Starting with Amazon Associates but keeping some products local
Hi All, I've been running a simple Wordpress page for my very small business for several years, but I never plugged in with a true shopping cart. I know it is bad practice, but I would just ask users to contact me via phone or e-mail to place an order. Understandably, that was causing me to lose orders, and I get why. And that is why I am a new Warrior member and I'm taking a fresh look at creating a Woocommerce catalog.
I think I'm shifting gears here and instead of keeping a very small inventory of items to sell and calling the distributor each time a sale is made to place an order, I think I am going to just go with Amazon Associates. For most of the big items I see, the pricing at Amazon is already better than I could sell the items for and if you can't beat them, join them I guess! Plus, as a small business, now I am not keeping inventory, dealing with returns, etc. The product offering from Amazon would open my store up to a wider variety of sales under my niche, and these are items that wouldn't pay to order for stock or place an order at the distributor at the time of sale. I haven't looked at drop shipping on these products because Amazon Associates seems to be the simpler method for the products I would like to sell.
But there is a catch. There is one product that I cannot sell from Amazon and must be sold and stocked as a "local" order since I am a dealer on this product. This product and it's accessories are a decent seller for me and I am already competitive on pricing.
From what I am seeing directly from Woocommerce, selling items and stocking items in a catalog from Amazon Associates and locally shouldn't be a problem, until someone would try to buy an Amazon product and my own local product and purchase them both on a single check-out page. It is my understanding that the Woocommerce plug-ins forwards your shopping cart to Amazon and the user checks out using the Amazon portal. This won't work for my local goods!
Is there a platform or plug-in that would allow me to make a sale for both at the same time (Amazon Affiliate + Local Product), or should I fork my website with all the Amazon products on the main page, and a mini-site for the single product categories and its accessories? But again, if someone wanted from Site A and the Fork, that probably wouldn't be able to work on the same check-out page.
I haven't settled on an Amazon Affiliate plug-in yet so I am not too far into the process. I've been looking at Prosociate to populate my store.
I hope I explained what I am trying to accomplish properly.
Thanks in advance for any help.
I think I'm shifting gears here and instead of keeping a very small inventory of items to sell and calling the distributor each time a sale is made to place an order, I think I am going to just go with Amazon Associates. For most of the big items I see, the pricing at Amazon is already better than I could sell the items for and if you can't beat them, join them I guess! Plus, as a small business, now I am not keeping inventory, dealing with returns, etc. The product offering from Amazon would open my store up to a wider variety of sales under my niche, and these are items that wouldn't pay to order for stock or place an order at the distributor at the time of sale. I haven't looked at drop shipping on these products because Amazon Associates seems to be the simpler method for the products I would like to sell.
But there is a catch. There is one product that I cannot sell from Amazon and must be sold and stocked as a "local" order since I am a dealer on this product. This product and it's accessories are a decent seller for me and I am already competitive on pricing.
From what I am seeing directly from Woocommerce, selling items and stocking items in a catalog from Amazon Associates and locally shouldn't be a problem, until someone would try to buy an Amazon product and my own local product and purchase them both on a single check-out page. It is my understanding that the Woocommerce plug-ins forwards your shopping cart to Amazon and the user checks out using the Amazon portal. This won't work for my local goods!
Is there a platform or plug-in that would allow me to make a sale for both at the same time (Amazon Affiliate + Local Product), or should I fork my website with all the Amazon products on the main page, and a mini-site for the single product categories and its accessories? But again, if someone wanted from Site A and the Fork, that probably wouldn't be able to work on the same check-out page.
I haven't settled on an Amazon Affiliate plug-in yet so I am not too far into the process. I've been looking at Prosociate to populate my store.
I hope I explained what I am trying to accomplish properly.
Thanks in advance for any help.