Reseller vs Affiliate - Which One Is For You?

Have not decide if becoming an affiliate is for you? Then how about becoming a reseller?

In this article, I will explain to you the similarities and differences between a reseller and an affiliate. You should read this if you are not yet familiar with either terms which are often used in the Internet Business and Marketing arena.

An affiliate is someone who earns a commission (variable) from selling other people's products. The product can be either physical or digital. Digital products can vary from E-books, software, templates or even more.

In another term, an affiliate is also known as an associate. Quite simply, an affiliate acts very much as a referrer. There is no need for an affiliate to do any selling as the principal sales letter will do all the selling job to the prospects referred by the affiliate.

In other words, the affiliate does the job of marketing and pre-selling to his or her prospects.

Affiliates can source for products to promote and sell for at affiliate product directories such as www.refer-it.com, www.clickbank.com and www.associateprograms.com.

On the other hand, a reseller is someone who sells product(s) and keeps 100% of the profit to him or herself. The products are usually electronic in nature, making it possible for the copies to be resold without the original owner losing the enjoyment of having the product he or she purchased.

In order to become a reseller for a particular product, you must be sure that the product has resell rights for which without it, you are not allowed to resell it on the Internet.

A reseller first purchase a product with resell rights from either one-page sales letter or related membership web sites.

In addition, it is possible for a reseller to earn residual income and back-end profits from their sales as the products can be customized with their own affiliate links.

Overall, resellers are usually more motivated than affiliates because resellers have to invest a sum of money in obtaining the product to resell and keep all the profits.

This is in contrary to the affiliates as there is no joining fee in becoming an affiliate. This is probably why most affiliates are not as motivated as they have never invested any money at all in becoming one.

Becoming a reseller involves some risk as one has to invest in purchasing the product from the principal's web site.

However, this should not be a problem as great principals usually provide a 90 day money back guarantee. If the reseller is unable to resell the product within the 90 days, the reseller can ask for a refund.

Both resellers and affiliates get their marketing materials from the principal web site for their marketing efforts. Affiliates are usually given an affiliate link to promote and ease the process of tracking down sales on the part of the principal.

Resellers, however, work independently. A reseller sets up his or her own page or web site with the given marketing materials (often called reseller packs) to start selling the product.

So which one is for you? If you prefer rewards over risk, becoming a reseller is probably the best choice for you. If you are risk-adverse, perhaps becoming an affiliate is a better option.

Given the pros and cons of both sides, it is clear which option is the best for you.

About the Author:
Edmund Loh is the author of the E-Biz Wiz Blog and Starting An Internet Business Special Report with over 6 years of web designing experience before he engaged in an Internet Business. Visit his website for more online business ideas and reseller tips. http://www.ebizmodelsyoucancopy.com/ebizwiz

MORE RESOURCES:

RELATED ARTICLES

Never Get Burnt by a Cycler Program Again!
A cycler or doubler that offers nothing of real value is likely a scam and for the most part is illegal. Check out what you are buying, and look at the cylcling or doubling as a bonus or rebate.

Launching Your Affiliate Program Correctly
To any Internet Marketer these days an affiliate program is absolutely essential marketing method of achieving a decent e-growth. Allowing others to promote your products or services can be the most efficient way of selling your products as you only pay for successful results, whether these are leads, sales Or traffic.

Why Many Affiliates Fail
The title is ugly, but the statistics don't lie. Only 1% of people that attempt to make worthwhile money from affiliate programs actually succeed.

Six Power Tips on Resell Rights
If you are planning to take the path of the reseller in your Internet Business undertakings, you will do well to use these power tips I have laid out for you. I hope you will find them useful as they have been for me.

Why Join 2 Tier Affiliate Programs?
Like the more common single tier affiliate programs, 2 tier affiliate programs are a great basis for web-based partnerships between merchants and affiliates. Merchants can focus their efforts on what they should do best-creating high quality products and getting them to customers.

How To Win The Affiliate Game
Are you frustrated with your affiliate programs?I used to be. Very frustrated! One day, in sheerdesperation, I wrote to one of my affiliateprograms and suggested that the market was nowsaturated with their product - it was no longerpossible to sell it.

5 Strategies to Boost Your Affiliate Sales
Are you promoting affiliate products?This article will show you 5 strategies to boost your Affiliate Sales, so make sure you read it and put in practice what I'm about to reveal you.The KEY to affiliate marketing is to take action!1.

Capitalizing On The Autosurfing Craze
You've heard about it in recent months, and its popularity seem to grow in leaps and bounds with each passing day.Paid to surf programs have been on the rise and with the monetary promises that have become the stalwart of their systems, more and more people are joining the bandwagon.

Soliciting Referral
Customer referrals are vital to small and home-based service businesses. When you need to increase sales but can't afford a salesperson and have limited selling time, focus on existing clients and let them do the selling for you.

Cant Find Any ClickBank Super Affiliates? Grow Your Own!
Affiliate marketing has become extremely popular, and ClickBank offers a large and growing network of affiliates to tap into, but only a tiny percentage of them know how to make the most of their web traffic. Countless studies have demonstrated the huge benefits of proper pre-selling, but most affiliates do little more than display their merchant's banner ads.

How to Succeed With Any Affiliate Program
In the early days before the internet was born, starting a business was like taking a giant leap into the unknown. Aside from the involved time and money, it also causes lots of worry.

How to Create Multiple Streams of Income, Part 2
A while back I wrote a little article called "My Vision of Multiple Streams of Income". After receiving several emails asking for a sequel and sharing more real life experience I decided to give an update on my journey with SFI and Stone Evans' PIPS system.

Affiliate Business : Ten Checklists for Your Success
While it can be quite easy to start an online business, not all people make a success. How then successful business man/woman could make it? Every successful business has its own story, however, there are some common factors that make a business hard to fell down.

Join in on the Success of the 2nd Wave of Affiliate Marketing
What do I mean by '2nd Wave'? ..

Are You Wasting Your Time In Pursuit Of Money?
There was a time when I had no idea how I could earn money on the net. I had just purchased my computer and got an internet connection.

Are You Making These Costly Affiliate Mistakes?
There are many ways to generate sales, but there are also ways to ensure your affiliate marketing will fail. However, many marketers make these mistakes without realizing they are actually running away sales!To help you with your affiliate marketing programs, we have collected some of the most common mistakes made by web based internet affiliate program marketers so that you can avoid making these.

Affiliate Web Site Pros, Cons and Getting Traffic
With the web these days growing at a substantial rate, just about everywhere you turn on the web, you will see offers to own your own web business. Many of these offers are legitimate businesses with real products and items waiting for you to open one of their affiliate sites and start selling.

Leverage Your Way to Profits With Joint Ventures
You can't conduct business on the internet for very long without hearing the term "Joint Venture", but do you really understand them or how and why a Joint Venture works?In broad, simple terms -- a Joint Venture is partnering with others to create a win/win situation for everyone involved.But just what does that mean? How do you identify a good Joint Venture situation? How do you structure the partnership so that everyone wins? How do you approach a potential Joint Venture partner? There are tons of questions, and I'll try to answer them all.

Ten Ways Affiliates Sabotage Themselves
If affiliate marketing is so lucrative, then why do so few ever turn a profit? Read on, and I'll tell you why.1.

23 Ways To Use An Ad Tracker
The ad tracker was originally developed to provide a record of all hits to a site resulting from ad placements. This article shows a host of different ways to utilise an ad tracker.