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In around three weeks my website Link hidden: Login to view will be ready. I have already bought the domain name and a team of professionals are working for the web design. My website will target the market niche of dogs and training and will actually have a variety of e-books training products, toys, clothing and generally anything that will have to do with dogs.I will make a great website which I am planning to promote a lot and I would be pleased if you could help me to take the right decision for my online store. Should i prefer work with Amazon as an associate or select a dropshipper and cooperate? I thought that by affiliate with Amazon I will gain commission but Amazon will have the right to market my customers and this will make creation of a customer database harder. I don't want to have one time customers only that will refer to Amazon at the end of the day. What do you think? Please help me to take the right decision. Thanks in advance

Lambros

Hi wolfheart,

You can actually do both, as affiliate marketing is way different from having your own store and selling through drop shipping.

Amazon Associates earn by referring buyers to Amazon listing/products and they get paid a commission if the customer makes a purchase. In effect, they do not actually sell any product, nor collect any payment from buyers. Their websites will act as a referral engine/marketing. Similar to other affiliate programs, once a sale has been made, Amazon pays the affiliates/associates commission, usually on a monthly basis. The percentage for commission varies per product (I think at max 15%).

An obvious advantage with affiliate marketing is that it is relatively stress free :) You do not need to attend to customer for support, no need to worry about product fulfillment, because once you have referred a customer you just get paid with a commission. :)

Dropshipping products from your own online store entails a lot of work. Even though you are not the one sending or fulfilling the product, since the customers bought from "your store", you need to deal with customer issues - delivery, product quality, returns, etc. That is why choosing a reliable drop ship supplier is crucial. :)

The main point though is that selling through your own online store will help you make more money than if you sell as an affiliate, because with your own store you can set your own profit margin/pricing (as much as 50 to 75%?) as compared with the limited rate to earn from affiliate sales. :)

I'm looking forward to see the home of something quite cool. :)

Best of luck to your endeavor! :)

Affiliate marketing is in every conceivable way superior to "independent seller" level dropshipping (I say "independent seller" because dropshipping is actually an old, established, totally non-controversial business practice that simply has been co-opted by the make-money-from-home business to sell to suckers.) There is simply no comparison, despite the way it is presented in some venues.

No price competition You don't have to spend your life looking for a good supplier with "high markups" (as if this even exists with most dropshippers) you simply find the best retailer that has an affiliate program and go with it.

No customer service hassles.

Little to no cash outlay vs. the myth that dropshipping is risk-free (it's only risk free if you aren't burning up your cash advertising those overpriced refurb items that will probably turn out to be out of stock once you finally get an order.)

You always have the hottest, newest, coolest stuff; typically have fast and/or free shipping available to your customers, never have to worry about getting ripped off and having to refund people out of pocket, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Seriously, no matter how hard it gets pimped here, nothing can polish the turd of "independent seller" level dropshipping.

Frank

Thank you very much for your comments.I believe that affiliate sector through a research i have made is much more promising.As for the customers that i will refer i will keep their data to use it for promotional newsletters and marketing.When you are dealing as an associate with amazon improves the whole image of your website and a customer i think would prefer to buy from you an amazon product with a well known reputation in the market using amazon checkout instead of risk and buy from an unknown retailer.

Lambros

Hi Lambros,

Should you wish to pursue affiliate marketing you might want to check out Affilorama.com - a training centre and online community for aspiring affiliate marketers. You can join for FREE and get to a take advantage of their comprehensive guide to all aspects of affiliate marketing, enabling those on even the tiniest of budgets to get up and running. Over 85 video tutorials (with accompanying PDF notes) cover how to build your own website, promote it using SEO and monetize with affiliate marketing and PPC.

Cheers :)