Former darling of the affiliate world and large scale lingerie retailer Figleaves.com was this week sold to NBrown (the company behind  JD Williams) for the sum of £11.5m.  The business was put up for sale back in February for considerably more than the price it achieved this week (or so the Independent said). A bargain. Figleaves has never made a profit but has a good customer base and brand so I imagine that plus stock is what NBrown are paying for.

Frankly My Dear…

Back in the day, a takeover such as this would have had affiliates (including me!) quivering in their boots at the potential changes to the affiliate programme new ownership might bring.  However, new management in 2008 combined with some radical changes which were implemented with disappointing ham fistedness and zero notice meant that a lot of affiliates became disaffected and ceased promotion. It’s changed status in the affiliate world was apparent from the total and utter silence on its sale within the main UK affiliate forum, Affiliates4U.

I am still involved with the programme as I had a whole heap of traffic I couldn’t monetise elsewhere.  I’m glad I did hang in there now because in recent months a new affiliate manager has come onto the scene and has been working to rebuild some bridges, and put affiliate incentives in place.  A good indicator that the powers that be decided affiliates still had a role to play in their business model.  Something that wasn’t at all clear late 2008 and most of 2009.

As an aside, the new chap is making a big effort to push things forward again and the programme seems to be in very good shape thanks to his efforts (just in case you’re interested!).

A Good Synergy?

JD Williams’ cheap and cheerful type business isn’t an immediately obvious bed mate for the rather more sophisticated Figleaves.  However, apparently industry analysts think they could do well together.  Figleaves’ customer base is more mature than your average shopper (probably thanks to their great selection of hard to find items) which allegedly makes it a good fit.

One thing’s for sure – NBrown seems to know how to make a good profit and access to Figleaves 1 million+ website visitors each month provides them a great opportunity.

So What’s The Affiliate Future?

Inevitably there will be lots of changes within Figleaves, so I do wonder if this will impact upon the affiliate programme.  If it’s not loss making I’d hope they’ll only be looking to improve upon it and make it more attractive to affiliates (increasing that vexatious 3 day cookie for example).

Its clear they value the affiliate stream, as they have a programme for JD Williams but here’s hoping they don’t tinker with the payouts in lines with the ones they are currently offering – £8 for new customer sales, £4 where a new customer sale is made on PPC but where affiliates have played a part, 1% of basket value for existing customers.

And if they do… well so be it. I operate on a once bitten twice shy basis and Figleaves’ commissions now form only a small proportion of my business turnover. They used to be a honking great chunk of it – but I learned a valuable lesson about eggs and baskets there!  I imagine that most affiliates still promoting them would be in a similar situation.

I’ll be watching the outcome of this acquisition with interest. It will be fascinating see if JD Williams turns the goose into the golden egg.

P.S. That’ll be my one attempt this year at a Jason-esque headline. It was a toss up between the above and “Is The Figleaves Takeover a Load of Pants??”  I’ll leave it to the duckman and his recently awarded best affiliate marketing blog of 2010  from now on

This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK

Figleaves Sells For Peanuts – But Will Affiliates Give a Monkeys?