What other big moves are in store? Barnes & Noble, apparently.
From their affiliate' href='http://www.barnesandnoble.com/affiliate/notice.asp">affiliate'>http://www.barnesandnoble.com/affiliate/notice.asp">affiliate page:
"Please note: We are currently migrating to a new Affiliate Network platform, and we are unable to accept applications for new Affiliates at this time. The online application will be available on March 1, 2007."
Was Barnes & Noble the first BeFree merchant?
I wouldn't say I'm at all concerned about the future of CJU (and the company that hosts it).
These defectors are primarily old BeFree clients who were used to a certain type of program, certain program management features, and perhaps service that they're just not getting from the CJ platform. And remember, BF was not really a network, so merchants there 'owned' their affiliates. CJ and BF are two ends of that spectrum, and some merchants would be much more comfortable heading over to LS or Perfomics than to jump into a total network model.
Given the ultimatum of moving over to CJ or moving out, some are choosing to move out, as expected.
[...] Even more than CircuitCity, this shows that some major shifts are happening in the US Affiliate Marketing landscape. As I mentioned previously, Commission Junction is shuttering up the Be Free platform and not giving some of the old school merchants reasonable functionality replacement in the CJ platform. So off they go to the competition. This is another major loss for CJ and gain for Performics. [...]
B&N will be moving to Performics, according to a blog' href='http://blog.performics.com/affiliate/2007/03/somedetailson.html">blog'>http://blog.performics.com/affiliate/2007/03/somedetailson.html">blog entry today at Performics.
Circuit City has been live on Performics for a few weeks now, but I'm not certain that they'd previously stated that their CJ and Be Free program would be shutting down.
Merchants switch networks all the time, but this is one of those that make you say, "holy shit". Or at least that's what I said. Circuit City had a vibrant program for many years at Be Free. No matter how you slice it, this is a big loss.
The days are winding down on the BFAST platform. What other big moves are in store?