General questions

1. Commissions are calculated but it is up to you to decide how they are disbursed. You can cut a check or create a store credit for the affiliate. The plugin keeps track of the commissions earned but doesn’t provide a store credit system.

2. The affiliate code is stored in the customer’s browser cookie so that if they return later the commission will still be applied (unless they use a different computer or clear their cookies).

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Do you think that is something you may add in the future? Maybe even to the pro version. It would be great if we could have a check box to automatically add the commission to their account as store credit. I understand that it cannot send a check so that would be a manual process if you didn’t want to give them store credit.

Thanks for the quick response and for the great plugins.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by sab66.

That would work. I was just looking for something that would not require me to do anything for them to use the commission they had earned.

That would require me to purchase the Pro version of the Gift Card Plugin, right?

Most likely this will be part of the PW WooCommerce Gift Cards Pro plugin, so yes you would need to purchase the Pro version for the two plugins to link together automatically.

Once this is implemented, maybe there could be a “Get Gift Card” link on the Affiliate report that would, once the details are verified (name, email, etc), generate a gift card and email it to the user. This would give the affiliate control over when they wanted it, or they could even send it to someone else. Does that sound doable? I understand the Gift Card Pro plugin would be required. Maybe offer a bundle with just those two plugins to celebrate the integration.

Thanks for the feedback! This is likely how we will set things up. We may also link a gift card number directly and allow the site administrator to opt-into automatic payouts on the existing gift card. That way the affiliate would not have to enter a new gift card when shopping (it stays in their cart for later use).

In the meantime you could do this manually with the Gift Cards Pro plugin. Click on Pimwick Plugins -> PW Gift Cards -> Create Gift Cards and enter the affiliates’ email address and their balance (you could do this monthly to make the payouts). It will generate a gift card for the appropriate amount and email it to them.

I’m linking this forum post with our development task so that when the automated process is available we will notify you here. Let me know if you have any other ideas or suggestions, best of luck with your store!

The gift card idea is a great one as the commissions could be increasing daily and if the payouts were manual, you would have to devise a method to make sure they did not get paid more commissions than they earned. Something to make the commissions as paid. The gift card would only have what was earned minus what had already been spent.

For the time being you would have to devise your own method of keeping track of paid commissions. The most straight-forward way would be to create the gift card on the 1st of the month for the prior month balance. That way you wouldn’t over pay the affiliates.

When we create the automated process we will likely keep a “paid” history to ensure that payouts can be distributed whenever you would like.

Sounds like a plan. I am looking forward to using this….

I discovered that my WP site is automatically updating plugins which, of course, is certainly convenient but I thought about it and decided that might be too risky. Better to update plugins on my staging site first and then manually update after checking it out. Am I being wise or overly paranoid?

It is best practice to install new plugins and updates in a staging area first. Most web hosts provide you with a means to create a snapshot and set up a fresh copy of the staging environment before each test.

Given the endless combinations of themes and plugins, it is always a good idea to try it out in a staging area first just to be sure the new version doesn’t break anything. And it is highly recommended to stay up to date for security and performance reasons.