Yesterday afternoon, an online merchant, who also has an affiliate program, circulated the following announcement to all of his affiliates:
Dear affiliate,
[Merchant’s website] will be closed for vacation until end of the month. We expect to be back January 1st. The store will be closed all this time, meaning that checkout will be disabled. There will be no ‘dead’ links, but the customers will see the message that the website is closed for vacation.
Sincerely,
[Owner’s name]
Wow! I guess this is the first time I hear of an online shopping cart going on a three-week vacation. As Cisco’s global web marketing manager, Philippe Pieri, has commented on this, this sounds like “innovation in reverse”. This is exactly what this is.
I only wish I had the Photoshop skills to put a shopping cart in a hammock under a palm tree. Would’ve made a perfect illustration for this blog post. 🙂