Ebay has violated my first rule of selecting a partner to work with... they must be reachable by phone, or at least a direct email address of an affiliate manager. I hope there are not too many people in this forum caught up in this mess. For those of you thinking about promoting EPN, do your homework. _________________ Kevin Schappell
AutoEducation.com
Maybe they want to kill it? In the grand scheme of things, paying commissions on traffic that I feel would have probably ended up at Ebay anyway was stupid. Only time will tell. _________________ Kevin Schappell
AutoEducation.com
EBay is another big company that could care less about any small publishers.
They are also the single larges advertiser on Google. If you do your research and find out which properties Ebay either owns or has a controlling interest in... you'll realize that EPN means nothing.
It's just one of those truths about Corporate America. The big companies watch markets, move in and buy whatever they want. Then they use their money to force out the competition.
It wouldn't matter if you were making them 50,000 a month.
These giant corporations have horrible customer service, walk all over people, and could care less. Because they have all the power.
All you can do is forget about it and move on.
You're loss of work and monthly income is important to you, and I understand where you are coming from.
But the reality is it doesn't matter.
I've been screwed out of more commission than most people on here will make in their entire affiliate careers.
I've contacted attorneys to represent my claims, and in the end all you do is make yourself unhappy.
Business Ethics is an Oxymoron, it only applies to Educational Institutions. _________________ Earn $50 Per Sale - Every Online Business Needs This!
100 Proven Email Templates - List building Power Tools
Good points... I have moved on. I was only with them for one month and do not have that much invested with them. The point for my post was to warn others who may invest their hard earned time and money only to be dropped by Ebay. _________________ Kevin Schappell
AutoEducation.com
A lot of affiliate mangers do not understand the value of relationships.
They have arbitrary numbers that have to be hit, and if you don't hit them they drop you.
These people don't see "Big Picture". They are 9-5'ers just filling a cubicle for a few bucks an hour. If they had any real talent, they wouldn't be chained to the cubicle.
What is more annoying is when they drop you and do not notify you. If your business was structured anything like mine (Working with a vast number of affiliates and literally 1,000's of affiliate links to manage) you could at least appreciate the notification. And the fact that you are not out plugging their products for free.
There are literally millions of affiliate links that are benefiting advertisers that will never pay anything to the affiliate.
I am not that big a fan of EPN, but I do believe Ebay (Which is rumored to have about 20% market share for every thing sold online) is an extremely powerful marketing tool for the people who take the time to dig in and really learn how to use it to sell their products. _________________ Earn $50 Per Sale - Every Online Business Needs This!
100 Proven Email Templates - List building Power Tools
If they don't care enough, then they could care more, not less.
Quote:
Business Ethics is an Oxymoron, it only applies to Educational Institutions.
I fiercely disagree.
To my mind, businesses are organisations which solve problems (ideally in a highly organised and rational way, though we know that doesn't always translate into reality). The problem a business solves doesn't have to be making as much money as possible for the business owners and those at the top of the pyramid, working within the business.
We tend to think in those terms because that's what we see all around us.
But, to survive financially, a business only needs to pass the break-even point. Beyond that, if making money isn't the goal, any extra money isn't necessary.
The problem that a business sets out to solve could be anything at all and, in that light, the concept of Business Ethics is entirely valid.
Joined: 04 Jun 2007 Posts: 252 Location: Gainesville Florida USA
Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:53 am Post subject:
It really does seem the larger a company gets, the worse they get.
It makes sense really, as a company grows the people working there become more and more anonymous, and less and less personally invested in the company.
I had the experience of selling a company I'd brought to success all by myself, to a company with 300 employees. Within 6 months they trashed the project.
Everyone I met from that company was really sharp with a great attitude. But the company was continually reorganizing, having meetings about meetings about meetings, shifting the staff around etc, and just dropped the ball in the process.
What's the best way to organize a group of people to work together towards a common goal? It's tricky.
I'm convinced the number one mistake most webmasters make is trying to make it all by themselves. Few of us have all the talents required in this market.
But, establishing the kind of trust needed for cooperative arrangements, in a medium as anonymous as the Net, no easy matter. _________________ Nature-Search.com
Nature-Search.com provides an extensive list of free
marketing, hosting and content services to nature
webmasters. Everything free.
Ebay has violated my first rule of selecting a partner to work with... they must be reachable by phone, or at least a direct email address of an affiliate manager. I hope there are not too many people in this forum caught up in this mess. For those of you thinking about promoting EPN, do your homework.
Oh but you can contact them by phone...
Steve Hartman is the Director of ePN and his contact number is: 408-623-0195
Do not use the support email address as it is rarely answered and most of the "replies" are nothing more than canned auto-gen messages.
If you want to get movement and/or answers from the eBay Partner Network you should use the following addresses:
Steve Hartman: shartman@ebay.com
Kim Thai: kthai@ebay.com
Jarrod Schwarz: jschwarz@ebay.com
If you have exhausted these avenues and you still cannot get an answer, I suggest that you contact John Donahoe's office directly. That email address is: csme@ebay.com
I worked for 6 months to build a network that sent well in excess of $150k to eBay Sellers. Working from a position of limited affiliate marketing experience, Steve Hartman made the decision to terminate the accounts of many honest affiliates while hiding behind his "engagement metrics". Some of these expired affiliates were members of my team. Most of those on my team have gotten new accounts and assuming this, Hartman attempted to extort me by threatening to expire my account unless I gave him the account information of my associates. I refused and November 5, 2008, will be the last day for my ePN account. Trust, integrity and the privacy of my friends and associates are worth more to me that one ePN account.
I was in the eBay Partner Network for 198 days. I will spend the next 198 days making sure that as many people as possible know that Steve Hartman is an inexperienced danger to the affiliate marketing community and driving traffic away from eBay.com.
I suggest that you use the private contact info in this post as you see fit. Link to it. Blog about it. Give it to your friends.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
Your host: Allan Gardyne. Earning a good living from affiliate
programs since 1998.
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Private Messages
Log in
