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Cornershop Affiliates
An Affiliate is another website which links to a cornershop enabled website, the links are product specific and take the user directly to the basket checkout procedure. Each link must contain two search fields, and may contain a quantity field
- affiliateID - a pre-assigned key which is matched, with calling page url as validity check
- msgnum - message number which identifies a product in the target shop
- quantity (optional, default 1) - the number of products
Clicking on the link adds the quantity of the product to the basket, which may already exist, and may contain other items from "normal" shopping and then drops into the target shop checkout procedure. This is called a fast checkout.
Registration
An affiliate must register, by filling a form on a page in the target shop, which is constructed by a macro
cornershop.macro.affiIiateRegisterForm()The shop owner must enable affiliation before registrations are accepted. The site registration page should explain any peculiarities of the shops' website affiliate policy and list restrictions that may apply.
Registration generates an affiliate ID which must be used in all links from this website. The Affiliate ID is emailed to the supplied address and to the the Managing Editors of the shop website. The format of that email is controlled by the Managing Editor in the cornershop preferences page.
{pictureRef(""Cornershop Affiliate Register Prefs", align:"center")}
The Managing Editor may view or suspend each registration using the Affiliates page of the cornershop plugins. Suspension of an Affiliate means that links from that website are refused.
Constructing a link to a product
The shop owner controls whether and how each product is linked to by placing an affiliate-only link on the product page (or not). This link is built by calling another macro
cornerShop.macro.affiliateLink (whatText, whatTarget=nil, anchor=nil, class=nil,onclick=nil, onmouseover=nil, onmouseout=nil)
For example, if the convention is that a small A is to be the Affiliate-only link - which can be explained on the registration page - the result might look like this
Clicking on this link produces a realm challenge, where the affiliate must enter their affiliate id and their password
and which links to a product specific page for this affiliate, showing the recommended or sanctioned style of link. The affiliate can also alter the quantity from the default of 1
The affiliate copies the link of their choice and pastes it into their own website as convenient.
There is a cornershop callback which helps tailor building of these links, if no callback exists a single default link using the subject of the product message is supplied.
Fast Checkout
If an Affiliate link is clicked from a page within the affiliates declared website, cornershop performs a fast checkout which means
- creating a basket if necessary (the user may already have a basket for this shop)
- adding quantity (value from link) of the identified item to the basket with a flag that identifies the affiliate
- displaying the first stage of checkout process
The user may abort the tranaction, in which case the basket entry persists for the normal configured duration. When the user completes a transaction, it follows the same path as any other for that shop, including invoking all shop specific callbacks. At the end when the completed transaction is audited, there is one additional step of sending an Affiliate Credit email to the affiliate with a copy to the shop website Managing Editors. This email can also be tailored using the Preferences page.
This simple mechanism allows each party to an affiliate transaction to tally the credits as they choose. Cornershop plays no part in any subsequent bookkeeping.