Affiliate Marketing vs Ecommerce: Which Is Better for You?

As a beginner, you might find it challenging to choose the right business model, learn which is easier to get into, and know what it takes to start getting profitable results.

Fortunately, by exploring those two models efficaciously, you can understand the type of model that’ll suit you and what it takes to succeed.

In this article, we’ll explore affiliate marketing vs ecommerce, their differences and similarities, which is better, the one that’s beginner-friendly, and more.

Let’s dive in.

Affiliate Marketing vs Ecommerce: Differences and Similarities

Affiliate marketing is a business model in which you promote other people’s products and earn commissions for successful sales. On the other hand, ecommerce is another business model in which you use online platforms and tools to sell your products to consumers.

Let’s explore how those two differ and in which facets they are similar.

Differences Between Affiliate Marketing and Ecommerce 

Risk Levels

Affiliate marketers face fewer risks since they don’t have any products to sell. Moreover, they don’t have to worry about whether their marketing strategies will work.

Ecommerce owners, on the other hand, face greater risks in terms of succeeding in the business, retaining customers, and investing in marketing strategies.

Business Size

Affiliate marketers usually don’t have a large number of people working with them. They just need a few people to take care of content creation, SEO, and online presence.

In contrast, ecommerce owners can have a larger group of people working with them, as ecommerce requires producers, marketers, SEO experts, content creators, and so on.

Income Source and Size

Affiliate marketers earn their income through the commissions they get from the products’ owners. So their income depends on things like commission rate, product type, and number of commissions earned. What about an affiliate marketer’s income size? The average salary of an affiliate marketer is $82,015 per year.

As for ecommerce owners, their income comes from the profit they make from sold products. Regarding an ecommerce owner’s income size, the average salary of an ecommerce businessperson is $112,891 per year.

Similarities Between Affiliate Marketing and Ecommerce 

Online Marketing

Both affiliate marketing and ecommerce are under the digital marketing umbrella; they all operate with the help of online tools and platforms.

Easy to Get Started

In each of those modes, it seems easy to get the ball rolling. However, when something is easy to start, there’s no guarantee that it’s easy to succeed in it.

Data-Driven Decisions

As an affiliate marketer or ecommerce owner, you use data analytics tools to track your progress and make decisions and optimizations based on the data analyzed.

Which Is Better: Affiliate Marketing or Ecommerce?

Now we’re at it. Which of those two is better for you as a beginner? There’s no generally perfect answer to that question. It all depends on how you define the word “better.” You might think better means easier to get into, more profitable, or less time-consuming.

Concisely, affiliate marketing is better for you if you’re looking for a low-cost, easy, and less time-consuming business. In comparison, ecommerce will be better if you’re ready to do the work and get profitable results by having an established ecommerce store.

To dive deeper into understanding which is better for you, let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

Affiliate Marketing Pros and Cons

Pros

Easier to Get Into

Are you looking for which one is easier to get into? Welcome to affiliate marketing. It’s easier to get into compared to ecommerce. To get into affiliate marketing, you just need

• An affiliate marketing blog
• Blog visitors
• Products to promote

So affiliate marketing is way easier to start than ecommerce, as it requires less start-up cost or capital. The cost of starting affiliate marketing is usually not more than $350.

Immediate Income Generation

As easy as it is to start affiliate marketing, sometimes you will start earning money within the first six months. On the other hand, ecommerce owners might take up to a year or several years before they start turning profits.

Less Time-Consuming

Affiliate marketing is definitely less time-consuming compared to ecommerce. An affiliate marketer writes blog content in which they insert affiliate links; that’s all. What’s more, affiliate marketing takes a shorter period to succeed. It also demands less time from the affiliate marketer, as ecommerce owners spend more time managing their businesses.

Cons

Less Control Over Income

As an affiliate marketer, you can try a few tactics to increase your income by getting more traffic to your blog. After that, there’s not much you can do. For example, you can’t increase your commission rates or coerce people to click the affiliate links in your content.

No Regular Customers

Unlike ecommerce owners, you are not the actual person selling the products; you are just recommending, so you don’t have anyone to call a regular customer.

Less Control Over Competition

You are not the actual business owner as an affiliate marketer, so you can hardly do anything about competition in the market. This might affect how much you get from your commissions.

Ecommerce Pros and Cons

Pros

More Long-Term Success

Though starting ecommerce might be daunting, the end product is worth the effort. Think about some of the biggest ecommerce sites we have today: Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. You now see how ecommerce can be more beneficial in the long term, right?

Moreover, an ecommerce website can make up to $20 million of revenue by their third year in business. At the same time, 80% of affiliate marketers can make up to $80,000 per year (at most).

So ecommerce pays better in the long run.

Flexibility

As an ecommerce business owner, you’re in charge of everything in your business. Additionally, you’re fully in control of the competition in your business, as you can create business strategies and ways to improve your products and customer experience.

Full Control Over Income 

As an ecommerce owner, you are fully in control of your income. You can increase your prices anytime you want. This gives you greater control over your income and an enormous advantage over affiliate marketers.

Cons

Customer Support

Ecommerce owners are responsible for improving their products. So whenever customers need clarification or support, they should be available to attend to them. This can sometimes be exhausting.

More Time-Consuming

Ecommerce is more time-consuming compared to affiliate marketing. An affiliate marketer can do whatever they like with their free time, but ecommerce owners are always busy handling one issue or another in their businesses.

More Start-Up Costs

Both affiliate marketers and ecommerce owners need a strong online presence for their businesses. However, ecommerce owners will also need additional money for production, marketing, and management. So ecommerce needs more start-up capital than affiliate marketing. The cost of starting ecommerce can sometimes be up to $10,000.

Final Words

That’s all. You have explored the differences and similarities between affiliate marketing and ecommerce. You have also learned each one’s benefits and downsides, so you now know what it takes to succeed in either. Equipped with such comprehensible information, you can now decide which is better.

Which one will you go for and why? Let us know your answer in the comment section.

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