CasperVend 2/Affiliates

These instructions assume you've already set up your products and profiles. If you have not, please see the CasperVend_2/Setup instructions FIRST before proceeding with these.

It is *very helpful* to include your store name, and the percentage (%) amount in the name of the vendor. This information reminds the affiliate know how much the vendors give them, and the store the vendors came from.

Ideally, your item pictures should have your store logo ON the product pictures in case a customer of your affiliate wants to track down your shop to see your full product line!

Affiliate Setup

Where's The Affiliate Pack?

Because each 2.x regular vendor can also function as an affiliate vendor, there is no separate affiliate pack anymore for the 2.x versions.

1. Rez out the vendor
2. Click the logo area in the bottom left. You'll get a popup box with the configuration URL.
3. Click the button to go to the website and log in if necessary.
4. Rename the vendor on the website - the vendor inworld will change it's name within a few seconds.
5. Next to the "Affiliate" heading, set the percentage % amount, then click save on the same line. The website will give you a white popup saying "saved" but there is no inworld notification.
6. Resize the vendor as desired.
7. Set the perms on the vendor as desired.
8. Take the vendor, box it up and either sell it or pass it out. All done!

Can I Use Free Vendors As Affiliates?

Yes, you can set up free vendors AS WELL as Premium vendors as affiliates to pass out or sell.

Affiliate Commission Chart

The CasperTech affiliate fee comes out of the initial sale amount on the affiliate vendor. Out of every L$100 sale, this fee is L$2, which leaves L$98 that then gets split between the affiliate, you, and any possible profit sharing partners.

If you want your affiliates to get the FULL percentage you told them they would get, then you need to do some basic math - the formula is:

(percentage) divided by 98, then multiplied by 100

A table of some of these percentages is here:

Give affiliate this:	By setting it to this:
10%	10.2%
15%	15.3%
20%	20.4%
25%	25.5%
30%	30.6%
35%	35.7%
40%	40.8%
45%	45.9%
50%	51%

Affiliate Vendor Permissions

Because CasperVend has transaction verification, it is quite safe to leave your affiliate vendors with "Modify" permissions - this allows the affiliate to resize the vendors as needed to fit the available space. Leaving vendors in a large size, and unmodifiable, means that limits the affiliate's ability to set the vendors out in rental spaces, if the space is too small. This in turn limits exposure to YOUR products.

No-transfer is often recommended, but that is entirely up to you.

Getting Affiliates to Update

To update your Affiliate vendors, you can do one of the following:

1. Rez each of your affiliate vendors
2. Use the UpgradeBee
3. Pick them up
4. Ship them out

Or....

1. Send the UpgradeBee to each of your affiliates

The first method is actually the recommended way, even though it's more of a hassle for you, the merchant. You will always need the CURRENT UpgradeBee to upgrade vendors to the current version. Packing an old UpgradeBee in the box with affiliate vendors will not upgrade vendors to a newer version of the script than what the UpgradeBee has (because the vendor script is packed IN the UpgradeBee).

There's four big reasons why just sending the UpgradeBee to your affiliates isn't as effective:

1. Affiliates simply don't bother to update
2. If you ship vendors as no-modify, it won't work anyway
3. If they "lock" their vendors, it won't work anyway
4. If you never update your original pack, you'll still be shipping out OLD vendors in the future.

One way to motivate your affiliates:

1. Put all NEW affiliate vendors in a new affiliate profile with all the products
2. Set the OLDER profile to just one "product" with a display texture that tells them to update their vendors.

Information For Your Affiliates

Affiliates now have their own control panel for affiliate vendors they have rezzed out. To access the menu, affiliates touch the main panel on the vendor to get the popup menu and choose "Affiliate", then "Control Panel".

Your affiliates may be pointed to the Affiliate Information page for information they need in order to use their new affiliate vendors.

Where Do I Put the Affiliate Merchant's Name?

You don't. You simply set up the affiliate vendors and either hand them out or sell them. When the affiliate merchant rezzes out the vendors, they will appear on your vendor list, in a separate "affiliate vendors" section at the bottom of the page.

The website tracks which merchant the vendor came from (you) and if the current owner is not you, then the affiliate vendor behavior goes into effect automatically.

Affiliate Self-Sale Options

By default, CasperVend allows affiliates to purchase from affiliate vendors they have rezzed out AND allows them to get the discount from such sales.

On the Overview page in CasperVend, towards the bottom, is a block of "Your account options".

If you do NOT want the affiliate to be able to get the discount from affiliate self-sales, then toggle the "Block affiliate discounts for self-sales" option to "yes".

If you do NOT want them to be able to buy from their affiliate vendor at all, then toggle the "Block affiliate self-sales" option to "yes".

(As FYI, the typical configuration is often block the discount, but allow the sales. After all, a sale is a sale...)

A check is made for BOTH of these options against the purchaser AND recipient name.

Affiliate Missing Commission?

The most likely cause of non-payment of commission on an affiliate sale are these:

1. You have blocked the discount on affiliate self sales AND the affiliate was either purchasing directly OR was the recipient of someone else's purchase.
2. The vendor never got an affiliate percentage set during the setup. (Rez a copy of that vendor out and check its configuration page.)

When in doubt, check both your SL transaction history (to verify payment was made as stated by the affiliate) AND your CasperVend statistics (to see who bought vs. who received the product.)

The name check is made against both purchaser AND receiver of a product.

(Note: If an affiliate has been banned, transactions won't process through their vendors at all, so there won't even be a payment to worry about a commission.)

Affiliate Bans

You, as the original merchant, can ban an individual from your affiliate network - use the appropriate "ban" link in the affiliate vendor list. All V2 vendors will then refuse payments made to those vendors.

