Can a retail store earn income from affiliates?
The margins you have in retail can often only be changed by either upping your retail price, or negotiating discounts with your suppliers, so what is there was another way of earning extra revenue in your business, without purchasing products? Wouldn't it be awesome if you could have extra cash coming into your business, without outlaying for products? Imagine if you could offer products and services to your clients that for whatever reason, you can't stock in your store? Well, you can. It's called affiliate income. [Tweet " So what exactly is affiliate income?"] Essentially, it's where your company is paid a referral fee for selling a product or service for another company. Now before you run off thinking pyramid selling, or multi level marketing, that's NOT what affiliate income is about. The key to making this work, without looking all douche bag salesy, is to find products or services that your customers could clearly benefit from, and that you truly believe to be in line with your brand.
Let's give a couple of examples, and I tend to find they relate to services, for product based businesses like retail stores. If you own a ladies fashion store, you might find someone who runs a styling course or a makeup course that you think your customers would love.You then advertise this service on social media, in your newsletter, in store - wherever your customers are at with a special link that your supplier will give you. When your customers purchase the item, you are automatically given a referral fee. Perhaps you're a children's store. You could team up with an in-home styling, or parenting workshops. The amount that you get paid is either going to be a set fee, or a percentage of the amount your customer spends with your affiliate. As such, you need to think about how much you could potentially earn, versus how much time and money you will put into advertising your affiliate. Be warned though, you can't just put up a sign and hope for the best. Like any product in your store, the affiliate has to be sold to earn its place in the store. Now you can rotate the offers, to be in line with your monthly editorial calendar, or maybe you just have one thing your customers repeatedly want. Either way, there is the potential to earn significant revenue streams outside of just selling the products in your store. In addition, you're providing a better experience for your customer base, and best of all, are being completely different to your competitors. I'd love to hear what you sell and one product or service that you could investigate right now, that your customers would benefit from. Comment below and have a fab day!
