephone number in their product descriptions.
As it is out of hours, I got an answer phone message when I called the number to see if it as possible to order directly over the phone. But I suspect it is.
It's one thing merchants advertising their telephone number on their own sites to try and do affiliates out of their hard earned commissions. I'm sure we're all very familiar with that issue and it's effects.
However, it is a completely different thing altogether when merchants advertise their telephone number directly on affiliates websites. I wonder how many commissions have been avoided?
I for one have blocked PrezzyBox from my feed until this issue is resolved. I have also contacted them via AffWin to let them know my feelings on this.
For your information, if at any time you feel you need to block a specific merchant for whatever reason, it's very easy to do so.
Simply go to your affwin account-->shopwindow toolset
look for the merchant manager link and give it a click.
Find the specific merchant you want to block from your feed and click the block link.
heres a direct URL to make it even easier for everyone:
http://www.affiliatewindow.com/affiliates/shopwindow/merchantmanager.php
I've also noticed a few phone numbers in product descriptions. Can't remember any specific merchants but it's definately something to add to the feed specs.
Hi Guys,
If Prezzy Box are passing a number I will get our guys to get onto them and rectify this first thing.
Ive sent an email to our Account Development team who will look into this and I will update this thread from that.
Thanks for the notification! :)
Amo
Hello everyone,
My name is Ben and I look after the Prezzybox affiliate program, I was alerted to this thread by Affiliate Window so i'm here to let you know the situation and how we are going to resolve it.
Basically I didn't even know that some of the product descriptions had the phone number in. I have just been told it is a really small percentage of products (14 out of our whole datafeed) and the reason being that it was for personalised gifts only, when a specific delivery date needed to be arranged.
However I understand your frustrations and I have let the product team know that they can not include telephone numbers in descriptions from now on (they were doing this without me knowing!!! :mad: ).
They are taking them out as we speak and when the datafeed is refreshed (every 24 hours) the phone number will have been removed. As I say it really is a tiny percentage of our products and we hope this little slip will not put you off our great affiliate program (if i do say so myself! :D ).
We believe ourselves to be very pro-active in terms of helping our affiliates and reducing slippage, as seen by us implementing landing pages for affiliate sites: http://www.prezzybox.com/affiliates/landingpage.aspx?ID=allkids&TID=900 including personalised voucher codes in order to promote sales, and removing any advertising and phone numbers from the top of the site when you come through an affiliate link.
If any of you would like more information regarding our program or have any queries/requests, please dont hesitate to get hold of me at: ben@prezzybox.com.
Cheers,
Ben
Confuscius
09-06-07, 11:35
Hi Ben
Nice to see another merchant on the 'other side of the fence' and responding in such a positive manner.
Just testing the waters with this one but how would you feel if we set up a specific thread purely about the Prezzybox feed where a number of affiliates would do all they could to be critical of the feed content, both in general and specific terms, with the objective of defining what makes the "perfect Prezzybox feed fromthe affiliate perspective".
Hopefully, you would get some good suggestions to improve your feed and other merchants would be able to read about the process that we went through and use the information to re-assess their own feed quality - or is every Merchant feed perfect?
To be honest I have no idea where we would end up but it would be a fun exercise to undertake and could possibly be highly productive in a number of ways for both the merchant, Affiliate Window and the Affiliate.
I am strongly of the opinion that any improvement in the quality of feeds will help everyone concerned increase their bottom line financial returns.
Views anyone?
Paul
IntroSites
14-06-07, 01:14
Appliance City also have a FREE phone number in their descriptions, now that does take the P !
Hi all,
Just wanted to let you all know, that Eil.com displayes a phone number in description.
See below:
Alternative Names: BRITTNEY SPEARS
To order by phone: Call 01474 815010 quoting EIL.COM reference number BTPTSLI377879
To speak to a representative call 01474 815010
Confuscius
23-06-07, 14:24
You can also add Blooming Marvellous and Heals to the list of those who have phone numbers on some products.
I particularly like examples such as:
This item can only be purchased through our stores. For more information please call 020 7636 1666. (Heals)
or
Sorry this product is not available to purchase online. To order please call 020 7371 0500 (Blooming Marvellous)
No doubt there are lots of other examples to find, so get looking everyone!
Paul
Searching for "please call" and "please phone" turns up quite a few hits.