Wirecutter’s commerce operation comes in after our writers and editors have made all their picks.
At this point—and only at this point—our business-side colleagues determine where to send links for products (Home Depot or Amazon? REI or Backcountry?) based on a puzzle of price, a website’s ease of use, shipping costs, customer service, and, yes, affiliate rates.
“The reader experience doesn’t end when you leave our site,” says Wirecutter’s executive director of commerce, Leilani Han. “When we’re choosing the retailers we’re sending our readers to, we’re sending them somewhere we would personally want to shop. That’s taking into consideration things like the ease of returns or shipping costs, or even how easy it is to add something to your cart. The reader experience comes first—before we consider the monetization aspect.”
The commerce team also accounts for the effect that being featured on Wirecutter has on a retailer: The site has to have enough inventory to fulfill a potential influx of orders.
“A Wirecutter pick is only as good as your ability to purchase it,” Leilani says. “If you go to a site, and the product isn’t in stock, then what are you supposed to do? We do a lot of work to find retailers that have the infrastructure and inventory to support a good experience for our readers.”
Ensuring the quality of a reader’s experience is the primary goal. In some cases, Wirecutter makes no money at all on a pick, simply because the only high-quality retailer that sells the item doesn’t run an affiliate program.
We won’t ever send our readers to a site that’s frustrating to use or a retailer with excessive shipping costs simply to make money at the expense of our relationship to our readers.
