I'd rather be an affiliate and not have to worry about creating or maintaining products.

Things change fast online so I'm ready to change with the trends.

I don't know what to make the product about and then if I do create it I also need other skills like selling and getting traffic, which I am not a master at.

Correct. But it doesn't have to be your own product or service.

And for many people, their chances of success are far better through being an affiliate.

The knowledge that for most people, most of the time, it's far better, safer, easier, more reliable and better-paid to be an affiliate and not to get involved with product-creation.

I think being an affiliate has many advantages, and being a vendor has many disadvantages and risks (some obvious and some very much less obvious). I don't agree at all with people who imagine (and sometimes say) that becoming a vendor is the only way to start earning "big money".

I think there's a huge number of reasons for affiliate marketing being better, overall, for many people, anyway. Here are just ten of them ...

• Affiliates have almost complete flexibility of products to promote: we can add, remove and change products whenever the need arises and for whatever reason, without needing to create a new one
• When you're an affiliate, you get the chance to build up an asset-based business based on genuine residual income without your fortunes being tied in to the longevity, success and demand for any specific, individual product at all
• Affiliates don't have to do (or outsource) the market research necessary to determine exactly which type of product's going to be a success - not to anything like the same extent as vendors, anyway
• Statistically, just among the people I know really well (this point is clearly subjective and I don't pretend otherwise) the long-term successful affiliates I know are mostly earning far more from internet marketing than the long-term successful vendors I know, and their businesses are far more stable for the long-term
• Affiliates don't have all the potential legal liability, compliance and enforcement problems (which incur time, effort, energy, worry and sometimes money to resolve) that vendors typically have
• Affiliates don't generally have most of the customer service/support problems that vendors tend to have to deal with all the time
• Affiliates have far greater flexibility of income-sources than vendors do: once I've built up my lists in a few different niches, covering a large range of products, if any one supplier gets into trouble, I can fairly easily promote things from other income-sources instead, so the sudden demise of a retail outlet (or even a payment processing method) doesn't affect me nearly as adversely as it would typically affect a vendor
• As an affiliate, it's far easier to offer a range of promotions at very different price-points than it typically is as a vendor
• Affiliates don't have to do (or outsource) the actual product creation-process and "put it all together"
• Affiliates have to pre-sell rather than sell (it's much easier and it doesn't involve sales copywriting, which vendors either need to be really professionally good at, or pay quite a bit to outsource)

I could easily go on ... those are just a few of the more obvious advantages that spring immediately to mind.

You might want to bear them in mind if anyone tells you, mistakenly, that "all the real money is always in having your own products".


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Some people like writing ebooks and offering advice via articles, or selling things on eBay.

Being a service provider is my product and has worked out very well for me. Selling a service is not residual income and requires daily work. This is not something that can be done AFK or 'set it and forget it'. It's not like I can put up a blog and still earn money from affiliate links and reviews, even a year later. Maybe the service provider life is not for everyone. Affiliate sales would certainly suit some more. I'm doing what I'm doing, because this is what I like and what I'm good at.

You pick the path that is right for you and go with it.

When you identify a need or desire and have the expertise to create said product.

Also, there has never been an easier, better time to be an affiliate. When I started, you might find vendors who offered some banners for their affiliates use. Now you can get entire sales funnels via Wordpress plugins. Vendors are providing things like videos and ebooks you can re-brand, bonus templates complete with bonuses, and killer affiliate contests.

To answer the OP's question, it appears the consensus is most people prefer the affiliate route because it’s less risky, easier to make money without the hard work involved in creating a product to sell such as doing market research, creating the content, building the website, getting traffic etc. To some extent this makes sense however I think the OP has identified the "real" base reasons why most don't create their own products...

The Fear of failure? Certainly true for some, if not for the majority of people but most won't admit it.

Dunno how to do it? A quick search in the WSO section will reveal plenty products on which show you how to create products so I don't think this too big a obstacle to overcome.

Don't know to how sell? This is something lots of people new to IM and in general have a problem with but selling it easy when you know how. I recommend anyone interested in sales and persuasion read the book The Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne, The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy, Triggers by Joe Sugarman other copywriting books you can get your hands on. I would also recommend you listen John Carlton and Kevin Rogers podcast, Psych Insights for Modern Marketers (PI4MM). These resources and others will will give you good grounding in the key principles of the psychology of sales and the real reasons behind buying decisions. Also I suggest you watch and study informercials. This is good way to learn sales because TV ads crafted by the some of the best marketing minds and are expensive to produce. if you see an informercial consistently runs then you know its making money, then you

Dunno what to sell? This comes down to your interests, the talents you possess and market research. The first rule of marketing is to listen to your market. Sales success does not come from convincing people to buy things they don't want; The market will tell you what they want and pay for what they want therefore sales success can only be achieved if you are providing people with solutions with products what they want.

With that I have I wouldn't saying being a vendor is the only way to go, certainly there are plenty of people making good money being an affiliate however I think in the long run its probably better to be a vendor as you are more in control of your potential profits and can pivot and supply products for your market. You can also joint venture with other product creators and be an affiliate for their products for extra revenue. Where as when you are only an affiliate your income is determined by other peoples efforts to create products and the limits they set for you to paid a commission. The other advantage with being vendor is you can build your own list and no one can take that way from you. What happens if The FTC shut down the WF, JvZoo, Clickbank and the like?Then the affiliate route is no longer sustainable business option.