Bear in mind, this ban function will NOT de-rez already existing vendors rezzed by that person! It simply prevents them from being used. You will need to use the "delete" option on the vendor list to delete the ones currently rezzed out. (This will not prevent NEW ones from being rezzed - but any newly-rezzed vendors will ALSO refuse payments.)

Order of Fees Processed - AFTER 12 March, 2012

On 12 March, 2012, a change was made to the default order, in order to pay the affiliates BEFORE the partner splits. Any vendors created after this point, will have this new order by default.

For any 2.x affiliates *already* created (and especially already in use) BEFORE this date, this is available ONLY via a tick box option on the website, to avoid disturbing any setup where it's important (to the merchant) that the affiliates get paid AFTER the profit sharing, for consistency.

Remember that *all* 2.x affiliate vendors incur the affiliate vendor fee, regardless of network size. This fee is necessary to keep the servers running and maintained, because affiliate networks can potentially generate substantially more web traffic than ones only in merchant shops.

The fees / discounts for 2.x vendors created ON or AFTER on 12 March, 2012 happen in this order:

Customer discounts

1) Customer discounts (i.e., if they got to a certain spending level)

2) Customer balances (i.e., spend x, get y loyalty rewards type balance)

CasperTech Fees, if applicable

3) Is it a free vendor? Then the free vendor fee applies.

4) Is it an affiliate vendor? Then the affiliate vendor fee applies.

Affiliate Gets

5) Affiliate commission

Partner Splits, if applicable

6) Vendor profit shares

7) Product profit shares, if applicable

You

8) Whatever is left

For example, If you.....

• Have a profit split with a partner @ 50/50
• Give out a (premium) affiliate vendor where product(s) are subject to that split
• Set affiliate commission at 10%

Then what happens is:

• Sell product A at L$100
• CasperTech fee of L$2, leaving L$98
• Affiliate split of 10% - L$10 (rounding up) - leaving L$88
• Partner split of 50% - L$44 - leaving L$44
• You get L$44

Order of Fees Processed - BEFORE 12 March, 2012

The fees / discounts for 2.x vendors prior to 12 March, 2012 happen in this order. Remember that *all* 2.x affiliate vendors incur the affiliate vendor fee, regardless of network size. This fee is necessary to keep the servers running and maintained, because affiliate networks can potentially generate substantially more web traffic than ones only in merchant shops.

Customer discounts

1) Customer discounts (i.e., if they got to a certain spending level)

2) Customer balances (i.e., spend x, get y store credit type balance)

'CasperTech Fees, if applicable

3) Is it a free vendor? Then the free vendor fee applies. (5%)

4) Is it an affiliate vendor? Then the affiliate vendor fee applies.

• Free vendors: 5% affiliate fee
• Premium / Fatpack vendors: 2% affiliate fee

Partner Splits, if applicable

5) Vendor profit shares

6) Product profit shares, if applicable

Affiliate Gets

7) Affiliate commission

You

8) Whatever is left

For example, If you.....

• Have a profit split with a partner @ 50/50
• Give out a (premium) affiliate vendor where product(s) are subject to that split
• Set affiliate commission at 10%

Then what happens is:

• Sell product A at L$100
• CasperTech fee of L$2, leaving L$98
• Partner split of 50% - L$49 - leaving L$49
• Affiliate split of 10% - L$5 (rounding up from 4.9) - leaving L$44
• You get L$44

FAQ / Troubleshooting

Q. I'm getting a "The server reported a failure. I'm going to try again in 2 minutes (or touch to try again now)" message and the vendor won't start up...

A. You have an old 1.x vendor. These were decommissioned in May 2013. You need to replace the vendor with one from an updated pack. (Or, if you got an affiliate pack, you need to tell the merchant that their vendors are too old, and/or get new ones from that merchant.)

Q. I'm testing some affiliate vendors, and the transaction keeps getting hung on the affiliate commission and not going through.

A. If you are using gift cards, you need to have one of YOUR regular vendors out as well, because the affiliate commission is routed through one of your instore vendors, not the vendor used as the affiliate.

Q. Can a customer user my gift cards to purchase products through my affiliate's vendors, or will they only work on my own vendors?

A1. They can use gift cards on affiliate vendors, but nothing will be paid to the affiliate unless extra is paid on top of the gift card value. So if the product costs L$200, and the gift card only has L$100, the extra L$100 is will count towards the shares and payments set on the vendor and/or product.

This means if the gift card value is equal to OR GREATER THAN the value of the product, there will be NO affiliate share paid.

A2. You can disable use of gift cards on a per-vendor basis if you wish, that option is available on the vendor configuration page. It is recommended that - if you want to take advantage of this - that you do so BEFORE passing out the vendor.

Q.Do I have to make a new affiliate vendor each time I take on a new affiliate person or affiliate location?

A. No, you can reuse ones you've already made (just make sure the vendor script is up to date.)

Q. One of my affiliates got paid for items, but the pay split did not happen and the customer didn't get their purchase.

A. Most likely reason: Scripts are off in the sim or the parcel the vendor is rezzed on, and/or vendor is not set to correct land group (This will prevent correct operation of scripts if the land is set to only allow group scripts to run).

Q. My affiliates are paying the commission / share splits twice

A. Profit splits and commissions should never pay more than the original purchase value.

A2. If your profit shares are paying twice, see the profit sharing page for help.

Q. Is it possible to set a group discount with an affiliate vendor?

A1. Yes, group discount capability is enabled with 2.x vendors. Just remember that what group the vendor gives a discount to is ENTIRELY dependent on what group it is rezzed under. This is an LSL limitation.

Q. What is the order fees and discounts are applied in?

A1.

Not What You Were Looking For?

If this doesn't answer the "How do I...?" question you have, perhaps you need the page on profit sharing instead?