I'd like to thank everyone who's used the Amazon search box on this blog and other Amazon links to buy things. I had some trouble recently and had to change some code in that box you see over there in the sidebar, so I'd be especially appreciative if you'd use the box today and reassure me that I've set things aright. Suffice it to say it was some damned thing about federal law, a box I didn't see that I needed to check on a new form that made me need to redo my account. It's too boring to explain and any comic talent I might have is not oriented to making bureaucratic headaches funny. So I'll stop right here and just say thanks for your support.
AND: If you've been using an old link that you consider the Althouse Amazon portal, it should be changed to this.
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Just did it. Bought some razor blades. Keep up the good work.
Thanks, DrMaturin!
I did get something but the search did seem to take a long time.
Ah many windows into Amazon Prime. The cost to the user (me) is the same whether I go through Ms. Althouse's window, or Glen Reynolds over on Instapundit, or just get lazy and go straight to Amazon. Went through Ms. Althouse's window this time and will soon learn more than I really want to know about German society in WW II. And Ms. Althouse will have a pfennig or two more in her account from Amazon.
Bought "The Ultimate Bee Gees" through your portal. I've been wanting to get that album for sometime. I just needed a nudge!
Federal regulations hampering small business Althouse blog.
Vote GOP.
"Your Associates account was closed on November 1, 2015 as previously outlined both online and in email communications. This closure-action occurred because the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) declaration was not completed. The declaration is mandatory for participation in the Amazon Associates Program."
I had to open a new account because I overlooked an email that directed me to go check a box that said my blog isn't directed at under-13-year-old readers.
I know. I should read email more carefully. But my in-box fills with hundreds of emails a day.
I spend thousands on Amazon products every year, but it never occurs to me to click through althouse.com, though I would if it were automatic. I think it should be incumbent on Amazon to offer me to choose a sponsor like Althouse to link all my purchases to, without having to go through the website each time. After all, the Amazon rebate to Althouse is like the fee charged by credit card companies when using VISA or Mastercard, a fee I always try to avoid by offering to pay cash instead, which our local liquor store, Specs, actually offers.
Shopping through Althouse is not "free" to me or anyone else who is in the position to demand a cash discount, in spite or what Ann Althouse says. The problem is that it's impossible to negotiate with Amazon, though not with alternatives to Amazon. To avoid the fee, one needs to find businesses sensitive to the bottom line and the desires of customers. I have seldom failed to get cash discounts from doctors and dentists, for example.
jimbino, feel free (if you choose) to support the blog by sending her $100 and holding back $10 as your cash discount.
Thanks in advance!
Why doesn't she kickback half her take to the buyer? That would incentivize people.
I support the blog by making witty and insightful comments that keep the other commenters coming back. They occasionally buy things through the portal. ( probably ).
No need to thank me.
Talking about discounts from Amazon: You can get 5% cash back by using a Chase credit card between October and December this year, and later redeem the points on Amazon if the card is linked. Discover had 5% cash back July through September. This happes periodically. Sometimes you also can get offers one way or another to buy gift cards at 10% off. You might have to join and cancel something. So there's that.
The not-under-13 rule has to be I suppose because of the idea that websites shouldn't make it easy for young children to spend their parents' money that they weren't given permission to. If the concern was pornography it would be under 18.
Now you do have to log in to Amazon, but I suppose sometimes a compuyer stays logged in and the credit cards are also registered.
So now the unauthorized and unintended spending of money is all going to be prevented by creating a need for a website to check off a box. Someone who has a web site geared to help with 3rd grade arithmetic homework is going to be all ready to set up this link to Amazon, and then be stopped by this box.
I would think they could have let old websites stay grandfathered in, or maybe it should be Amazon.com that checks the box, but that would be using too much common sense.
All this got started because of some telephone serviices I think.
Meade: jimbino, feel free (if you choose) to support the blog by sending her $100 and holding back $10 as your cash discount.
I do consider the Althouse blog one of the very best, and don't mind supporting it financially. Still, it rankles to shop for products that have hidden fees, such as credit card fees and kickbacks.Kickbacks are apparently illegal for lawyers, though docs are notorious in in referring patients for CAT, MRI scans and other labs in which they have a hidden financial interest.
We live in a world where you have to "follow the money," especially when it comes to slezoids like the Clintons. When a Mexican comes to my door here in Texas asking for work, I pay him X dollars for X dollars worth of great work, with no hidden fees. He doesn't jack up his offer by Y percent in order to send Y percent off to some slezoid bank or other third party, as do VISA, Mastercard and Amazon, apparently.
