An affiliate is someone who advertises your products on their website. When a visitor buys one of your pieces from them, they will get a commission. It's a bit like consignment, just online. Unlike consignment stores however, your pieces don't actually sit in the gallery, out of your hands. It's just a picture of your jewelry and a link to your store.
Affiliate programs are great because it gives you a chance at additional exposure. Imagine how many more sales you would get with 20 people advertising your items on their websites instead of just your one site. You can advertise another jeweler's items on your site as well and you'll make a commission for added revenue.
Instead of selling competing jewelry on your site, it's easier to sell something complimentary to your work such as books and DVD's about collecting gems, books on repairing or cleaning jewelry or magazine subscriptions. You can sign up at Amazon.com to sell any kind of product that you see fit. Amazon gives you a code (called a "widget") that you simply copy and paste into your website and it handles the order process automatically. And signing up is easy. This makes your site more professional and gives your visitors a variety of things to buy, and upselling opportunities for you.
An ecommerce system such as an online shopping cart has the technology to issue a special code to anyone that the cart can track when a sale is made. When a customer clicks on a link from another website and buys your item, the cart knows exactly which site it came from, giving the proper commission. It would be impossible to know where a visitor came from to get to your store to make a purchase without these systems.
Alka Dalal, MA. , MS., (NYU and Rutgers University) with many years of corporate experience, founded i-Speak Consulting to enable individuals to take a pro-active approach in being effective communicators in the workplace. She has enjoyed success with different careers, family life and business. She is thrilled to share the stories of her struggles and triumphs in spite of adversities with others, to help them build their dreams and succeed in their own ways and finding their own creativity.She draws upon her vast experience to provide valuable tips on how to succeed in today’s economy using great tool called Internet Marketing.