Ecommerce affiliate site

Krass · Jun 26, 2016

How do I use woocommerce to build an ecommerce affiliate site? I'm not going to use amaZon, but a local ecommerce outfit. Send traffic to them and earn commissions.

So far I've been getting income from this and want to scale.

Future State · Jun 26, 2016

You determine the quality of the answers you receive by the quality of your questions. You've just asked an extremely broad question.

I'd hack out the cart and the ability to create accounts. Remove the quantities and other options surrounding actual purchasing. Change the Add to Cart buttons to become your affiliate links and set up custom fields to populate them with the right links.

The more I sit here and slap my brain around over this question the more I think you shouldn't use WooCommerce. It's not the right platform for your stage in the sales funnel. You'll have to deconstruct the hell out of it to have it make any sense.

I'd take a look at sites like www.Uncrate.com and see how they do this type of thing, and see how I could expand it to make sure my pages are ranking if thats your goal. Otherwise, they are set up perfectly for social.

Krass · Jul 4, 2016

Future State said:
You determine the quality of the answers you receive by the quality of your questions. You've just asked an extremely broad question.

I'd hack out the cart and the ability to create accounts. Remove the quantities and other options surrounding actual purchasing. Change the Add to Cart buttons to become your affiliate links and set up custom fields to populate them with the right links.

The more I sit here and slap my brain around over this question the more I think you shouldn't use WooCommerce. It's not the right platform for your stage in the sales funnel. You'll have to deconstruct the hell out of it to have it make any sense.

I'd take a look at sites like www.Uncrate.com and see how they do this type of thing, and see how I could expand it to make sure my pages are ranking if thats your goal. Otherwise, they are set up perfectly for social.

Thanks for this. It's a really broad question because I have no knowledge at all about this. What I've been doing all along is just writing long reviews and linking to the products within the article. I see sites like thisiswhyimbroke and the site you listed above and wonder how to do the same.

Androo · Jul 8, 2016

Did you post this question on Linkedin too? I am sure I saw it on there.

ryandiscord · Jul 10, 2016

Not sure the capabilities of the affiliate you are using but if you can pass on multiple items and quantity, you could redirect them to the affiliate on checkout. This way cross sell/upsell is in your control. I have a site that does this with Amazon and I have been thinking of ways to redirect to other affiliate partners, ebay and other small merchants, etc. I like the idea suggested above, changing out the add to cart buttons to the appropriate affiliate links.

bat-man · Jul 12, 2016

There is no need to hack anything. Woocommerce already allows the use of affiliate links. Under the product type just choose external/affiliate product. U should visit woothemes.com that created woocommerce their documentation is useful. Or do a YouTube search that works too. Question is do you need something as heavy as woocommerce?

ryandiscord · Jul 12, 2016

bat-man said:
There is no need to hack anything. Woocommerce already allows the use of affiliate links. Under the product type just choose external/affiliate product. U should visit woothemes.com that created woocommerce their documentation is useful. Or do a YouTube search that works too. Question is do you need something as heavy as woocommerce?

That is awesome! I didn't know that was a feature. And yes, Woocommerce is heavy, see my pingdom post for proof. However, I'm in the process of stripping my theme down and I'm now close to getting a woocommerce theme to load under 700ms. You can make a pig fly but there are probably lighter options out there.

Anton Bacaj · Jul 27, 2016

If you are building an affiliate website, why do you need woocommerce at all?

Strictly speaking for amazon, the links are just links - you don't need anything except a front-end page, taken from amazon:

" Your links will include your Associate tag and you will be paid for qualifying sales coming through this link."

ryandiscord · Jul 28, 2016

Anton Bacaj said:
If you are building an affiliate website, why do you need woocommerce at all?

Strictly speaking for amazon, the links are just links - you don't need anything except a front-end page, taken from amazon:

True but it has its benefits. Give your users a regular shopping experience with Amazon as your checkout point. Combine items into a single cart. Easily set up related products, filters, sale pages, product ratings and reviews.

