Links to other retailers on the toys forum...

Hi guys,

I'm posting this up on the team forum rather than mods forum because it involves discussion of our deal with BBTS... :)

I've noticed a thread on the forum letting folks know where they can buy the last handful of SDCC exclusive Mumm-Ra with Ma-Mutt from Icon Heroes that they made available at the con. The retailer who has them is Action Figure Express, who you could legitimately regard as a rival to BBTS, and so my first instinct was that the thread should be nuked... :)

However, the problem is that the Mumm-Ra with Ma-Mutt is only available from AFX, so if we nuke the thread we're denying fans information about where to buy the figure from, as they can't get it from anywhere else. This for me is where this starts to become a thorny issue! :(

Just as an FYI, MannyF also has a deal struck with BBTS for TCatsNOW (if you look at the front page of his site it uses the same banner that's on the front page of ours!), but he actually posted up a news item on his site telling folks about these being available from AFX. Whether BBTS are happy about him doing that is another matter entirely! ;)

Does the nature of our deal extend to nuking links to other rival North American companies if they're selling product that BBTS themselves don't / can't stock? If so, then this needs to be posted up on the Mods forum so that all the mods (myself included) can monitor the toys forum for inappropriate links and threads. :)

Anyway, here's the thread in question that I'm talking about: http://www.thundercatslair.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7183 . LMK your thoughts on this, guys! :)

Take care... :)

Links to exclusive items is ok, as we allowed the links to Toys R Us as well. However direct links to the regular toys, statues etc... should be nuked.

Saying "Yay I picked up my Lion-O here: www .toysrus.com/thundercats/liono and he is amazing!" isn't ok ;) However "Yay I found liono at toys r us today" is ok.

So direct links to anything other than exclusives outside of BBTS must go.

However FYI, BBTS have not imposed any stipulations on us, but I want to abide by these rules out of courtesy for them and to ensure this deal continues as it is lucrative to us simply in the fact we can buy the toys to photograph for the site without spending our own money on these.

Hope this explains things. As for MannyF's deal, I bet he is getting less than us in revenue or I hope he is!, since ThunderCatsLair gets more hits than him.

Chris here...

Hey Neil, that's all awesome and sounds very sensible all round - thanks for clearing that up for me as I wasn't sure! :thumbsup:

And, I agree with everything you say about BBTS, that's cool that they haven't imposed any stipulations but agree with you that we should show them courtesy for the chunky money that they're paying to advertise here. :)

As for MannyF, I'd imagine he's probably using some of the money from BBTS to help pay for the inflated eBay prices he's shelling out to be the first to review half these toys! :rolleyes:

Again, really appreciate you clearing that up, Neil! :)

Take care... :)

Guys in regard to Amazon.com links I had to temporarily nuke a post. I have assured the author we will put it back up once we have the links sorted.

I sent Chris and Manny the following email:

Manny,

Can you sort out Amazon.com affiliate links for all the ThunderCats toys they have up for pre-order, so I can post the links on the forum?

Then also send me an affiliate link for their ThunderCats toy section, which I can use for ads on the forums and front page!

Chris, do you think you could whip up a small jpeg or gif for the ThunderCats toys Amazon advert? We might have room for another ad with the other 2 ads up on the forum, so long as the 3rd ad isn't as wide as the first 2... and perhaps an ad for our front page to replace the Icon Heroes ad (who seem to have gone completely silent)

Hoping that you guys can sort this so we can also earn money from Amazon.com too!

Cheers

Neil Ive sent you the codes to use on the main site but will post later on the individual links to the items. I gotta head out to work right now.

Chris here...

Is this any good for an animated .gif (my first ever)? :)



Take care... :)

That looks great! I'll get it up now.

Chris here...

"blackiecats, post: 46018" said:

That looks great! I'll get it up now.

Glad this was OK - it requires the full version of Photoshop (I bankrupted myself and shelled out for the FULL Photoshop CS5 Extended a while ago), but if you have that, to be honest it's actually pretty straightforward to do! :)

I'll whip up something for the front page too, it will probably be very similar to this but just with different dimensions! :)

Take care... :)

Cool! But feel free to do that at your leisure. Our forums are the main hive of activity, so getting the banner up here was more important :)