Referral System enables OpenEntry vendors to track origin of retail (B2C) payments or wholesale (B2B) contracts to pay commissions to any referrer
One of OpenEntry's unique features is its built-in referral system (often called an affiliate program) that enables any vendor to track where orders originated in order to pay the referrers a pre-negotiated commission. This is critical to being able to disintermediate many of the links in the commercial chain that pay producers such a small proportion of the final retail price.
Vendors can do almost all of the work entailed in e-commerce such as digital photography, web site design, acceptance of payment, shipping, etc but will always need help from some near the market estalishing visibility and credibility. However, if this last entity does not have to collect payment or physically manage the inventory, they can cover their expenses with a modest commission of 5 - 20% as opposed to markups of 200-300% normally charged by conventional intermediaries. The trick, therefore, is to employ "infomediaries" managing the brand, rather than "intermediaries" handling the physical goods.
The way it works is simple. For a B2C example, John, the OpenEntry vendor www.OpenEntry.com/john, could negotiate with Mary, the holder of OpenEntry account "mary", to pay her a commission of 10% of the value of the items purchased by buyers she sends him. To do this Mary would place a referring HTML link (or button with the link) on her web site (not necessarily an OpenEntry site) or e-mail structured like:
www.openentry.com/ref.csp?cn=ref&url=http://www.openentry.com/john&id=mary
where John's OpenEntry catalog (or specific page) is in red and Mary's referring OpenEntry account is in green. Then if Fred, a buyer on Mary's web site (or reading her e-mail), clicks on the link and goes to John's site and buys something using PayPal, the payment notification e-mail from PayPal to John will show that Fred purchased an item for which Mary was the referrer. Moreover, if Mary does not have a OpenEntry vendor id, she can use her e-mail as in:
www.openentry.com/ref.csp?cn=ref&url=http://www.openentry.com/bandl&id=mary@aol.com
and John's PayPal payment notification e-mail will contain Mary's e-mail.
The referral system also works for B2B transactions using the negotiated contract tool (NCT). In the example above, if Fred went to John's site by clicking on Mary's referral link and negotiates a contract using the NCT, besides the two copies of the final contract that Fred and John receive by e-mail, Mary will receive a third one that she can use to collect a pre-negotiated commission from John.
The referral system is integrated into all OpenEntry metamarkets so that if, as in the example above, John is one of the vendors on Mary's metamarket, all the necessary referral links will automatically be in place so that if Fred goes to her marketplace and searches for an item on John's catalog and purchases it, either B2C or B2B, that referral mechanisms described above are operational.
Moreover, this referral system drops a 12 month cookie on the buyer's browser so if Fred clicked on Mary's link and looked at John's site but didn't buy anything, when he returned directly 3 months later and made the purchase or contract, the system would remember where the order originated and give Mary the proper credit so she could collect the respective commission due to her from John.
Finally, the referral system is designed to be multi-level so that if Barbara referred Fred to Mary's metamarket where he bought an item from John, both Barbara and Mary would receive credit for the referral. For B2B, Barbara would receive a fourth copy of the final contract.
