Tesco are 125th in my chart of top merchant earnings this August. So for me, having no Tesco codes on Shop Codes, is not really an issue financially, following the announcement we can’t publish them. Though I may need to explain to close friends why I’ve not included them.

As running a code site is my number one project today, I am concerned about the policies introduced from this and other major High Street brands from May 2007 about ‘code’ sites publishing codes. If Mothercare and Tesco have issues with codes, then other merchants are certainly following their concerns. Two are below.

I engage with merchants every other week about Exclusive codes and I discuss the issues …

- My exclusive code was used but not via your site
- You’re only delivering existing customers

I can disprove the latter with my clickthrough analytics, easily. In fact Webgains statistics also include referrer history.

Whilst code issues occur, I also agree to have a substantially reduced commission, so my visitors can have the discount instead. Where is that mentioned in all the anti-affiliate blog posts (1) (2) being posted this week?

There’s lots to address with promotional codes and it’s good to have an open debate so we can be clear on the official and unofficial rules that we should work to.

My site isn’t going away and the 13p commission made from Tesco this month is appreciated. Maybe. After all. Every little helps.