This is a mall comprised of merchants who offer hefty affiliate programmes - unless a merchant looked too interesting to pass up, I wouldn't even consider affiliating unless my commission was at least $1, or 10% of the sale. The proceeds from my commission cheques will be donated to charity. If the monthly cheque is $50 or less, it will go into a VDA savings account, to be applied to future Gatherings and toward personal emergencies (say, a list member needs to move away from home FAST and has to scrape up money for a deposit, or has an unexpected medical bill and no health insurance). All proceeds over this $50 per month mark will be divided in half - one half to go to AIDS research and HIV prevention, the other half to be put into certificates of deposit, which will be applied to the purchase of land for our Renaissance festival, or used as collateral for a small business loan to fund said festival. (For more information about the VDA, click here) HIV prevention is an issue that is very important to us; we take public health education and disease prevention very seriously, and focus most of our community outreach on that.
As the weeks progress, I will be adding more affiliates, including some in services that you might not think of in terms of online shopping. Please consider shopping here before you shop anywhere else, including off the internet. There will be vendors offering not just the usual apparel, books, music, videos, toiletries, health products, and gift baskets, but also things like real estate, groceries (regular and gourmet), dining passes, movie passes, travel discounts, stocks and bonds (financial or paraphiliac!), private education at all levels, furniture - you name it. Keep checking back to see what new vendors might have been added. I won't be marking these as new, so you'll need to really browse (a not so sneaky way to encourage you to shop).
There are certain vendors that I refuse to advertise, due to my own beliefs. I won't advertise tobacco products. I know, it's closed minded of me, and those of you who smoke will do so anyway, but both my parents were chain smokers and my lungs are ruined as a result. I refuse to contribute to anyone's tobacco habit. That's just me. I won't advertise get rich quick schemes. I will advertise special interests or religious vendors, but not the ones who are actually bigoted as opposed to biased - so I'll advertise Catholic books (the Catholic church actually has a diverse number of lifestyles and views within it, even among the clergy) but not books by and for most "fundies," who tend to be rather uniform in belief (and uniformly against the lifestyles of most of the members of this organization). I'll advertise "save the whales" companies, but if the KKK ever starts up an affiliate programme, it can look elsewhere. Etc. finally, I refuse to advertise Net Nanny or similar censoring software. You want to keep the internet safe for kids? Fine. Keep your computer in your own study, and only let your kids use it under parental supervision or guidance. Chances are that if they want to look up "banned" information, they will find a way to do it, with or without the internet. I read Baudelaire when I was sixteen, and Sade when I was eighteen. Most of the really hardcore "adult" sites require a credit card to even get in, and your children shouldn't have that handy. Enough said.
For now, here are some limited links. Some book dealers; some perfumers, clothiers, drugstores, natural health vendors, jewelers. Again, there will be more added throughout the week. I hope to have the preliminary work done on this charity mall before Friday, November 3 (the day of the Gathering).
One more thing. Please click on the charity sites below (The Hunger Site, etc). It's free, it doesn't take long, and it saves lives.
Thank you for visiting!
Click here to shop for books, magazines, videos, CD's, etc