KBToys moves affiliate program

I got a not so nice suprise today - it seems KBToys decided to start using LinkShare instead of Commission Juntion for it's affiliate program. While this may not seem like a big deal to the average shopper, it's a huge deal to the affiliates. Those that have used KBToys links had to either remove or change ever single code. Luckily, I only had one mini-shop Mom's Market that I spent a lot of time adding KBToy links to and several other pages that only had a product or two from them.

So today while I thought I was going to get some time to work on RecipesForMom.com, I ended up updating several pages on Mom's Market. Did I sign up to KBToys affiliate program on Link Share? NOPE. Even though they were offering a higher percentage now, I said NO THANK YOU. Why? Because I was not happy they decided on a whim to pull all their links and create an ugly "this merchant is no longer a part of Commission Juntion" page from all my links to them. Also, their conversion rate was very low, and I know while the percentage is now less with Amazon, I can sell more from Amazon. This merchant has dissapointed me, as I'm sure it has many other affiliates.

On top of moving, they gave the affiliates about 5 days to change links. I never even received a notice, and only really discovered that the links where dead when a potential customer emailed me to inquire about a product. On further investigating, I realised that in the last week (the affiliate program on CJ closed July 30th) there were over 1,000 clicks to KB Toys dead links. Thats several potential sales (well, ha, maybe....KB Toys never has converted that well so maybe it didn't make a difference).

Anyway, the bottom line is I'm very upset about the way KB Toys has handled their move, and kept the affiliates in the dark. All links that I could find have been removed from my site, and I won't be using them as a merchant again.

~Kara