Hello folks,

I hope you are well.

Whilst talking to Julia from AWIN today, we found ourselves talking about the length of time that it takes for some merchants to validate commission. (For the record we validate commission every 8 days which I think is probably slower than some merchants, who do it daily but quicker than others).

So why don’t we validate orders quicker?

It quickly dawned on me that (probably) nobody has explained WHY we don’t do it quicker, so I thought I’d post a little blog posting on TBW and explain our stance…

Because we have a lot of automated and manual fraud screening we (fingers firmly crossed) don’t get a lot of fraudulent orders, so this isn’t the reason why we don’t validate quicker. However, I can understand why some companies who sell high end expensive gadgets like digital cameras and camcorders, take a while longer to validate orders as they are more prone to fraudulent orders.

With us, the primary reason for not validating orders quicker is returns. Under certain legislation (Distance Selling Regulations predominantly) and also through goodwill, we have an obligation to accept back returned products - up to a period of 30 days. Obviously then we have to fully refund the customer.

So potentially, if we validate orders too quickly, we may be paying commission on an order that has actually been returned to us and consequently we’ve received no money on. I don’t mind this if the commission is only a few quid, but if the commission is on a £500 football table then it gets a little hot beneath the collar.

But then that got me thinking. What about PPC affiliates? Do they factor in returns in to the equation and thus none payment of (in their eyes) legitimate commission? Is it fair to not pay commission on returned items?

Thankfully this doesn’t happen very often with Prezzybox as I’m pleased to report that our current approval rate is 99.76%, but it’s definitely an issue which needs bringing to the public arena.

Toodle pip.

TBW.

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