Dropshipping Vs. Affiliation – Which Solution to Choose?

You want to start your online business but you’re hesitating between dropshipping and affiliation? Here is my complete opinion on the matter.

When you want to make money and start a real web business, there are several ways.

Among these means, there is currently dropshipping, which is very popular, and affiliation, especially with Amazon.

With all the mass of information that the internet offers, we can quickly get lost and finally not get started because we don’t know which direction to go in… big mistake.

Read on if you want to know more!

What’s dropshipping?

Maybe you already know a lot about dropshipping, maybe you’ve even gotten into it, but if you don’t know what it is, let me explain!

Simply put, dropshipping (or drop-shipping) is a way to set up an e-commerce shop without stock.

You’re not even the sender. Your role is to act as an intermediary between the Internet user and the wholesaler.

So you outsource the entire supply chain. Perfect for starting an e-commerce business at low cost!

To summarize the principle of dropshipping, here are the key steps:

1. You’re setting up an e-commerce store
2. You make sales through advertising, SEO, etc…
3. You’re taking money from sales
4. You order the products from the suppliers
5. The supplier takes care of sending the package.
6. You manage the after-sales service (which you can delegate).

But beware, there are not only advantages to dropshipping.

If you would like to know more, I invite you to read this interesting article entitled What is Dropshipping ?

Can we do dropshipping other than with Shopify?

Yes. Dropshipping itself is just a way of set up an online store.

You can for example contact local suppliers and build your site in WordPress with WooCommerce for the online commerce part.

Having said that, when you start out, it’s important not to scatter and stay on the beaten track.

Afterwards, when you get some experience, you can try new things but if you’re just starting out, I recommend Shopify which will make your life easier by the power of 1000!

Shopify has many advantages and even if it’s paid for, it’s relatively inexpensive. Among the advantages, I can quote you:

• Usability: The most user-friendly and ergonomic e-commerce solution
• Design: Tons of attractive themes
• Applications : The best plugins to configure your shop
• Support: The best customer service I know
• Dropshipping: Completely designed for dropshipping

And there are even more good reasons to use Shopify…

If you want to know about other platforms like Shopify that allow you to do dropshipping easily, there are BigCommerce (which I have not tested), WooCommerce or Volusion.

By the way, if you’re looking for a theme that’s both versatile and really cheap, check out this article: What is the best Shopify theme?

You’re interested in dropshipping but you want to know about membership, right? Read more!

Affiliation, what is it?

Affiliate Marketing is, like dropshipping, a way to build a business and make money online (or offline, the principle also works).

So, how are you going to make money from the affiliation?

By promoting products and services that are not yours but on which you will earn a more or less important commission on each sale!

To put it simply, your only task is to bring traffic to a page X or a site that will, through its branding and copywriting, make the sale.

There are several methods and platforms that provide affiliation.

The perfect affiliate commissions

Before I introduce you to affiliate platforms, I would like to tell you a little bit about the different types of compensation.

There are several of them and if your goal is to build something over the long term, you can count on recurring commissions.

This means offering subscriptions or software in affiliation because these will bring you earnings every month. It’s called evergreen and it’s the best.

Also, large commissions for example on expensive training courses costing several hundred dollars will enable you, with one or a few sales, to earn an excellent salary every month.

By the way, how do you make an affiliation? Thanks to the following platforms!

Affiliate with Amazon

I’m starting with the most famous platform, Amazon.

The program Amazon Partner allows you, after a simple registration, to earn commissions on a very wide range of products in the Amazon catalog.

Here’s how to do it…

After registering, enter a product in the search bar that you want to sell, for example, a chair…

Then choose your products and click on Get Link.

Finally, paste your link on your site, in an article, etc.

You see it’s really very simple to affiliate with Amazon.

However, there are some disadvantages such as cookies – which will allow you to capture the sale – which are far from being optimized and commissions are very low.

Make affiliation with dedicated platforms

By going through dedicated platforms, your commissions will be much higher.

Affiliate platforms are very serious and that is why commissions are sometimes high.

However, in order to get into certain, you will need to have a small community, an audience.

For a minority, the entry to these platforms is done on a case-by-case basis, you will have to answer a survey and you will receive an answer a few days later.

Here are some platforms that have an excellent reputation and that I use for some of them:

ClickBank

ClickBank is probably the best known affiliate platform in the market, not to mention Amazon’s.

It offers a wide range of digital products from the infopreneurship and also physical products with good commissions.

The main disadvantage of ClickBank is that it unfortunately almost only offers digital products such as training courses in English.

Everyone can sign up freely, and that’s one of ClickBank’s biggest strengths.

Awin

Another mastodon, a bit like ClickBank, Awin offers more classic products.

One of the biggest advantages of Awin is that it offers well-known products such as mobile phones or Orange plans.

Which means almost no marketing to do, you put the link on social networks, on a site or whatever and Orange’s brand image will do the rest!

You’ll have much less trouble selling this kind of product because it’s already known to the general public. That means less content to create around it!

MaxBounty

MaxBounty is also an affiliate platform. They offer campaigns to launch with excellent remuneration, look at…

When you sign up, an Affiliate Manager will be assigned to you and can help you if you have any questions.

MaxBounty is not perfect and for some campaigns you will need a minimum amount of traffic as well as a minimum amount of time in the program.

Other sites to make affiliation

Did you think it was over? No!

There are endless possibilities to earn money on the internet.

Many sites offering digital services or products have an affiliate section in English.

Look at websites in the niche you are interested in and you can be sure that if they offer paid services and products, they will also propose a affiliate program.

Sometimes it’s well hidden, look in the footer menu, it’s often there.

So, affiliation or dropshipping?

I think that we should not decide between one and the other and rather think in terms of complementarity.

You should not see dropshipping vs. affiliation but dropshipping + affiliation.

Indeed, you can very well have a dropshipping shop with a blog proposing affiliation on products that you cannot sell, it’s entirely possible.

Method of mixing dropshipping and affiliation

In order to adopt a complementarity between dropshipping and affiliation, here is a method that works and mixes the two.

1. Set up an e-commerce shop in dropshipping with Shopify by offering products from your suppliers.
2. Also write articles on your blog designed to sell your products, and others to propose complementary services in affiliation that you do not sell on your shop.
3. Enjoy!

That’s it, it’s no more complicated…

Or you can choose to set up a business only through affiliation, after all, many entrepreneurs make a very good living only through affiliation!

Set up a blog, that’s what I’m doing with this one personally.

To make it simple

Dropshipping and affiliate marketing are just two of the many ways to make money online and start a business.

Both have distinct advantages and disadvantages. You have enormous opportunities to make a living from them.

There is no point in opposing them, but rather to think about using both, whether in one and the same business or in several!