Great news from the United States Federal Trade Commission -- they've started cracking down on illegitimate online affiliate upselling.
There's nothing wrong with upselling if you do it right. "You want fries with that?" is the classic upselling line. It's honest because when you order a burger, there's nothing abnormal about ordering fries, too. If you meant to order fries, you say "Yes," if you didn't, you say, "No, thank you." Everybody wins: you get what your ordered, and the burger seller has gotten maximum value out of you.
Upselling can work the same way online. Amazon.com is the classic honest Internet upseller. Just about anything you can order is accompanied by the suggestion of buying a related or complimentary product. You order a Kindle, you see a Kindle case. You order a guitar, you see a guitar case. That's okay, too, because it only stands to reason that you will need something in which to store or transport what you're purchasing.
Here's where online upselling goes bad, where the seller comes across deceitful and greedy, and makes the buyer feel intimidated and cheated. It usually starts when a vendor whose e-mail list you're subscribed to informs you that a fellow vendor is launching a new product that you can buy at an extra big "insider" discount.
You go to the other vendor's Web site, click the link to purchase the product, and find yourself on another Web page selling another product for a very large amount. Without this second product, what you've just bought turns out to be next door to useless. That's not upselling at all. And to top it off, the vendor who sent you the e-mail was most likely either paid by the other vendor, or is getting a commission on any resulting sales!
So the Federal Trade Commission stepped in with both feet, and started at the top -- with Clickbank, the Internet's largest digital affiliate marketer. Clickbank has set new guidelines for their vendors: video scripts must be submitted for pre-approval, include disclaimers if actors are used, and must include a mechanism for stopping or pausing. Clickbank will now verify price changes; the quantity of products available to be sold within a certain time frame; and if the product really was featured on television. Best of all, upsells will be limited to three, and cannot be required to make the original product work.
Government interference, you say? Governments are supposed to regulate those who will not regulate themselves. A "chilling effect" on online enterprise, you say? Of Artic proportions, we hope!
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