Anyone else use Mr. Rebates?

[rons]

I received this notice today when I logged in

 

At eBay�s request, in accord with a test they are currently conducting, cash-back rebates for eBay has been temporarily suspended. This means cash-back will not be available on Mr. Rebates (or any other site on the Internet) for any purchases made on eBay on or after 6/16/11.

While we are sorry for any short-term inconvenience this may cause you, we feel it is important for Mr. Rebates to be good partners to its merchants and advertisers in order to maintain the best long-term loyalty program available anywhere in the world.

 

We will let you know as soon eBay completes their internal test and eBay cash-back resumes at Mr. Rebates.

 

Anyone know any details about this?

[ultra-crepidarian]

I use Mr. Rewards extensively and I have been very happy with them. It is important to note that E-bay initiated this move and it affects all cash-back programs like: Ebates, FatWallet, Mr. Rewards, BigCrums, ect.

 

From e-mail sent by JJ McCarthy, head of eBay's U.S. Partner Network / Source: www.auctionbytes.com

 

Begin Quote:

"One of the challenges associated with running a large-scale affiliate program is understanding the incremental value of each individual partnership," McCarthy said in an emailed statement. "In recent weeks, we have been studying our cashback and loyalty publisher segment in detail in order to feel more comfortable with the ROI we are receiving from those partnerships. After careful analysis and thorough internal debate, we decided that the only way to gain a definitive (quantified) understanding of the value of these partnerships is to conduct a "go dark" test.

 

"While we understand that administering such a test in the live environment will create hardship for our Loyalty partners and their users, we feel this is a necessary step in order for us to maintain our confidence in this marketing method. The goal of this exercise, in the end, is not to reach a binary decision between continue/discontinue this form of partnerships, but rather to quantify the incremental value of these partnerships and to price them properly so that we can all continue working together with full confidence going forward."

End Quote:

 

The “go dark test” will be in effect throughout the third quarter - (July, August and September). Basically, E-bay needs to figure out if by cutting the programs they can pocket more revenues or will the expected lost sales actually lower their revenues. The effects on E-bay buyers and sellers really don’t figure into this equation. It is E-bay’s sand-box; you either play by their rules or go home. This is typical behavior of E-bay and is why it is such a popular company with such a loyal following [my editorial comment].