# [advice]Affiliate program for your shop



## dvirhazout (Oct 20, 2008)

Hell mates,

I don't have a t-shirts shop but I do understand in marketing so here's a little advice for t-shirts stores owners-

make an affiliate program in your website offering credit on the website per refferal. 
what will you get from this?
People that promote your website like it was theirs, doing what they can for finding you customers that will make them self profit.
you can also make a coupon or 2 and then websites will be opened to offer the coupon codes with the refferal link of them.
Add 2-3$ to your retail price for each t-shirt and then give coupons that let you save 3$. that's the way you'll give coupons and earn as you used to as well.

I hope it will help you guys


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## Solmu (Aug 15, 2005)

On the other hand, you get people promoting your brand who don't care about it the way you do. They don't have the same sense of professionalism or responsibility, and at the end of the day they can walk away with nothing truly invested. Consequently they can harm your branding by using tacky gimmicks, advertising in irresponsible ways, and ignoring community guidelines.

It's not uncommon to see members of affiliate programs spam forums for example. The greater the rewards, and more prominent the company, the more likely that is to happen.

To be sure affiliate programs can bring in extra sales. They can be a very good idea. But they are not without their downsides, and it's certainly worth thinking long and hard about whether or not they're a good fit for your brand. And more specifically, whether or not you want to put your brand's name and reputation in the hands of complete strangers who don't necessarily have the best of intentions.


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## jkruse (Oct 10, 2008)

I'm looking into this. I'm on bigcartel so I'm not sure how it would be possible to run an affiliate program on there.


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## goodshipp (Jul 21, 2010)

A t-shirt shop is dead in the water without an affiliate program, in my opinion. That is why people sell better on Zazzle or Cafepress, other people are generating traffic for you. The benefits outweigh the risks, IMO. However, I have found that there are no fulfillment services and few drop shippers that can integrate your affiliate network into their services. The first fulfillment service to do so will blow all the others out of the water. That is the next step that these services should take. Most of them use Paypal, which integrates easily with almost every affiliate software out there. These fulfillment services should be offering affiliate services as well, as an add-on.


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## TeesForChange (Jan 17, 2007)

thanks for the advice! i do want to chime in about affiliate programs. like any marketing efforts, this takes time and you have to design banners for your affiliates, as well as keep in constant communication with them so they can promote your shirts. and you have to offer a good percentage commisison (at leaset 15-20% to make it worth their time)


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