UKNM: Competition law/regulation on the web ?

[thepartnership]

Chris Moisan wrote


>Anyone know of any regualtions or experience of running competions on the

>web - >such as a prize draw ?

>Any help or pointers gratefully received.


A couple of points:


1. Cost of handling/judging.


A free prize draw is far cheaper as your handling house just picks the

winner(s)   at random (supervised by an independent judge). Competitions

need to be sorted into correct/incorrect and if appropriate, tie breakers

judged - if consideration is involved, you need a tie breaker. Much more

expensive.


Also it's much easier to enter an on-line promotion (no getting stamps etc)

therefore expect a much higher response than say, running something

on-pack. If you pay the handling house per entry, which is normal, can be

expensive. With a draw try negotiating a fixed fee - this won't work with

competitions though.


2. Professional entries


Watch out for entries by organisations which enter draws on consumer's

behalf in return for a one off payment.


This means that you can get many many more entries than you expect which

can clog up your server (if by e-mail) and if you're paying your handling

house by the the entry, you end up paying more than you budgeted.


3. No Purchase Necessary entries


NPN's are used to get round running a Free Prize Draw apparently linked to

purchase. However, these professional entry companies can still enter.

Therefore avoid a large number of low value prizes in the main Free Prize

Draw and stick to one or two big ones, otherwise it will cost you a

fortune.


There's also various rules you can put in to deter these professional claims.


If anyone wants more information on this, suggest you email me off list.


Kind regards


Russell Buckley

The Handling Partnership

russellthepartnership [dot] co [dot] uk

http://www.thepartnership.co.uk

ecommerce fulfilment * promotional handling *

mail order * telebusiness * mailings *

email response handling

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