Posts Tagged "New York"

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

Posted on May 28, 2009 in Conferences & Networking | 3 comments

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at two different affiliate marketing conferences this summer. One I applied to speak at with some dear colleagues of mine back in March after getting the idea in February, which has lead to a build up of excitement. The other came rather unexpectedly recently and I’m very happy to be speaking at both! So come hear me talk about cool stuff!

Affiliate Convention – June 18th & 19th – Denver, CO
Friday, June 19th.  10:15 – 11:15 am.
Super Affiliate Room I: Social Media Marketing

Do you Tweet? Have you found Facebook useful for fun and profit? Wade Sisson, David Snyder, and Trisha Lyn Fawver take this session through the various social media applications and teaches several ways to successfully harness the power of speaking to a massive audience of friends, followers and fellow social media users.

I’ll be speaking along side: Wade Sisson, Director of Marketing for PartnerCentric and David Snyder, Co-Founder of Search & Social

Affiliate Summit East 2009 – August 9th – 11th – New York, NY
Sunday, August 9th.  12:00 – 1:00 pm.
Classroom D: Getting Noticed FAST

Regardless what your role in the industry is, it’s important to be noticed within the industry. Learn the networking and social media techniques that make it possible.

Our panel will be moderated by Lisa Picarille, Online Marketing Consultant at LisaPicarille.com.  I’ll be joined by Mike Buechele, Founder of Comic Book Fury, Jen Goode, Doodler-in-Charge of JGoode Designs, and Stephanie Lichtenstein, Affiliate Program Manager for Andy Rodriguez Consulting.

Some come on out!  I’ll have plenty of good things to say and you’ll be able to meet me live and in person!

California Assembly Bill 178

Posted on Mar 24, 2009 in Affiliate Marketing | 2 comments

Many in the affiliate marketing industry are aware of what happened last summer with the New York State affiliate tax, also known as the Amazon Tax.  The state laws were amended to include affiliates as agents of the merchant, requiring the merchant to charge sales tax for purchases made to New York residents.  As a result, many merchants took the easy way out and decided to drop all NY state affiliates from their programs.  This resulted in an immense loss of revenue for several affiliates.

Unfortunately, several other states are following suit, most notably California, Hawaii, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Connecticut.  The most pressing of which is California, looking to enact the new bill ASAP with a hearing scheduled for April 13th in Sacramento.

In layman’s terms, AB 178 changes the definition of a “retailer engaging in business in this state” to include any retailer that works with affiliates in this state where the gross receipts or sales prices is over $10,000 per year.  Feel free to read the entire bill online here.

Being a California resident myself, I can tell you that this will have a huge impact on the affiliate marketing industry.  One of the major affiliate networks, Commission Junction, is located in Santa Barabara.  Several super affiliates are also based in California.  As well, Amazon, one of the largest affiliate merchant programs out there, has already testified that they will drop all Hawaii affiliates if Hawaii’s legislation passes, so that can’t be good news for California or the other states.

This bill is short sighted and ill conceived, and we need the help of everyone in the affiliate marketing industry to fight it.  A legislative day has been planned for next Tuesday, March 31st, where several of us are going to Sacramento to speak with legislators and their staff about the ill effects this bill will have.  If you are interested in also participating, please feel free to email me at trisha [at] newedgemedia.com and I will gladly pass the information to the organizers.

Affsum Session: NY Tax Laws – Issues & Solutions

Posted on Aug 10, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing, Conferences & Networking | 2 comments

Unfortunately I was a bit late to this session today, but I got a lot of good info in the 40 minutes I did attend. The panel consisted of:

• Adam Riemer, Director of Marketing & Client Relations, Downtown Ecommerce Partners (Moderator)
• Chris Henger, Group Product Manager, Google Affiliate Network
• Kim Rodgers, Affiliate Manager, 4Checks.com
• Melanie Seery, Affiliate, NY Affiliate Voice
• Clarke D. Walton, Internet Lawyer, Walton Law Firm, P.C.

First I do have to comment on the panelists – I had the pleasure of hearing a session at ASW08 where Clarke spoke on internet taxes in relation to affiliates and I have to tell you – this is the kind of lawyer you want in your Rolodex.  He’s extremely internet and tech savvy, which is always good when you’re talking about internet law.  He has experience doing affiliate marketing himself, so he can totally relate to your issues.  And he clearly knows his stuff.

Speaking of really knowing their stuff, Kim Rodgers is the ace affiliate manager who really knows what she’s doing, and has built her program up SO much it’s phenomenal.  I had the pleasure of sitting with her last night at the Affiliate Dinner (more on that later) and she really is a great AM and has the unique experience of being in the position of a company that initially culled their NY affiliates and now, after some changes internally, are able to welcome them back and have to regain their business (not to mention their trust).

