TheDealMan wrote:When you guys say that it is a scam, what do you mean by that? That they don't pay out like they say?
No. I have no information that they don't pay per their "compensation plan". My main problem is the one they put on
their own web site: "Members also receive bonuses that are determined by recruitment and the sales of all down line members."
That's the only way to make any significant money.
What are the problems with the "cash back" stuff? Lots.
(1) When someone buys through an affiliate link on a StE site, Shop to Earn gets a commission, and the individual distributor gets a piece of that commission. How much is that? Well, it depends. It depends a lot. StE advertises "up to 30%" back. That's like a carnival barker who says that winning his $1 game gets you "up to $100". What the barker doesn't tell you is that to win that $100 you must perform the equivalent of throwing a basketball through a hoop 100 yards away. What percentage of StE links give back 30%? Unscientifically, it appears equally tiny. The typical rebate appears to be in the 2-4% range.
(2) Let's generously assume that the average rebate is 5%. Please note that StE, as far as I can tell, doesn't provide that information - I wonder why not? Anyway, just to make back your $450 membership fee, you then have to buy $9000 worth of stuff. Just to make back the current $120/yr renewal fee, you must buy $2400 more stuff. That's before you make a dime.
(3) Even these numbers presume that you can't get a better price on the merchandise than those on StE's affiliate links. I strongly doubt that this is so. For example,
one of StE's affiliates is one of my favorite stores - J&R, which now occupies almost an entire block on Park Row in lower Manhattan. Since it is only a couple of blocks from the Manhattan courts, I drop by at least once a month. There are
always extensive in-store specials, many of them unadvertised. Moreover, the information given at the link above doesn't even identify the make or model of the "Three International Cell Phones". I wonder why?
(4) There are already cash back services out there without the tricks - for example,
Microsoft Live Search (formerly Jellyfish). And there are lots of cash-back credit cards. No recruiting, no uplines, no downlines, no fees, no BS. Oh, you want an example of the BS? How about this, from
the bio of StE founder Patrick Welsh: "Pat spent the last 10 years creating and developing the Shop To Earn online platform that couples networking and e-commerce." He spent
what? What'd he do - work on it five minutes a week?
(5) If you want to do affiliate marketing, why do you need these guys? Get a web site, sign up with
LinkShare or
Google's Affiliate Network, and affiliate away. And keep everything, without needing to split it with StE.
(6) I don't like bullies. StE has
a history of threatening to sue critics.
Is that enough? Oh, yeah, it's an MLM too.