Elaines Space

I’ve been following the whole  brand bidding debate with interest and this is the conclusion I’ve arrived at and it seems remarkably simple …. Every merchant has the indisputable right to pay for placement in the paid search arena for their own name/trademark - if somebody simply types Next, Argos, John Lewis into a search box, being too lazy to input the full url into the address bar, then it’s only right and proper in these circumstances that the merhant shouldn’t have to pay affiliate fees.   (whether they found the product previously on an affiliate site is another argument - but ...

I’ve decided twice not to write this - but it’s just crazy that any affiliate would promote low paying, low converting toy websites - which are also more expensive than Amazon, Littlewoods Direct, The Toy Shop, John Lewis - shall I go on ….. You could argue that they have the brand name and this could figure in the conversion rate (I capitulated over Next - but they are the exception to the rule) but if someone is willing to pay a premium price just to shop at Hamleys, then they are going to Google Hamleys. If they’ve landed ...