Starting a Rebate Site - Revisited

[allen18328]

Hello All and Merry Christmas,

I just read an old forum about somebody wanting to start a rebate site and it was recommended that they steer clear from the idea. The thread was over a year old and I was wondering if that was still the consensus?

A few of the problems mentioned included the fact that there are a bunch out there already and many of them are very generic. This posed the problem of getting noticed and being different from the crowd.
Do you think it is possible to seperate a new site from the group if they continued to offer a wide variety of offers? Maybe the theme or goal could be changed. I have a few ideas for this if anyone would talk one on one with me about them I would love that.

I have also been wondering what the cost would be and what kind of profit a rebate site can expect. I understand that if you are only keeping a small percentage of the commission you would need a great deal of traffic to come up with anything worth while. I did read an article earlier stating that ebates.com was expected to pay back something like 20 million dollars this year alone in rebates. If they are making even a few percentage points of that total I think it would be a worth it.

I am all ears to everything you have to say. The good and the bad.

Thank you all in advance.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Allen,

Merry Christmas to you too.

I'm wondering if this is the post you saw?

http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5...1954-rebate-site-good-strategy.html#post36137

If so, I still agree with everything I said back then. Maybe others have some opinions though too?

 

[allen18328]

Thanks so much for the quick response. That was the thread I was referring to. Your first point is the one that worries me the most. That is the tracking and software issues. Could you point me to more information about those topics? How much money are we talking for that stuff?
The other issues you presented seem to be very important things to avoid and points to improve upon rather than road blocks. You said most rebate sites are more like generic malls making it very difficult to stand out from the crowd. If a site were to remain rebate based, but had a much narrower niche do you feel it could work? Or as I said earlier maybe a change in focus or theme?
I got started on this topic from freebie trading. I notice most of the sites that appear in that industry are fly by night gigs and are not planned out very well. In your experience is it the same with the rebate sites and other affiliate efforts? Whatever I set out to do in the end I am going to go about it as a full fledged business with sufficient finances, business plan, etc.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[allen18328]

Also do you feel a difference would be made if the site used a multi tier system. I know some of the sites reward for referrals, but I haven't noticed that to be a big point. Do you think putting more attention on the ability to make money from referrals would add more interest than just savings alone?

 

[allen18328]

Anyone out there? Anybody have an idea about how much it would cost to start a rebate site?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Sorry Allen I don't have any idea about the cost of a rebate system and don't know how much having a referral system would help.

It's pretty quiet around here on weekends, especially Holiday weekends, so possibly next week when more are online someone will have ideas for you but I doubt anyone here would know for sure because most of us don't deal with rebate sites.

 

[allen18328]

Thanks for the help anyway Linda. Maybe somebody will come along with some information. The details are pretty hard to come across.