"So basically, the affiliates are claiming commission on a sale that was going to happen anyway"
You have someone in your checkout process. Why on earth would you give them a reason to leave that process and go search for a discount code if you know they won't find any? Assuming they will come back doesn't feel right. What if their search for a discount code didn't prove there wasn't one, but did prove a competitor was going to be a) cheaper, b) a better service, c) offering discount codes, or they got distracted by cat videos on YouTube.
And maybe I'm naive here, but since adding affiliate marketing, if the revenue was going to be guaranteed anyway, wouldn't there be a drop in $200,000 from the regular revenue?
isn't having a form field for discount codes at checkout a very common approach? I'd say that 90-95% of the websites I normally buy stuff from use it. Amazon does...
Being common doesn't mean it's working. Every single time I see a coupon box I have to search for a code. Then sometimes I get pissed if I can't find a discount and go somewhere else.
But the author clearly states that they "rarely have any publicly available discount codes active on our site."
Why have a checkout process where you are going to send a non insignificant percent of your users on a wild goose chase, possibly annoying them and/or distracting them when they were about to buy a product. Then blame your affiliates for "scamming" you. It doesn't make much sense.
Also note that discount codes are different to voucher codes, such as gift vouchers, which I believe is what Amazon does.
For a client of mine we added a discount code box to the checkout and got a surge of calls from people asking how to get a discount code. It was actually intended for some multi-channel marketing.
We now don't have discount codes in the checkout process.
You have someone in your checkout process. Why on earth would you give them a reason to leave that process and go search for a discount code if you know they won't find any? Assuming they will come back doesn't feel right. What if their search for a discount code didn't prove there wasn't one, but did prove a competitor was going to be a) cheaper, b) a better service, c) offering discount codes, or they got distracted by cat videos on YouTube.
And maybe I'm naive here, but since adding affiliate marketing, if the revenue was going to be guaranteed anyway, wouldn't there be a drop in $200,000 from the regular revenue?