Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

PriceZombie is shutting down

pricezombie.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 219 posts

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#171

Post by Domenic_S »

AznHisoka wrote: post #123
Domenic_S wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with that at all. We have to guess how much transaction volume PriceZombie sends to Amazon, but $50k/month isn't an unreasonable estimate (probably very low). It is totally worth a couple hours of a support person's time to deal with the source of $600k of annual revenue.

Where did you get $50K from? I would guess that's a huge factor above what they exactly make. I'd estimate somewhere a few thousand (and maybe even less than $1000 some months) to $10K at most. If they're making $50K/month, they must be very very good marketers, or they're doing something very shady.

I said "transaction volume", which is the value of what people paid Amazon via PZ's affiliate links, not what PZ made in affiliate fees.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#172

Post by Domenic_S »

Implicated wrote: post #149
Domenic_S wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with that at all. We have to guess how much transaction volume PriceZombie sends to Amazon, but $50k/month isn't an unreasonable estimate (probably very low). It is totally worth a couple hours of a support person's time to deal with the source of $600k of annual revenue.

I wouldn't be so quick to disagree. I spent 2 years generating over $1mil a year in sales through the Amazon affiliate program - to be dropped without warning or contact. No amount of follow up and attempts to contact my, previously very accessible, account rep resulted in anything. Not even an explanation on why my account was closed, outside of being told that I could take legal action (in the state of Washington)…

I disagreed that it 'would be a waste of their time'; not saying they'd act rationally. In my limited experience it seems like they don't.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#173

Post by jayess »

stale2002 wrote: post #153
heyplanet wrote: post #93

UPDATE: Hey, lot's of downvotes for this post. Would be great if you guys could explain why you downvote. Sorry, but not much sympathy from me. 1) You knowingly violated the terms of service. Therefore you are denied service now. Nothing to complain about. Honestly, if the API of my website would be intentionally abused in a way that I explicitly exclude in my TOS, I would be seriously pissed. I would probably think…

They were TOLD that they were 100% in compliance with the rules and that there was no problem. And then one day things changed for no reason.

Told by whom? An Indian online chat customer service rep? Some sort of account executive?

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#174

Post by incepted »

mattlutze wrote: post #22

The issue here wasn't that they were just using Amazon's API and then lost access. The Amazon TOS says don't store and display our old prices and, per the post, that's what PriceZombie was doing. The lesson is that if you're doing something in violation of a partner's TOS and start to negatively effect their business, the partner is well within their rights to cut off access. Whether other businesses have or haven't…

Also, the problem is that 90% of their revenue apparently depended on this feed from Amazon.

It's never healthy to be so dependent on one provider.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#175

Post by Domenic_S »

dave2000 wrote: post #113
Domenic_S wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem here is that the power company can't unilaterally decide you don't get power anymore and turn it off without warning. Your shipping carrier can't suddenly decide they don't serve you anymore, and by the way we're keeping all the packages you have en route. But Amazon can. They also pay a few months in arrears, so one day you may wake up to a form email that says essentially, "adios, and I'm keeping th…

"But Amazon can..... In fairness, I believe all affiliate programs are like that." My point is that most other companies are like that, and the difference is just the extent to which these parasitical "internet businesses" are coupled to their host. They're not `keeping the money`, they're just not paying you stuff that's not covered by the contract, TOS etc. It's not `without warning` by the same token; unless the w…

No, most other companies are certainly not like that; you may not understand exactly what Amazon can do:

Amazon pays ~2 months after Affiliate fees are earned, so at any given time you may have 2 months of fees waiting to be paid. If today they decide that they're done with their affiliate relationship with you -- for good reason or for no reason -- they can (and do) close your account with no explanation, AND they keep those 2 months of fees you already earned legitimately with no recourse except your suing them (good luck with that).

It's a bit like being a commissioned salesperson, getting fired, and the company keeps all your pending commissions. Totally illegal in that context, but the Affiliate program is not an employer in that way. It still sucks just as much.

A lot of companies warn you if they think you're in violation of their TOS: internet providers, game companies, cell phone companies, on and on. I don't think it's unreasonable to use a 'strikes' system or provide an avenue for appeal.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#176

Post by chipperyman573 »

stevekemp wrote: post #168
chipperyman573 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could probably make that overnight. Just send a cURL to the page and look for the text of the span with the ID "priceblock_ourprice". Then log that to a comma delimited text file or something.

But the real problem would be updating your code every time the appropriate website(s) changed their markup. In a hosted service that's easy; if you're selling something people download you'll have to ensure timely updates.

Which is why, unfortunately, this product can't realistically be a one-time fee.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#178

Post by kentt »

patio11 wrote: post #134
Dylan16807 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Was the mention of a tour just something that reminded him to give that advice, and it was completely unrelated to the rant? Was he assuming that anyone that wanted to go on the tour was in that situation, an assumption that makes very little sense?

In a room where he expected ~40 participants for the tour he had ~6 hands raised, which caused the core dump.

Thanks. That wasn't clear to me. Good advice as well that I think I should be applying better.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#179

Post by sosborn »

riskable wrote: post #155
frogpelt wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart still meets or beats them on price many times and I can buy online and pick it up on my way home which is effectively same-day delivery.

That requires leaving the house though. Even worse, it requires going in to Walmart .

> going in to Walmart.

Oh my god, the horror! You might be mistaken for a filthy peasant!

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#180

Post by lazyjones »

manmal wrote: post #35

Here in Austria, Amazon pays the major price comparison website to be listed: www.geizhals.at And I hear it's not cheap for them.

That's not strictly true. Amazon pays affiliate fees, not for being listed.

I can't disclose details, but Amazon apparently has no issues with big CSEs (Idealo.de, billiger.de) but obviously they don't like sites that focus on deal "sniping" (like PriceZombie and "deal" sites) as much, since that cuts into their margins (people buy mostly temporarily low-margin offers through such sites and affiliate fees are too expensive there).

Post reply on HN