A Bad OTO Equals A Bad Vendor

by
A Bad OTO Equals A Bad Vendor

Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. Best to presume they all are. This means that if you click on a link and purchase the item, I will receive a commission. There is no additional cost to you.

Have you ever had trouble receiving OTO’s (one-time offers, or upgrades) that you bought as you went through a particular sales funnel? You know the pattern, you see an ad for a killer new digital product like an ebook or an online service and it’s only $12.95! So you go for it. Then there’s an upgrade aka an OTO for $47 or so. You’re told you need this to accelerate the results you’re going to get from the basic package. And if you buy that then there’s another upgrade/OTO for something like $79. This one might give you lifetime access to the monthly subscription membership.

OTO Headaches

I’ve made purchases with OTO’s that I paid for that weren’t accessible after the purchase. In most cases like this, you can contact the vendor’s support desk or contact the vendor directly and get this straightened out. But, that’s kind of a waste of time and really shouldn’t be necessary. When you promote a product and you offer one-time offers or bonuses (and you should offer both), be sure to test your sales process to make sure everything works! When your customers have to work to get what you told them they would receive, it can be a stain on your business’s reputation.

In some cases, I have not been able to resolve things via a support desk or an email and have not been able to receive the upgrades I paid for. One vendor did this to me twice. Twice! The first time I bought the base product, often referred to as the “front end” product, then three of the four OTO’s/upgrades. The only one I didn’t buy was the monthly subscription service. I did not receive access to any of the upgrades. Of course, I’ve written to the support desk and opened tickets. What happened? After a few days, I got an email from the support desk saying they have resolved the problem and the ticket is closed. But they haven’t resolved it and the ticket should not be closed!

You Fell For It Twice?

Now you may be wondering “why did you purchase a second product from someone who had already ripped you off”? Because he hid his name when putting out the second package that I bought. When I first saw it, I thought, “This will make a great replacement for the product where I didn’t get access to the upgrades I paid for”. So I went through the same process, happy that I was going to have access to a similar tool, but this time the upgrades would be included. But no, same thing. I bought three of four upgrades, and I was not able to get access to anything other than the base or front-end product.

Now that he’s on my radar I’ve also noticed that this guy seems to use two first names. One at a time of course. Maybe he ripped off so many people he had to start using an assumed name. At first, I thought it was his brother or cousin, then I realized “nope, same guy”. So you know this guy is on my blacklist in bold letters.

Why haven’t I given his name, or the name of his business, or at least the name of the two products that took my money? Well, he’s been in business a lot longer than me, and he appears to do pretty well. So I’d just as soon avoid a lawsuit. This is something I might share with my Marketing Insights subscribers, but it’s not something I’m going to post publicly.

Bonus Problems Too

In another similar frustrating purchasing experience, revolving around a bonus instead of an OTO, I was out of town recently visiting family when I received an email promoting a new PLR bundle. As I looked at the sales page they listed several bonuses that would be included. One of the bonuses was a well-known expansive PLR library, which made me think “hmm, I know I can put that to use with sufficient re-writing of the content” (after all, that’s what PLR is for).

But when I got back from the family visit and logged in to the membership area. It said that to receive the PLR bonus bundle, I needed to find my receipt, create an account on their support site and send the receipt to their support group, creating a support ticket. Then after they got around to a review of my request, I might finally receive the download link. Really?

The Blacklist

At this time there are about 5 marketers who I don’t plan to buy from again. This particular vendor is now one of them. Which is a shame because the core package is really nice. I would have been happier if the big PLR library had not been offered as part of the package. And that product creator would not be on my blacklist.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to jump through hoops to receive what I was told I would get with my purchase whether it’s an OTO or a bonus. And in this day and age, there’s no reason you can’t provide bonuses with the purchase and upgrades have been around longer than funnels. On JV Zoo or Warrior Plus, on the same page where you see the button that says “Click Here To Access Your Purchase”, there’s generally another button that can and should be there “Click Here To Access Your Bonuses”.

Although the bonus PLR bundle was not an OTO, there still should have been a simpler method of fulfillment in my opinion. There are even bonus delivery systems for Clickbank these days, although they all seem to be third-party products. There are scripts that you can install on your site. One of my favorite solutions is Clickbank Bonus Automator from John Thornhill and Dave Nicholson. It’s not quite as streamlined as the bonus delivery system on JV Zoo or Warrior Plus. But it’s an automated system that does streamline Clickbank bonus deliveries somewhat and makes their fulfillment automatic.

Chalk It Up To Experience

Now I generally don’t ask for refunds (there have been a couple of exceptions). Most of my purchasing disappointments I usually just chalk up to experience. But I do make a note of marketers that pull this sort of stunt.

There are other disappointments I could whine on about. Like the great training site where my purchased courses kept disappearing. Or the unfortunate spokesman who was the marketing spokesman for 3 products I purchased over time. All of them quit working within a few months, and all tickets and help requests were met with silence. So I decided, heck, I guess I shouldn’t buy stuff this guy promotes.

Do you market Clickbank products? I do now. And yes, I use Clickbank Bonus Automator to deliver my bonuses for Clickbank products.

So tell me. What do you think? Am I being a jerk or do you think I’m justified in cutting these kinds of vendors off? What would you have done? Have you had bad experiences with vendors, upsells, OTO’s upgrades, bonuses, etc.? Let me know in the comments below.

‘Til next time,

This is Dave

Dave

 

Dave Hodges
Latest posts by Dave Hodges (see all)
Spread the love