An investigation by researcher Ben Edelman has accused ShopMy of asking retailers and brands to prioritise its own commission and cancel those of other affiliates.
ShopMy has been accused by researcher Ben Edelman of instructing brands and retailers it works with to prioritise its platform and cancel the affiliate commissions of its other partners.
A web page, which has since been taken down, recommended: “De-duplicating ShopMy orders against your affiliate network, and cancelling duplicates within the affiliate network, not ShopMy.”
The creator commerce platform justified its suggestion, saying: “Since ShopMy provides a more direct brand-to-creator connection, this approach helps preserve creator relationships and campaign performance.”
This essentially means ShopMy is encouraging partners to go against the standard practice of affiliate marketing – where the affiliate providing the last click before purchase is credited.
Edelman pointed out that ShopMy did not say its affiliate should get the commission, nor that it has any contractual basis for favouring its affiliates and penalising those on other networks.
However, “to the extent that the merchant follows ShopMy’s guidance, someone else who earns the commission fair and square is losing it,” said Edelman.
Retailers that run two or more affiliate programmes often risk paying double the commission or if they try to de-depulicate, paying the wrong commission.
It’s not illegal for ShopMy to make this recommendation, but it’s squarely against common practice. Retailers don’t have to follow the recommendations, and many larger retailers will have their own software to identify double commissions and determine which should receive the credit.
ShopMy would also have received a boost in reputation, had the retailers followed their instructions, as their platform would have appeared to be much more popular and reliable than other affiliates.
ShopMy told Affiliate Leaders: “ShopMy does not control or direct commission decisions for brands. Commission rates, reversals, and eligibility are set and managed by the individual brand or retailer, not by our platform.
“Because of this, any guidance about cancelling or adjusting other affiliate commissions would come from the brand’s own affiliate programme policies, not from ShopMy.”
The fight for commissions in the affiliate world is tightly contested, especially in a world where zero-click is becoming more and more common. Attribution is not a simple process, and a crowded ecosystem complicates the journey, leaving a scenario in which duplicate commissions could be attributed to multiple affiliates – leaving retailers to chose.