It's a more direct approach, you are selling a product as opposed to just convincing someone they need it with a review or subtly linking it in your content. Then if you want to take the less direct approach you could in a blog section.

Anton Bacaj · Jul 29, 2016

ryandiscord said:
True but it has its benefits. Give your users a regular shopping experience with Amazon as your checkout point. Combine items into a single cart. Easily set up related products, filters, sale pages, product ratings and reviews.

It's a more direct approach, you are selling a product as opposed to just convincing someone they need it with a review or subtly linking it in your content. Then if you want to take the less direct approach you could in a blog section.

While I do tend to agree that it can be better suited as a full featured store, that kind of defeats the purpose of having amazon links. The user will realize it's not your product anyway so why do they have a cart on your site and Amazon's site? Amazon has an excellent shopping experience - why would you reinvent it only to add more complexity to your users.

Majority of the features you mentioned can be done without a backend.

Take this website for example, http://bestreviews.com - they clearly have nothing in the backend strictly content that claims the items are the best in their category. They don't obscure the fact that the items are not theirs.

ryandiscord · Jul 29, 2016

I see your point. My site is set up where I can switch it between cart and direct link. I'll try it out. I do see some combined purchases but, that may not be worth using my own cart process. I use the Amazon products API so it keeps the prices updated and I use special links that send users to a cart confirmation page, that streamlines it a bit.

Cart aside, the shopping experience can definitely be improved by custom tailoring it to your niche with better categorization, filters and supporting content but, to your point, you don't need woocommerce to do it.

I love the ThisIsWhyImBroke approach. it feels like a shopping experience, with filters, product categories and pages but no cart, just direct affiliate links.

http://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/gifts/gifts-for-geeks/gifts-for-computer-geeks

Anton Bacaj · Jul 30, 2016

ryandiscord said:
I see your point. My site is set up where I can switch it between cart and direct link. I'll try it out. I do see some combined purchases but, that may not be worth using my own cart process. I use the Amazon products API so it keeps the prices updated and I use special links that send users to a cart confirmation page, that streamlines it a bit.

Cart aside, the shopping experience can definitely be improved by custom tailoring it to your niche with better categorization, filters and supporting content but, to your point, you don't need woocommerce to do it.

I love the ThisIsWhyImBroke approach. it feels like a shopping experience, with filters, product categories and pages but no cart, just direct affiliate links.

http://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/gifts/gifts-for-geeks/gifts-for-computer-geeks

Nice I do like the approach that website has taken. That is definitely reasonable and makes sense. It lets you save items instead of having you keep a cart etc.

Is it just me or is that website lacking in content? Seems like they just put up some quick links to make some affiliate cash hehe.

ryandiscord · Jul 31, 2016

Thin or not, it seems to be working for them. :happy:

Shimmy · Aug 1, 2016

ryandiscord said:
Thin or not, it seems to be working for them.

This is a thread from the owner him/her-self. Apparently they couldn't get it to grow any further, but that looks to have changed.

"85% of all of our commissions come from products purchased on Amazon that we didn't even feature on the site."

"We post 6-12 new products every single day."

"We e-mail our userbase of 300k once a week, the engagement is strong at a 30% open rate but the sales generated from it is very low."

" However it's important to keep in mind that the average user is coming to the site for entertainment purposes, not so much to shop."

Also interesting:
Redditor: "I don't think i've been back in like a year because the products at the top of the page are still the same from the last time I was on the site"
ThisIsWhyImBroke: "We made it so that on your first visit you are displayed the "popular" products, and on consequent returns you are always displayed the "newest" products"

ryandiscord · Aug 1, 2016

Nice find! I wonder where they left off with the community idea.

I'm surprised email isn't a strong performer for them, I bet it would be better if they used it to show more realistic items to buy.