This is a rough idea of how the program works, there's three people involved: Store Owner (assumingly you), Other owner (the "Affiliate"), and the refer-ee (err... the person who the other owner will send to your site)
- The Other Owner visits your store and sees that you have an affiliate program and wishes to apply. They will make a store account like a normal customer would but when finished, they will complete the sign up process. (Currently it's just a checkbox agreeing to the terms and conditions and the submission of their website for review).
- You, the store owner, will receive an email notification saying that the Other Owner has applied for your affiliate program. It will provide you with the details as provided in their application. (Their mailing address linked with the account as well as the website address.) You can approve or deny the request there. (Denying the application deletes the application and sends an email to the applicant that it was denied. Accepting the application provides them with an acceptance email.)
- The Store owner can (and should) provide banners for the affiliates to use. When the affiliate is ready, they will come back to the special affiliates control panel on the front side of the site and get the HTML code needed for such. Inside the HTML code is a <a> tag which will contain their affiliates ID to ensure they are credited.
- The Other Owner then takes these banners or any other special links you provide and will place it on their own website to provide their visitors. When one of the Other Owner's visitors clicks on such a banner or link, a special (non-invasive) tracking cookie is stored in their browser. While that cookie is in the browser's storage, any orders made within the life of the cookie (currently 30 days with the option to increase this coming soon) will be credited to that affiliate.
- At least once a month, you the website owner will go through and check each affiliate for a pending balance and will see what orders they were not paid for. You will select these orders and mark them as paid. This will send a notification email to the affiliate saying a payment is pending. (You will be responsible for initiating the payment through outside means, like paypal or writing a check).
And this cycle continues.
Now currently, you can only offer a set percentage for ALL items in the store. I'm looking into the possibility of allowing for custom rates for different categories and products but that's down the line.
Hope this helps.
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