I am setting up an Adult Toy site but am not sure which to use, I know how I want the site to look but can't achieve it with the affiliate sites I have signed up with. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
For one thing, the amount of profit that you can make dropshipping will be much higher than if you are just an affiliate. With an online store, you get to set your own prices unlike affiliate marketing, where all commissions are fixed. Whereas you typically can make a 50% gross profit on your dropshipped goods, the commission earned from being an affiliate marketer of physical goods is typically much less.
It's not so much about the income as it would be a second income stream, it's more about ease of setting up and maintaining. I realize that any website takes time and effort to maintain and improve but I actually know very little about the inner workings of technical stuff so this needs to be fairly simple.
If you're just starting out, affiliate. Many reasons but I'll list the main one: Don't have to deal with customers If you're drop shipping, you're opening up so many areas that could absolutely ruin your reputation. By being an affiliate, if something goes wrong the customer goes back to the main company not you. By being an affiliate, you can mix things up a little and chop & change, earn some funds and start your own adult store with your own stock and your own customers.
When dropshipping you have to deal with things such as: Customer support Product knowledge to answer questions Warranty and returns Starting up an affiliate website is much easier and requires less maintainance, a web store requires daily handling of customer orders and answering questions and such. But if you have the time and knowledge of the niche a dropship store can be much more profitable.
Just to add from the posts above me, you can start with affiliate with next to none investment, and you'll need a bag of money for dropshipping
Thanks Guys, I will go with affiliate I think as I need something which doesn't take up a huge amount of time other than general seo and content updates
I know someone who has a drop ship site that sells these products and from what I hear it's a nightmare. Most of the main companies will direct you to the same distributor. They don't enforce MAP policies and there are some retailers out there willing to sell for extremely small margins. Being an affiliate is definitely the way to go in this industry. You will make more money
There is more money and risk in drop shipping, if you don't know what you are doing, affiliate is a good place to get started and learn some of the basics that will serve you well when you have some money to invest!
50% is a little on the high end for drop shipping margins though, I would expect more like 20-30%. At the 50-80% you are more likely going to need to import in bulk for resale.