We're certainly not fans of spam. But a well timed recommendation of something I actually might want to buy, from person I know, at a time when I'm ready to make the purchase has a great chance of converting. You don't have to send tons of links (in fact that really doesn't work, people just unfriend you) - you need to send the right link at the right time.
The reality is that there are huge existing businesses with names you recognize like Mary Kay and Tupperware who take advantage of the power of friends selling to friends, but with them you are limited to their inventory, you pay an upfront cost (buying samples and baseline inventory), and a lot of labor/time to make a sale. The goal with Referly is to broaden the products you refer, eliminate up front expenses, and reduce the amount of effort to generate a sale. This might not be for the HN audience, who can make $100/hour coding, but for a stay-at-home Mom who blogs and sells stuff on Etsy Referly is a great option for additional income. It's also great for anyone who has every written a blog post listing their top 10 book recommendations.
As to why you should use us rather than your own Amazon tag - we get a better commission rate because we have economy of scale. And you can refer products from any of these websites http://refer.ly/merchants
That's one of the reasons I will never buy any product of theirs. You don't get to me through my friends. I consider abusing private friendships for commercial gain un-ethical.
Speaking of using amazon, how are are you able to offer "cashback" or incentives through them, isn't that against the terms of Amazon's affiliate program?
Perfect Information is a misnomer, because even when people have perfect information they cannot be expected to act rationally.
Mary Kay and Tupperware tapped into the western womans' need to meet in person and converse with friends. Referly is trying to tap into the broadcasting phenomenon, or "bragging", that occurs over social networks, which in this instance translates to spam.
I've been obsessed with the concept of perfect information applied to the web since I worked on Whrrl several years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_information
The reality is that there are huge existing businesses with names you recognize like Mary Kay and Tupperware who take advantage of the power of friends selling to friends, but with them you are limited to their inventory, you pay an upfront cost (buying samples and baseline inventory), and a lot of labor/time to make a sale. The goal with Referly is to broaden the products you refer, eliminate up front expenses, and reduce the amount of effort to generate a sale. This might not be for the HN audience, who can make $100/hour coding, but for a stay-at-home Mom who blogs and sells stuff on Etsy Referly is a great option for additional income. It's also great for anyone who has every written a blog post listing their top 10 book recommendations.
As to why you should use us rather than your own Amazon tag - we get a better commission rate because we have economy of scale. And you can refer products from any of these websites http://refer.ly/merchants