|
|
| Success Stories - Discount Program |
|
We've
all purchased cookies and candies from local school children, trying to
raise money for their school. Web-Shops.Net has come up with a
much better program - one more helpful to the students and more
beneficial to the school. It was such a brilliant idea that we
wish we could take credit for it, but we can't. It was conceived
by one of our Affiliates.
One of the teachers from a public school visited our
Einsteins-Emporium.com web-site and was highly impressed by the width
and depth of our educational products. She had many bright
students and wanted to encourage them to explore every aspect of science
and nature, outside the classroom. Most of our products we offer
are very hard to find, so she contacted us and asked permission to set
up a page of recommended products that she could add to the school's
website.
We thought it was a splendid idea so we agreed.
We didn't have our affiliate program in place at that time, so no
commissions were involved. The original intent was simply to
provide students with educational resources. This resulted in the
school setting up a product page. Some of the products it has
offered are shown below.
|
 |
 |
 |
| Nova
GeoLab |
Smithsonian
Anatomy Lab |
Radio
& Electronics Kit |
|
During this time,
Einsteins-Emporium was expanding it's offering to include products
designed for classroom use. The school wanted to purchase some for
it's own use. Their referral program was working well and the
school wasn't receiving a commission, we gave it a generous discount on
it's own purchases.
Since then we introduced our Affiliate Program
and we contacted the school asking if it wanted to participate. In
effect, it was already doing so, but our teacher came up with an
interesting idea. Rather than paying the school a commission, why
not just accumulate the funds and let the school use them to purchase
things it wanted? This bypassed the need to get school board
permission to accept commissions and avoided any possible conflict of
interest. It also permitted teachers to make needed purchases
without the hassle of going through a lot of administrative red
tape. Best of all, the educational products were far more
beneficial to the students than cookies and candies.
It was a great idea and we modified the
Affiliate Program to provide for it. It's very simple
system. Each month several of the teachers get together and decide
what they would like to show that month. Often the selected
products correspond with other teaching activities. One of the
teachers then makes up a new recommended products page. The school
sends out a Newsletter that urges parents to visit the school's website
and review it's recommended product page. The page has become very
popular with parents and students alike and a large percentage of
families look forward to each edition.
The web-site is very market specific in
that it is primarily oriented to students and their families. It
started out with about 1,500 unique visitors per month, but to the
surprise of all concerned, other schools began linking to the
recommended products page. The number of unique visitors now runs
around 3,000. In spite of the very small amount of traffic, the
site does extremely well. The referral rate runs 18% and the
conversion rate 20%. Average sale is $50.00. Commissions
generally run $300.00 to $350.00 per month. During the Christmas
seasons, parents who have purchased during the year return for
educational Christmas presents and both sales and commissions run much
higher. They also run higher during the winter months because we
stock a tremendous number of products that are used in Science Fair
Projects.
The commissions are
accumulated. Because this results in less administrative overhead
for us and because we want to support the school's educational efforts,
the school receives a 20% discount. During the past year, the
school has purchased several thousand dollars worth of products for it's
own use. It's been a wonderful arrangement for all concerned.
As a footnote, you do not have to
be a school to receive the 20% discount. All you have to do is let
commissions accumulate. This provides a great way for you to save
up for things that you want - a great way to cover Christmas shopping.
|
|
