Q: One of the many hats that I wear is visual merchandiser in the retail sector. Part of my responsibility to distribute multiple goods to form a display at malls in Vegas and CA. Multiple items from multiple vendors; up to 12 items. How do I get a non-affiliate traditional online manufacturer (i.e acrylic signs) to fit a traditional affiliate program? Example: my retail client needs a merchandise setup of 3 racks, 2 shelves, and 2 acrylic signs. I would be happy to set up a way to sell the products from my own site but I don’t want to manufacture nor ship them. What would you suggest. Most retail companies are archaic when it comes to affiliate. Any and all ideas welcome:)
A: First, search around more, because there are plenty off B2B affiliate programs. There may already be a vendor out there supplying these goods, who has an affiliate program, who you haven’t come across.
In your case, try one of your keeywords with affliate program (i.e. acrylic sign affiliate program).
Also, if you want to see if a particular site has an affiliate program, since some do a great job of hiding their affiliate programs, run a search like this in Google: site:acrylicsignworld.com affiliate
If those two methods fail, it could well be that there are no affiliate programs for the particular niche, because the companies don’t want to do it, or have no idea about affiliate marketing.
In this scenario, you’re going to be spinning your wheels if you set out to sell them on an affiliate program just so you can promote them.
It’s a pretty big undertaking for them to get started with an affiliate program, so if they don’t have one, try working out a relationship where they’ll provide a unique coupon code or something to track your referrals.