Why Do So Many Merchants Have Their Heads Up Their Arses?

Email systems can be an unfortunate thing. If you send out emails to everyone instead of one person you can open up a can of worms. This happened with an email about Woorlworths and their brand bidding policy and was exposed on "the forum".

It has transpired (correct me if I'm wrong!) that Woolworths have a closed brand bidding "group" of one!! How many bloody times do seasoned affiliates have to tell merchants that this is stupidity of the highest order?!!?!

There have been so many blog posts about this that it unbelievable that people are ignoring this sage advice and instead being exceptionally lazy had preferring the easy option of placing their heads up their arses:

• Get Rich Quick by Selling br$and to the Arabs for £75m
• BBG’s (Brand Bidding Groups) - Do You Take the Red Pill or The Blue Pill?
• Another Look At Brand Name Bidding
• The Economics of 0% Commissions, Brand Bidding And The Long Tail
• Cookies.. and a can of worms
• De-Duping and brand name bidding - part 2 of 2
• Woolworths - Opportunistic closed bidding group on brand just before Christmas

I can't believe that Woolworth's Shareholders would accept the flagrant wasting of their marketing spend on this stupid closed brand-bidding group.

I'm just about to buy some shares in Woolworths Group PLC so I can attend their AGM and raise the question of the probable million or so they are wasting. It is no wonder they made a reported loss of £40.9 million in the half ear to 4 August 2007 if they operate their business without a keen eye on the bottom line and their marketing costs which totalled £264.6m (including selling costs).

With negative cash flow of £82.8m over the same period surely 
they have to cut out as much unnecessary costs as possible?
I wonder how much their £8.5 million
overdraft they had on 4th August 2007 has grown because of their naive brand bidding policy?

They should NOT be using the affiliate marketing channel and its cookies to manage its online brand management campaign. They should be paying their Search Marketing Agency a retainer to look after it and cut the associated costs by at least 95% and not let one lucky affilaite walk away with the profits!