Well, I guess no one read the disclosure at the bottom of the page.
The manufacturer provided complimentary samples of the products in this review with no obligation required to publish a review. Some links in this review may be affiliate links: if you click on a link and place an order with one of our affiliate merchant partners, Backpacking Light receives a small commission on the sale, at no extra cost to you. These commissions help support our website and create new content – and we’re grateful for your support.
It says there “may be affiliate links”
That isn’t correct. There are affiliate links. Afilliate links mean if you click on a product link and purchase the product or any other product with 30 days BPL will receive an 8% commission on the sale. The average sale through this merchant is $322.84. The conversion rate (percent of sales from affiliate links) is small, 0.84%. Although I would guess BPL would have a higher conversion rate.
Here are the full URL for the two links:
https://www.hyperlitemountaingear.com/repurpose-bottle-black.html?avad=189374_a12ecd251
https://www.hyperlitemountaingear.com/?avad=189374_f12ebd681
In each link link you will see “avad=“ and that indicates the affiliate link is using the affiliate company, AvantLink.
How do I know? Because I use the same affiliate program on my blog. However, on my blog I don’t review anything that is provided to me for free (like this article), nor anything that is loaned to be, nor anything that is sold to me with the expectation of a review. To be honest, I am rarely offered any product anyway, as I am not any kind of expert. One exception was a book I was going to buy anyway. In that case I was offered a free book with the expectation of a review. I declined, but asked if I could buy a pre-release copy at full retail, which was sold to me.
I do ocassionally review backpacking and camping stuff. Normally, unlike most reviews in magazines and websites, I review things I have used over a long period of time. Sometimes I will write a “first impression” of something I have recently purchased and I try to emphasize this.
BPL used to be one of the most objective editorial sites on the web. Now too much content is just “click bait” to sell stuff. I am not against affiliate marketing — I use it. I try to be upfront about this. I once did a post similar to some of the “recommended gear” articles I see here, except in the opening paragraph I stated that my goal was to make sales and generate income. I probably don’t always do a stellar job informing my readers, but I try.
This phenomenon today is disheartening. I even wrote a post about it, http://popupbackpacker.com/the-business-of-backpacking/
I suppose the moderators will probably delete this post or ban me from BPL.
Oh well, BUYER BEWARE.
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