Affiliates should therefore encourage their visitors to visit their site repeatedly and use their links to go to eToys. I sought an answer from Jaffer Ali, who keeps his finger on the pulse. The reason that there is no mention on the site is because the system, as presently constituted, is not THE solution, Jaffer said. Cookies do not work well. People delete them and if they have them turned off, the system cannot track them.
Cookies often expire.
We have asked our provider to do a database match. They are considering it. I do not think the industry will go to this as a standard because most companies do not have the margin to do this. As long as discounting is the way that most sales are made to the consumer, this eats into product margin. I see affiliate programs' initial 'bounty' increasing industry wide, but residual income will not be a trend for videos, audio, or books.