It seems like every month there’s a new CPA network, fulfillment center, CRM etc. in this industry. They each have their own little gimmicks such as offerings with the lowest prices, fastest shipping, or some other upside over well established players. Starting many of these services has as low of a barrier-to-entry which allows shit bags to ripoff cost conscience performance marketers.
Take for instance many of these new “fulfillment” companies that offer a wide range of services that are completely unrelated from fulfillment such as customer service, charge-back management, and even the opportunity to push traffic to your offers. From my extensive experience, anytime a company offers to provide a critical service outside of their main focus you should consider it as a red flag…it is simply not possible to be the best at everything when you are a vendor, therefore stick to vendors that have a speciality focus and are TOTALLY focused on that speciality.
For example, customer service is a huge undertaking, especially in high volume performance marketing campaigns. From handling inbound customer service related inquiries to monetizing data via upsells & cross-sells, it takes a full effort to provide a world-class service. Companies like CallTTC get this and are the best at what they do…call center support for direct marketing campaigns.
Another example is chargeback management. There are vendors out there such as Chargeback.com that provide excellent chargeback management solutions and are 100% dedicated to the handling of chargebacks. They’ve built their technology and systems around this one area of focus, and as such are considered one of the top vendors in chargeback management.
When choosing a fulfillment service, consider then choosing a provider that has their entire practice devoted to fulfillment, such as Fulfillment.com or Shipwire, both of whom are fully dedicated to fulfillment.
So, as a basic rule of thumb, go with vendors that are masters at what they do and do it exclusively. You wouldn’t hire the best carpenter to paint your house, would you? Then you ought to steer clear of these fly-by-night companies that offer a wide range of services from customer service, fulfillment, chargeback services, and traffic….
