Affiliate Products in Store

We can't get these. But people look for them.

[rocknbil]

I have a client with a (relatively) successful niche market. In this market, there are CD's, DVD's and videos relevant to the accessories the client is selling.

However, she cannot stock these items because they move very slowly and to buy a wholesale quantity that would create any kind of profit margin she'd have to buy more than could be moved in a reasonable amount of time. So say, example, she's have to buy 100 and would maybe move 2 or 3 a year. Not good. :-)

Second, many of these CD/DVD providers simply don't do wholesale. They give you 10% off. Period.

These are available retail everywhere else anyway (Amazon, eBay, etc.) But people come to her site looking for them, to the point of contacting and asking. You would think, well then, she should sell them - but it's just not cost effective, see above.

So we were toying with the idea of listing them on the site as affiliate links to the other "outlets." The affiliate widgets would appear along side other related products, but would be clearly marked as off-site items, "buy it from XYZ."

The first thought, of course, is once they leave the site they may not be back to buy the accessories, but it's been her experience that people come looking for a specific thing, and rarely delve into other areas - for example, if I buy a shirt, I'm not looking for hats or pants (anonymous reference.) Someone looking for DVD's or videos is not likely to be shopping for other things.

Or is this a deadly dangerous idea? I've already said, straight up, "I don't know." :-)

[lorax]

Are there any of her competitors that are already selling the DVDs or perhaps would like to that she feels comfortable enough to ask about splitting a 100 with?

[buckworks]

Test the affiliate idea and see how it goes.

Consider opening the links in a new window.

Also consider serving the affiliate links via a javascript include or an i-frame instead of adding a big chunk of new code directly on your pages. That would (probably) be less disruptive to the site's existing SEO balance.

This situation might be tailor-made for some of <a certain large site's> product carousel widgets, or similar.

EDIT: remove site name

[edited by: buckworks at 3:47 am (utc) on Mar 13, 2010]

[rocknbil]

Are there any of her competitors that are already selling the DVDs or perhaps would like to that she feels comfortable enough to ask about splitting a 100 with?

The competitors in this niche are sell-from-home amateurs who don't even order the items from the suppliers until they get orders, it takes 3-6 weeks to receive an item. This site delivers same/next day, 3-5 day deliver with priority. Their sites are horribly broken, very few of them actually work, if they do, it's all payPal only or "send me a check." I know that sounds snobby and horrible, but it's . . . true! So, not likely.

Consider opening the links in a new window. . . . some of <site name snipped> product carousel widgets, or similar.

I was trying not to name names, but, bingo. :-) They all open in new windows, and are Javascript-based. The concern there is popup blockers (topic for another day) and <company name snipped> widgets are definately blocked in the default settings of IE.

This site is ad-less, no adSense, no upsells or tricks, so yeah, don't want to upset that balance, and this would be a step in that direction (though she'd probably never cross the ad monetization line.)

I guess we're more concerned if the regular sales will take a hit and the affiliate income is not worth the risk.

[edited by: buckworks at 3:51 am (utc) on Mar 13, 2010]
[edit reason] Removed site name [/edit]

[buckworks]

Sorry about the edits, Rocknbil, I was careless and shouldn't have named a specific company.

Ad blockers are a permanent part of the landscape these days, so do some testing to figure out what's productive given that constraint. Blockers would be a concern for affiliate ads, but shouldn't affect your regular product displays, so it's still worth testing IMHO.

Try to plan your layouts so your pages won't look stupid if ads are blocked.

I guess we're more concerned if the regular sales will take a hit and the affiliate income is not worth the risk.

If affiliate ads undermine regular sales, you should be able to identify that trend within a few days. If that happens, then you tweak the ads somehow, or simply remove them.

Testing new ideas does indeed involve some risks, but if you're doing things right the risks are short term and limited. Kill the dud ideas as soon as their "dudness" becomes clear, and let the winners run.

[rocknbil]

Sorry about the edits..

No problem, but the one mentioned **is** an "authority site" and has been mentioned many times here. This is why I'd do poorly as a mod, seems like it's whatever way the wind blows . . . today. :-)

On first experimentation, the new window immediately threw up a red flag for me, and thought the "large site" would have addressed the problems this creates. Of cource we have no control over it, like AdSense you just drop in the code.

The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning toward a special section for these, the site is well divided in categories and the CD/DVD market is swamped with very little margin for profit anyway. While we were considering adding these as a "second category" item next to related products, a good way to go is to dedicate the CD/DVD/video category to pages with no other products. If it flies, then, maybe.

Surprised that no one else has tried this though.