Bit of a new segment from me this week. I have always found that I learn an awful lot when I take on the role of a consumer and put in an order with the merchants I work with or am thinking of working with. As a regular online shopper generally I thought it might be useful to me to attempt to share some of the things I discover about the merchants I put in orders with, and review the good things and bad things about their sites that I think might affect us affiliates!
What I think I’ll do is pretend that I am going to be looking at promoting whatever I’m shopping for and just try to show some of the things I think about when making my way around a site.
First Up This Week…. Prezzybox.com
What I went looking for: As my Mum and Dad are flying a very long way to visit me here in Australia for the first time I decided it would be jolly nice of me to send them some lovely travel slankets to keep them comfortable on their 24 hour flight.
Browsing…
Because I knew exactly what I was looking for I jumped right in and had a bit of a go at the Prezzybox search functionality. I started to type “travel slanket” into their search box and was delighted to discover some intuitive functionality on the go. This was a fusion of top search data and a really beautiful visual element featuring popular products.
What This Told Me: -
As a customer: Ooh, look. They have many more travel items for my parents trip. I note there is a travel pillow also, how useful. I must take a look at that later and I’ll know exactly how to find it, I just need to pop “travel” back in that handy dandy wee box!
As an affiliate: This merchant has great potential for add on sales giving me a chance of enhanced commissions. Bonus. Hmmm… would you look at that? If the “ruby wine slanket” is significantly more popular than the others then people might search on “slanket + colour” term variations. Must bear that in mind when I’m doing my PPC campaign later. Clearly these are specific terms the manufacturer has applied to their colours, but I wonder if people might forget this and search for other colour variations like “red slanket” and “blue slanket”? How about the way the thing makes them feel? It must be very cosy. “warm slanket”? What about who it’s for? “Slanket for Dad”? Event – “Christmas slanket” Hmmm…..
On The Landing Page…
click here to view a travel slanket page in a new window…
Again I was very impressed. Loved the product images, detailed product description, and also the “Like this? Then you will love these” product links towards the bottom of the page. As a consumer I was reassured I was on a site with plenty to interest me and as an affiliate, I felt reassured I’d be sending my visitors to a page with plenty to interest them which increases chances of conversion and reduces chances of a bounce.
Adding To Basket…
Was lovely and simple and you could choose your different colour variations from any slanket page. Loved the 
message. As an affiliate I realise the importance of customers knowing exactly what’s going on with their purchase progress – not everyone is as internet savvy as us and confusion leads to abandoned baskets!
Checking Out
Again, a great checkout page. As a consumer I could instantly see that my purchase was going to be secure and that I had a range of payment and delivery options.
The rest of the checkout process was quick and painless, 2 screens and I was done!
After The Sale
As a Customer…
I instantly got an invoice which meant as a customer I knew my order had definately gone through properly.
I made my order at 04.11 on Monday 27th July. At 09.45 the same day I got a mail informing me the order had been dispatched. It arrived at my Mothers house the very next day!
As a customer this leaves me seriously impressed and I will most definately return as a repeat customer. If my affiliate chum is very lucky it will be within their 60 day cookie period and it’ll give her the chance of another commission.
As An Affiliate…
My sale tracked on POR very quickly and all was as I expected with commission levels. You’d be surprised how often this isn’t the case which immediately sets alarm bells ringing about whether or not I’m being properly rewarded for my sales efforts!
I also know that a merchant who ships their goods quickly has a lower reversal rate. Buyer’s remorse? Not when these guys are on watch!!
In Conclusion
Prezzybox is a great site for both affiliates and consumers. No surprises there – We all know that Zak invests a lot of effort into making his site affiliate-centric. That’s why he’ll soon be needing a new trophy shelf to store all his affiliate gongs!
As an affiliate I’m now completely sold on their great site functionality and am totally reassured that any traffic I send to them will have the best chance of converting.
Of course, not all of my reviews will be as glowing as this… but as Prezzybox were the inspiration for my new “Affiliate Mystery Shopper” section I felt it was appropriate to let them kick it off and show the others how its done 
July 29th, 2009 at 10:51 am
You do realise that you could have even saved yourself £5 on your order!
Prezzybox, along with a few other merchants, create an almost enjoyable experience, considering your parting with hard earned money.
A lot of it comes through their UAT and involvment of affiliates before they release upgrades to their website. They’re very open to suggestions and criticsm and have less red tape to cut through when compared to larger corporations.
July 29th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Ah come on now Chris… I am Scottish you know, I used the £5 voucher from my affiliate interface!!
July 30th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
This made for a nice read Kirsty. This is certainly a good way of determining whether it is worth promoting a site or not, like you said, knowing things are easy for the consumer to purchase means shopping cart abandonment often at a much reduced rate.
I like affiliate programmes that give a wide range of promotional material beyond the standard text link and banner ads.
As a consumer I think Prezzybox is a great site.
Thanks for sharing,
Karl
August 21st, 2009 at 4:22 pm
You always say be an affiliate for something you are interested in… So I’m assuming you are obsessed with underwear?! Hmmm
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:44 am
I dunno, are you obsessed with mobile phones?!