CJ price cheaper than real price

Merchant sells product +$20

[Yidaki]

I just checked ONE of my recently collected cj product links and saw that the real price of a product was $20 more expensive than the advertized price (from the cj products db). Is this a normal error or is the merchant cheating?

[Yidaki]

Just in case my question was not clear:

A product price of one merchant's product at the cj product list is $20 cheaper than the actual price at the merchant's site. So i advertize a product for $100 and if people click to buy it at the merchant's site they'll find the price is actually $120.

Anybody seen such too in the past?
Is this normal?
Do i have to check/compare every product price now?
Should i inform the merchant and/or cj?

[midge]

Hi Yidaki,

As a merchant I can appreciate your problem.
I take it you are affiliating.

This usually happens when a merchant does some kind of campaign and either drops or raises his pricing structure for a particular product without informing his affiliates.

To save this kind of hassle, and chopping and changing the pricing of products you are advertising with a link to the merchants site, it is easier to say " check out these widget prices here" or "our widget prices are really competitive" etc. This way you are not commiting yourself.

[killroy]

Midge: the problem is, my job as an affiliate is to pre-qualify. If I send off my visitors (if they would even follow such an "anonymous" link), I don'T want tham to think "crap, that's more then I wanted to spend" I want them to ONLY leave my site if they will convert. Otherwise I'd rather keep them on my site and send them of on another link where they WILL convert.

So As an affiliate, I think showign prices and some such on my site is the best option, EXCEPT in cases were pricing is variable (such as a flight or hotel booking, or varying quantities for example). In such cases I like to qualify the link with "price form $xx.xx", and insert the lowest price.

SN

[midge]

Killroy,

It is always best to show "from" or "starting at" so the surfer/potential customer has an idea what the pricing is and won't get a nasty shock when he gets there. Also gives your site more credibility.
However, if the merchant keeps changing prices this is difficult, best thing is that the merchant gives you ample warning before his changes.

BTW, "pre-qualify"? I thought you either are or are not.

[sugarkane]

Some merchants are notorious for having outdated data in their product feeds / links. It seems some create their CJ data 'manually' rather than running it off from their own database, and rarely get around to updating the CJ data.

[midge]

All depends really how many or what products the merchants offer I suppose.
If a merchant has ony "blue widgets" and "red widgets" and keeps changing his marketing tactics, i.e.up the shipping, lower the product price, or vice versa to keep his competition dancing around, you have to get your merchant to keep you informed, after all you are making him money.