Affiliate/ebay

Hi,This is an idea I've played with for a while. Suppose you were an affiliate for some kind of product that costs money, but isn't something that is often sold at a discount or sold used. And suppose you put auctions for that product up on eBay. And the person who buys it sends you the money through Paypal, then you log in through your affiliate link, make the purchase on the customer's behalf, have it shipped to the customer, then make your money on the backend commission.Is this a potentially useful affiliate model? Has anyone tried this?It's not something I have personal experience with. I'm just wondering about other folks who aren't interested in building content websites but want to make some affiliate revenue.

Well, theoretically, this model works. But if you look at it from a practical perspective, it lacks one of the most important features -- no, benefits -- of affiliate programs... passivity!

Almost all affiliate programs are designed in a way that lets you focus on convincing potential customers to perform the action most wanted by the affiliate program owner, e.g. a sale/a lead/ a subscription, etc. As soon as you refer those potential customers, you don't have to do any more work... well, at least you don't have to bother with technical or financial details.

So if we try to apply the model you proposed, we will lose this feature/benefit. Not only that, but we'll also be burdened with another very consuming task: taking care of our auctions. And trust me, if you've played the auction game for a while, you'll know it's no piece of cake .

There are other factors that could be discussed here, but all in all, my opinion would be to ditch this idea. The time and effort wasted into it can be more productively used in other areas, e.g. increasing affiliate traffic, starting an auction business altogether, learning how to parachute, and a myriad of other things .

But still, thank you for introducing the idea. If nothing else, I enjoyed thinking about it. And hopefully, someone will have a contradictory point of view and we'll have a good discussion going on .

Cheers.

You present an interesting twist to the traditional concept of distributorship. Amazon, or whatever affiliate you have, will provide the products, while you merely sell them. You keep the commission and however much you mark up the price on eBay. On second thought, that sounds like you are the distributor and the front end seller, which is a double whammy for profit.Although you lose the benefit of passively earning money, as tamer3kz pointed out, you will probably earn more profit by taking a proactive stance. There is nevertheless one possibly glaring problem. Some affiliate merchants strictly prohibit the direct or indirect personal purchase of their products. Given the model that you propose, you could argue that the purchases are not for your personal use. On the other hand, that is not immediately apparent to the merchants. Moreover, regardless of who the ultimate recipients of the products are, I would not be surprised that merchants interpret their policies to include reselling by affiliates as a violation of their terms.As far as I know, Amazon and a few other affiliate programs hold by the above policy. But, if you can find an affiliate program that is not as strict, then your business model could potentially work. Good luck and do keep us informed on your progress.