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Plugin Suggestion: Cashback plugin

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How difficult is to develop a cashback plugin to wordpress?

Its very similar to a Get pay to system.

Must track clicks and have a function to approve/disapprove the offer, have reports with status to end users and admin.

If someone else like the idea of this kind of plugin I can post the structure on detail to be developed.

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 11:22:13
  • maisapostas
    • Flash Drive

    The main propose of the plugin is given a share of affiliate offers completed by that member.

    The workflow of the plugin is:

    Backend:

    Admin insert offer from a store (with an affiliate link, this affiliate link then must have a third parameter (who change from network to network) to have track of what user completes the offer.

    So we going to have on admin something like this Affilite link – Third tracker paramenter – Member Id

    The networs generate at the end of the day a report including the “third tracker id”, some have API’s but for start Its just a question of check manualy what users done that offer.

    So going to need some place to have the offer completed/on hold/refused/canceled. You need also a frequency field (one time offer, daily…:wink:

    In some country’s you can give direct money price, so every offer need to have some “points” assigned.

    Frontend:

    The user see the offer and choose to complete or not (or have a list of offers to complete) (like subscribe a service, buy something on online store, etc)

    User must have a place to see offer status and points

    you also need to track users payments (like on affiliate plugin) and define a minimum payout.

    The main advantage of this plugin is you going to monetize your site better, imagine a user who buy something from amazon (just a example) trough your site you will earn 10% of the sale, so if you pay 50% of that commission you end up with 5% profit from the sale value and you end to have one more incentive to your visitors come back to site.

  • James Farmer
    • Founder & Chair (honest)

    I’m still a bit confused – how does a blogger or the site admin actually put up an ‘offer’.

    And what might that ‘offer’ be?

    For example, with Amazon, what will they be doing besides posting a usual amazon affiliate link or similar?

    Are you looking at an integrated ecommerce system here?

    Sorry for all the questions… just a bit lost.

  • maisapostas
    • Flash Drive

    You know affiliate networks? Like cj.com neveblueads, tradedoubler.com …

    Every network have merchants who pay us (affiliates) (like premium affiliates here) for every action/sale.

    This is valid on the merchants who allow incentive offers (almost all stores).

    So this products are the offers.

    The site administrator insert the “offers” on the plugin and the offers are displayed to the users (blogs owners, general visitors) with an extra parameter included, so regular affilaiate link is: http://merchant_store.tld?tracking=tracking_code. On this system the url presented to visitors are http://merchant_store.tld?tracking=tracking_code?extra_parameter=user_id(name/wahtever who identify user)

    This extra parameter are already implemented on almost all affiliate networks.

    The users/blogs owners who click on that links and buy something earn points.

    The points must be defined by the site admin based on offer value (example: you commission is $20 for a sale, so if you share 50% with your user, users will earn 10 points (assumed 1 point = 1$).

    The main advantage is when a user wants to buy something he go trough you link you earn money.

    you can see a big site who make this business model here: http://www.rpoints.com/ (this is not wp, but the basics could be done easy with wp structure.)

    So the ecommerce part is not in you site, you just act like a gateways who track user activity and share the earning.

    You can also pay instead of money in merchandise or other products on your site.

  • James Farmer
    • Founder & Chair (honest)

    OK, so a little like retailmenot.com – except more that you are getting users to have blogs that promote products tied in with affiliate arrangements provided nby (possibly) multiple retailers – where you take a cut?

    Makes sense I guess as a business plan, but the challenge to us is does it make sense to WPMU DEV Premium members?

    Is there a general demand for it?

    Of course – if there is – then we’ll make it – but if there isn’t then it might be tricky as we have to justify economically our development and thuis, make stuff that people want… you know what I mean :slight_smile:

    So thanks for the clarification – I guess I’ll follow Andrew’s lead and put it out there for the community here to say if they find this kind of thing of interest or not.

    Or maybe there’s a developer out there reading this who might be able to help you right now.

  • drmike
    • DEV MAN’s Mascot

    Why do I get the feeling that folks wait until I chip in with an opinion around here? :slight_smile:

    Gotta admit I’m casting a -1 on this one. Falls under the “There are much better tools for ecommerce besides wp” banner for me as per the sticky. Some of them do multi tier stuff like this.

    If you do this, adding the multi tier ness to the Affiliate plugin may be something to consider as well.