I'm completely new to this affiliate game but i am seriously thinking of getting involved. what are the basics of setting up and affiliate program? what do i need to do? how much will it cost? anything to stay well clear of? etc etc
What products are you going to be selling? I assume you are looking to be a merchant site. Your options are to either go with somebody like www.cj.com or to code your own affiliate script and pay the affiliates yourself. As a merchant I prefer to use the second option as its cheaper and you get full control as well as link juice from the affiliates.
the main product we sell online is tickets to our wine tour but in the future we will be selling products from our gift shop as well as other wine related products. is coding your own affiliate script easy?
If you already sell tickets then the shop package you use should have an affiliate option built in. If it does then you can just set that up and start signing people up straight away. Coding a custom affiliate script is easy if you were the one who wrote the code for the web store, otherwise is a pain.