So, the bullet point review of the panel:

• Networks can’t really give any advice to affiliates legally, so they’ve pretty much had to stay out of it.
• Early in July, California explored the NY law and determined that affiliates don’t prove nexus, hence pretty much saying the opposite of what NY is.  Hopefully for those of us in California this means that they’ve gotten it out of their heads to try to mimic this.
• Late in July the NY state senate approved a motion to repeal the tax, so while there’s not much news about this yet it’s a step in the right direction in terms of a repeal.
• It’s important for affiliates to be willing to comply and work with their merchants to get through this and maintain a good relationship.
• Affiliates in NY will have to give up a little privacy (like their NY address) in an effort to comply.
• Merchants can simply add a small paragraph into their terms of service that NY based affiliates need to agree to specifically to comply with laws.
• Affiliate managers need to follow up with the NY affiliates to make sure they’ve read the modified TOS and agree.
• Merchants who kicked NY affiliates right away probably have a better chance of wooing them back than merchants who waited until the middle of June and then deactivated the NY affiliates retroactive to May 31st.  Melanie’s opinion?  “They don’t have a prayer.”

Some take-home answers from the open Q&A:

• The law applies to merchants based in Canada as well  (unfortunately I couldn’t hear if they said it applied to international merchants too).
• The law is not clear if nexus is established when a merchant has affiliates who make $10,000 per year aggregate or per affiliate.
• Affiliate managers should not encourage their affiliates to incorporate their businesses in other states.  This is a poor work around (it’s not a solution) since, well, what if that state’s next to adopt a similar law?  You can’t keep reincorporating and it’s basically fraudulent anyway.
• The state of Washington has come close with a similar law affecting internet sales and taxes.  Formerly, the tax rate on an internet sale was calculated based on where the merchant is located.  Now, it’s calculated based on where the order is shipping to.  This only applies within the state – for now.  (As an aside, I know that the California law is already like this and bases tax assessment on the shipping address, being that PsPrint is based in California).
• The federal government is also looking into these laws since we are talking about interstate commerce and may make a move soon, but it’s hard to say in what direction that move will be.

If you caught anything I didn’t (ahem 11|15 Media’s Michael Buechele), please share with the rest of us!

Now Published! Affiliate Manager Communication Strategies

Posted on Aug 6, 2008 in Career, Conferences & Networking, Rambles |

Issue 2 of FeedFront Magazine is hitting mailboxes as we speak, and will be distributed at Affiliate Summit East next week.  I’m happy to say that an article I wrote has been published!  Now you can read all about a great strategy to keep in contact with your affiliates as a manager.  Check out my article on page 12 of the magazine.

If you can’t wait for your hard copy (as I couldn’t) you can download just my article here.  Or, if you actually want to read the whole issue, you can get it here.  There are a lot of other great articles this time around, including a look at ABestWeb.com founder Haiko de Poel Jr, coupon code woes, and avoiding NY state tax nexus.

I hope to write another article for FeedFront soon, I just need to rack my brain for some ideas :).  If you’ll be going to Affiliate Summit East, we’re sure to have a blast.  Remember to take lots of pictures – the gang at FeedFront is holding a contest and YOUR picture (or mine!) can win the coveted cover position for the 3rd issue of FeedFront.  Not only does the winner get the bragging rights of having their photo on the cover of the magazine, but you also win a full conference pass to Affiliate Summit West 2009 happening in Las Vegas January 11th – 13th.

Commission Junction Now Listing States

Posted on Jul 25, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing |

Just noticed this in my CJ account today…they’re now telling us merchants what state the publisher is in.

I think this will be beneficial, but also it could be unduly prejudicial with the states looking at similar laws to New York with taxes.  Thoughts?

Cafepress Shows No Mercy to NY Affiliates

Posted on Jun 23, 2008 in Affiliate Marketing |

Yet another merchant has washed their hands of NY based affiliates.  I just received an e-mail from Cafepress:

As you may know, the State of New York recently enacted new legislation that addresses tax registration, collection and remittance, which challenges the CafePress affiliate business model.

Due to mounting uncertainly over these new laws we will no longer be able to support affiliates residing in the State of New York, effective July 1, 2008.

While CafePress has no tax nexus in any states other than California, Nevada and Kentucky we feel it wise to discontinue our affiliate business in New York State at this time.

Regrettably, our hand was forced into making this difficult business decision, and we openly acknowledge the loss of income this means for our New York affiliate partners. Should circumstances around this law change we will eagerly reconsider this decision.

Effective July 1, 2008 CafePress affiliate agreements with all New York residents will be terminated.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Of course I’m not affected, but in an effort to stand tall with my NY brothers and sisters, I’m seriously considering not promoting this program anymore.  Truth be told, I’ve never shown any sales with it as it’s just on some secondary web properties, and I do love their services.  I haven’t reached a personal decision yet.  So this makes me sad that they’ve gone this route.  Alas, poor Cafepress, I knew them well.