Libraries as Amazon Associates

Amazon.com has a program (AmazonSmile) which allows you to designate a charity which can receive a percentage of the total of your purchase.  It has another program (amazon Associates) which allows people to promote products through their websites, social media, YouTube etc and receive a percentage of those purchases.

While this appears all well and good, AmazonSmile contributes.5% (yes that's 1/2%) to your designated charity, while the associates program pays roughly 5% of the purchase price (10 times what the Smile program pays).

Who is a greater promoter of books, movies, music and magazines than libraries?.  Why shouldn't they be given the opportunity to be treated like the promoter they are rather than a charity?    The idea is to ties user's library accounts and turn it into a purchasing platform and earning them up to 10% on some products.

The Idea

Library patrons can log into their library account and search for a book.   If the book is in the library's collection, they can request it and/or buy it. If it is not in the library they can purchase it.   Users can also go into their lending record and retrieve titles they've borrowed so that hey could purchase those as well.  For every sale made, the library gets a percentage.
Patron's credit card and address are on file and products are shipped (free) directly to the customer.   Free shipping incentivises people to purchase their media through the library rather than externally.

This would give libraries another (much needed) stream of income and blend a natural place for discovery of books and media to a way for people to own that media.  How many times have you taken out a book and thought that you'd like to own it or that it would be a great gift.  This would give you a way to easily buy it and benefit your local library.

Amazon and Permission Marketing

I got an e-mail from Amazon today asking me to rate my experience with one of their sellers.  I'm usually happy to give my feedback, but there are a few things that serve to dissuade me from doing feedback for a vendor or anyone else.   Foremost of my peeves are sellers that ask for "a minute" and then proceed to ask a myriad of questions on every aspect of the exchange all the while never telling you how many questions are left, and using a vague clock or status bar to show your progress.  I'm sure these retailers are questioning why there are so many abandoned questionnaires.  "If only they'd finish all 243 questions, we'd have the answer to everything."

Asking a few pointed questions and getting good answers on a few questions is better than bad data on many questions.  Amazon does it right in this instance.  They ask 3 questions, a rating and a comment.

What Amazon fails here at is requiring the comment which appears to be a public proclamation about the seller.  It moves from How did the seller do?  to Tell others about them."

I'm happy to give you feedback on your product, service, transactions and the like (I'm rarely short of an opinion).   However, requiring me to "tell others" in order to do that is inappropriate.  Amazon would not allow me to submit my response as is because the text field is blank.  I was tempted to make snarky comments about the inappropriateness of requiring the field, but it's not really the seller's fault.

How many people feel compelled to complete that box?  "What?  I can't submit my three responses until I give some feedback on that field?  Okay then."

What consumers need to remember is that we're part of that transaction too.  Seth Godin wrote about Permission Marketing and how it's about engagement with consumers and getting permission to market to them.   The flip side of that coin is us, as consumers, giving permission.  When a business or on line retailer doesn't ask permission, don't give it.  If they interrupt by spamming you, subscribe you to a newsletter without your permission, sell your information or try to force you to give a response when its you doing the favor, walk away.