Such problems are overtaking the Web. When I click on a blog article linked to a gated-website like the WaPo or WSJ or New Yorker, I have to back out when they block me. As a result, I never read anything published on those sites. Somebody needs to come up with a better model, and for that to happen, we need more info, like how much kickback is Amazon offering to Althouse and her ilk.
Althouse provides a valuable blog -- a true exchange of ideas -- so, Yes, I'm shopping on Amazon, thru the Althouse portal.
Note: You have to activate the 3-month 5% cashback categories. It isn't automatic, but you may get prompted when you call the 800 number. This can also be done on the credot card companies' websites and by some other methods.
Still, it rankles to shop for products that have hidden fees, such as credit card fees and kickbacks.
The fees are charged to merchants, and the 1% or occasional 5% cashback goes to the customers. This may change.
Citibank also does the 5% cashback on selected categories for three months on some cards. I think these are offers you get via e-mail or snail mail.
The worse thing on Amazon is to use their own credit card, which, if you have their card, may be the default, so you have to change the method of payment every time.
The same thing goes for PayPal, which wants you to pay with Paypal itself and not the PayPal Extras Mastercard, which gives you 2% cash back - eventually. (A lot of other cashback cards now let you redeem any amount - at least if it is payng part or all of a purchase at Amazon.)
You can redeem the PayPal Extras points with gift cards, probably including Amazon, and you get a special redemption rate for each card maybe once a year. They may rotate - or is that some other company?
Well Sammy,
None of it beats the cash deal for services rendered by Mexicans. I hope my painters, gardeners and housekeepers never hobble me and themselves with such fee for nothing nonsense.
I can't see the portal.....? I might be missing something.
When I do my online Amazon shopping, I use the Instapundit link.
Mea culpa!
Sorry, I made some Amazon purchases recently, and failed to support your blog.
It's too boring to explain and any comic talent I might have is not oriented to making bureaucratic headaches funny.
That right there is funnier than last four anal related comments combined..
As an aside, reading sex toy reviews on Amazon frequently leads to dozens or hundreds of other reviews by same person.
Seems that plus size cat owner women reading romance and left wing books go for the
larger dildos fashioned after animal penis'.
There must be a study about that somewhere on the 'net
Sammy, it might be too penny ante, but what about a personal financial managers who audit your status and run tweaks on all your financial instruments? Rerun your car insurance, credit cards, mortgage, store cards, analyze your shopping, and actually continuously re-price your entire portfolio, as it were? As opposed to investment management, this is for non-investment funds, i.e. your nut, your burn rate, to finance that at maximum efficiency. I shall refer that to the innovations committee, I like it.
I Appreciate your blog posts and will do as much as i can with your amazon shopping cart! Small blogs make up the internet and we all need to support eachother!
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Personal arbitrage?
"Althouse provides a valuable blog -- a true exchange of ideas -- so, Yes, I'm shopping on Amazon, thru the Althouse portal."
Thanks, Bay Area Guy!
I really do appreciate the encouragement.
And I appreciate all the contributions in the form of "a true exchange of ideas."
jimbino: "Well Sammy, None of it beats the cash deal for services rendered by Mexicans."
For which the Mexicans should be quite grateful that there is a place, the US, to which they can go to gain useful employment and send money back to their families in the hell-holes in which they are forced to dwell due to fantabulous lefty policies.
Not to worry though. In a few years there will be just as much opportunity in the US as there are in the wonderful "peoples paradises" that surround us.
I recommend stocking up on toilet paper and food long before that of course since the left has proven.....incapable, of delivering such exotic luxuries as those.
The value of Althouse's daily in depth analysis of news, art, fashion, literature, and oh yeah Con Lam, is unmatched in verbal skill and succinctness. No gift back is too high.
traditionalguy said...
"The value of Althouse's daily in depth analysis of news, art, fashion, literature, and oh yeah Con Lam, is unmatched in verbal skill and succinctness. No gift back is too high."
I agree.
Unfortunately, I do not buy things from Amazon. I buy Insurance-Uncovered Meds, Shelter and Top Ramen.
Although I WILL be buying the camera for my shoe-string low budget film through the Althouse Portal.
And the props.
Which consist of two dildoes and a stuffed toy pony.
Seriously.
I am Laslo.
Mrs. and Mr. Althouse are most engaging when looking for handouts.
ndspinelli, how's your wife's novel selling? Well, I hope.
Is there any way we can COST you money? Or get you kicked off the affiliates program? Maybe order lots of stuff through you and then return it?
Laslo, how a man of your gifts is not rich...the shame of the world...haven't you ever heard of ransom? Even after you're done, most parents will take the kids back used.
Plus which, you can swing by again in a couple of years and see if she's learned anything...
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