Pages

Friday, March 04, 2011

Constant Contact - Amazon Integration: Our Price vs. Buy New

In this month's reminder email for Boston Media Makers I decided to try out Constant Contact's Amazon.com integration.


Amazon link generated by Constant Contact

PROBLEM
The problem with this coupon is that the price is listed as "Our Price $13.88."

That's not right.

This was my first time using this feature. I changed the big text on the top left to 34% to match the discount listed on the Amazon page. Constant Contact embedded the lower price, $13.88, instead of the $16.47 (34% discount) price. I sent out the email, then realized what happened, but my email had already been sent.

Take a look at the book on Amazon.com:

Get Seen on Amazon.com
Get Seen listing on Amazon.com

The Price is listed as:

Price $16.47

Take a look at the book using Amazon.com's Associates embed code:

Amazon Associates Embed


The prices are:

Best Price $13.88 (Note: This price can change)
or Buy New $16.47 

SOLUTION
Constant Contact's Amazon link generator either needs to do one of the following things:
1. Change the text "Our Price" to "Best Price"

2. Change the description and price displayed to be "Buy New $16.47"

3. Display both as "Best Price $13.88 or Buy New $16.47
One more thing.

When you add an Amazon.com product to your email in Constant Contact, a note displays that says:
Enter the ASIN (Amazon Standard Item Number) to insert the Amazon product information. Note: You should verify that the price displayed in your email matches the price at Amazon.com.
That's putting it on the user to check the pricing, when the computer should be taking care of it. The Amazon Associates embed generator doesn't ask you to check the pricing. It's always accurate.

Note:
I've discussed this issue with Constant Contact support and the most recent answer from them to me was, "That is configurable in the actual block. You have to manually change it to the price you want displayed."

That's not right.

Update 3/4/11 9:34 AM:
Just got a phone call from Constant Contact and they are going to resolve this problem and report back to me later today. Thanks to Michael Pace, Director of Customer Support for Constant Contact, for reaching out to me on twitter and helping get this fixed. In the end, it's going to help everyone.