PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for $4B

Re:PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for... by jartelt on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @05:43PM (#21589427)

I imagine the retailer just cares about getting the sale and doesn't really care who they pay the 2% (or whatever) commission fee to? Shouldn't make too much of a difference whether they pay the commission to Honey or to some random blog.

It certainly sucks for the blogs and websites trying to fund their content with affiliate links though. Someone like Wirecutter can spend time and money on reviewing items and then can lose out on the referral commission in the end.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for... by zten on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @09:52PM (#21591033)

They do care. Some affiliate rates are far higher than that.

Affiliate comes out of retailer marketing budgets. They set the rates thinking they're paying for certain types of customers from certain participants. Honey is getting paid what the retailers think it's worth - they're skeptical, but it seems to be driving incremental conversion for especially price-sensitive shoppers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for... by patd on Thursday November 21, 2019 @01:31AM (#21591898)

Coupons affiliates typically get a lower rev share than others. It may be cheaper for retailers to have them if they don’t care about pissing off their others affiliates (most are too small to get their voice heard)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for... by zten on Thursday November 21, 2019 @04:38PM (#21599959)

I think we're in agreement. The numbers through Honey probably look good, and the other affiliates probably don't have a good handle on how frequently they're getting scooped by other affiliates.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for... by wongarsu on Thursday November 21, 2019 @03:36AM (#21592377)

But if the other affiliates are more valuable then merchants do care if they piss them off. After all they want those high value affiliates to continue doing what they are doing

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for... by patd on Thursday November 21, 2019 @04:29AM (#21592581)

90% of affiliates are very small players that don't have any bargaining power. In most modern platforms, all the referrers are tracked.

I'm pretty sure that big players do complain and they'll get a "first cookie" or at least partial attribution for the sales they make.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for... by wongarsu on Thursday November 21, 2019 @06:00AM (#21593001)

They have no individual bargaining power, but that doesn't mean they can be ignored. The more you ignore them the more go to greener pastures, the more you do for them the more resources they focus on your business.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for... by patd on Thursday November 21, 2019 @08:22AM (#21593710)

In theory, yes. But that's not my personal experience (I'm mostly active in Europe).

[ Parent | on HN ]