LFGSS survives by donations

Post a link to what you want in this thread , refresh the page and then click the link and buy from there and LFGSS gets the affiliate cash.

How does the crc wiggle thing work as i have bought a few things recently . I have quidco linked for a few pennies back ?

If you have a quidco browser extension, then the forum will never get anything as you're getting the money.

The reason that affiliates are collapsing as a source of revenue is because of cash-back browser extensions and programs. Affiliate fees are a way of rewarding referrers of new customers for that introduction, and once a relationship is established then typically the customer is going direct and the affiliate fee is not paid.

Affiliates = payment for customer acquisition.

Yet businesses cannot afford to make payments for customer retention. Instead they retain customers by offering discounts on the actual goods.

Because cash-back programmes were created to exploit the affiliate system, by moving from customer acquisition to getting fees for the regular customer retention... it has eroded the profit margins of the retailers, and so they've been pushing down the % fees. It used to be 4-5% for a customer introduction, Merlin Cycles are now down to 1% and choosing not to acknowledge all transactions, Wiggle / CRC are closer to 2.4% and programmes like QuidCo give you 1% but they keep the 1.4% for themselves.

This is not a criticism... but it is the nature of the beast.

Cash-back programs mean that the revenue stream that has paid for LFGSS and other sites the most over the past decade are drying up and the sites need to either:

• Come direct to the site users for donations (what we do)
  
• Put adverts everywhere (what sites like road.cc do)
  
• Create paywalls for subscribers (what publishing sites do)
  
  

In the early days of the forum, the eBay affiliate program alone paid for the whole site on less traffic than we had today, and with enough spare money that we threw parties and donated to other cycling causes. Today, eBay with 100x the traffic does not even cover 1% of our costs.

Oh well.

If you're using a cash-back program, please donate. There is no point trying to boost the affiliates we use.