Borders/Amazon Online Gift Certificate
Those of you who are "playing" as my testers at my Quote Of The Day Online competition know that my plan all along has been to do Borders Online Gift Certificates as my monthly prizes.Turned out Borders is actually partnering with Amazon, so it's really an Amazon Online Gift Certificate.
Turned out I'm not really happy with how it worked.
Which is to say...it didn't.
I tested it out this month by sending an online gift certificate to Shroeder, my monthly winner from the month of April. She never received it. We waited a few days, and then I went back to Amazon and clicked their "resend" link.
This generated a new set of certificate numbers and claim codes, and invalidated the old ones.
And apparently the act of resending the certificate somehow triggered Amazon's website to not just resend it, but send the original notification with the now-defunct claim code.
So Shroeder was left wondering "Which of these is valid?"
As far as I'm concerned, this is not a good sign, as far as trying to do monthly prizes through Amazon. Maybe it was a one-time glitch, but the fact that it happened my very first time sending a certificate makes me think I don't want to mess with this.
So, I'm rethinking my prizes. The only other idea I've come up with is: the monthly winner recieves a 6-month subscription extension, including both the quote competition and the archive.
Actually, I suppose, that's worth more than the gift certificate I was going to award, since the gift certificate was $10.00, and a 6 month subscription is worth $12.48.
I'd love to hear my tester's thoughts on the matter. Any comments to make?
Posted On May 25, 2005 at 9:30 AM
On May 25, 2005 Beth wrote: Well, I was really excited about the prospect of the Borders gift card, because it meant that I could get something new and exciting, (not that the quote game isn't exciting, because it really is quite cool). However, I understand that you probably don't want to mess around with something that's not dependable.
Doug Replied: I know...I'm kind of bummed about that too. (even though I was never going to give myself prizes.
Are there other ideas? Will people be satisfied with another subscription extension as a prize?On May 25, 2005 WOW wrote: Since I am never going to beat Schroeder and win a prize anyway, it doesn't make any difference to me!
Doug Replied: Eh, I dunno...Schroeder doesn't seem to be as "invincible" as she was a few weeks ago. I think the possibility of getting accuracy bonuses made her slow down a bit!
On May 26, 2005 BackStage wrote: I think perhaps you should wait and try it again this month and see if it was a glitch.
Doug Replied: yeah. so says the guy who's in first place.
The thing is, if it works this month, then Amazon's success rate is only 50%, which still isn't very impressive.
I simply don't want to deal with irate members who don't get the prize they expect, when they expect it, and then are mad at me (instead of Amazon, of course
) and need me to babysit them through the process of collecting on their prize.On May 26, 2005 inhizlight wrote: Well, Knowing that the weekly prize would get me an extension of a month. I (never being able to beat the likes of Alexander Beetle and Schroeder) think that maybe during the test phase, you could possibly try other books sites. (i.e Barnes and Nobles or Waldenbooks)
Maybe even try Amazon for a couple of months, and if you have the same problem, then give 'em the old heave ho.
Doug Replied: Barnes and Nobles. I'll have to look at that.
The other issue is, I think (and I haven't searched this out in detail) that I can't give "cash" prizes to minors - they have to be received by a parent, which opens up another can of worms.
I may end up setting it up so everyone under 18 receives subscription extensions, while adults have the option of getting a gift certificate instead. (provided I can find one I'm happy with)
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