That's my two cents on this topic, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the reasons why people would rather not create products.

It takes a lot more resources to create a product (digital or tangible) than it does to simply sell one as an affiliate. With that being said, I'd have to say that based on my experience, and by many successful businessmen I know, that the producer always makes more than the salesman.

I think if you don't want to create your own product and become an affiliate, it's best to promote affiliate programs with recurring commissions.

This way you can promote once and earn years from now if it's a product with high retention rate.

I would prefer this over creating my own products, or combine both...

I believe it has got to do with the technical know-how. I mean, when you starting out, it can quite overwhelming and it takes time to sieve out the wheat from the chaff.

My main concern as you may know from my other thread was 'Fear Of Failure'.

I got myself far to wound about about the 'What If's', like what if it bombs, what if nobody buys.. Then I was concerned about it not being perfect, forgetting to add stuff to it etc.

No I am in the mindset that it doesnt have to be total perfection to start with, you can create a great product put it out there and then get feedback from your customers what you missed out on and then add that to your product and then send an updated version for free to your list or even create a 2nd Version of your product.

If you aim to being perfect all of the time then you will never get nothing out there, this is probably the main reason why others fail to make any money online they never get anything done in order to move forward.

I wanted to launch my first WSO and provide value with my product but kept putting it off for fear of failure but I have taken steps, though they may be baby steps like getting domain, hosting, creating product, getting cover created they are probably more steps than most other people out there.

Many people can dream the dream of becoming successful but very few will ever take action or have a plan in place in order to progress to the end goal.

Goals and a Plan are essential in everything, by showing you where you are going and how you are going to get there will lead you to the end faster than before.

My Goal was simple:

1. Create a product
2. Build an email list

Next I had to think of the steps in between so for the first 'Create A Product' consists of many smaller bite size goals.

1. Research
2. Product Outline
3. Product Creation
4. Package Product
5. Graphics

The same with building the email list it was broken down into smaller chunks, I wont go into it but you get the idea.

Now for my Fear Of Failure, I see many WSO's hitting 1000+ sales etc but those guys have probably been at it for a while and have a host of affiliates on demand so I set another goal of just hitting 10 sales and getting 10 subscribers on to my list.

I know this may not sound like a huge amount but Im taking baby steps at the moment as its all about the learning experience so the next time that I come to do it I know a little more about the process and how to make it better each and every time.

I wish everyone success and hope you got some use of this post, I welcome you to hit the 'Thank's button.

Selling your own product is always more lucrative but I agree that I'm happy being an affiliate as making your own product and marketing it takes a lot of time and investment.

I run a coaching program where I literally force my students to create their own products and the reason is simple.

Who would you like to be?

1 out of thousands promoting someone else's product or having thousands promoting your product?

Besides as far as my experience goes the most successful marketers are those who do both.

Having their own product in the front end while being an affiliate marketer to their lists :-)

Personally, when I started out online I didn't make a product because I had no clue what to make. The whole process scared me, and I didn't know if I was qualified to charge someone for my knowledge on a topic.

Find the courage mostly.

We live in a society shackled by time constraints, money and the latest celebrity gossip.

I myself, was often distracted and concerned myself with the issues at present and my job. But I've learned to focus on your dreams and goals, in the end that's what counts most.

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In my niche (science) creating a good quality product is extremely difficult. You need to consult resources, make other people review your product, make sure it's good, etc. And that's if we are talking about products like books. Other kind of actual "physical products" are even harder to create and require industrial level investment.

I considered the possibility of creating something, but I don't see how it could be done if you don't have huge amounts of money, time and resources to invest. So I'll stick to affiliate marketing.

I would have to say that it's possible to make good money with both product creation and affiliate marketing.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to getting traffic that converts. If you have that, you can sell your own product or other people's product or both.

Some people would not have a clue where to start in creating their own products, and some people just wouldn't want to, for all the reasons that have already been stated above. Yet some of these could prove to be skilled salespeople for the products of others, but if they're still at the stage where they take the stuff they read on here as gospel then they'll be denied any success by following a product creation path that they're not at all suited for.

Just who is going to help spread the word about all these products anyway, if everyone is off somewhere trying to create products (possibly competing) rather than getting a fair cut from drawing on a natural talent for promoting yours?

No one would dream of standing up to advise the offline business community that they should all be following the same path and it will always puzzle me why people would want to do it online. I have no idea how the likes of Sports Direct sucked me into buying from them when the only product amongst the Nikes and Adidas etc that they can call their own seems to be a one pint mug, but I'm sure they'll be absolutely massive once someone points them to this thread and tells them that they're doing it all wrong.

Successful offline businesses are a mix of product creators, showrooms for other people's products, service providers and a mix of some or all. Online it's just the same. We don't all have the same skills and talents, we don't all have the same way of life and we won't all view what others see as advantages or disadvantages in the same way.

You are much more likely to find the first step on the path to success by being guided by your own talents and experiences than by a blanket forum post addressed to everyone.

I think most people on here aren't looking at the "argument" between which is better, being an affiliate or creating your own products correctly.

First, why would you create a products? MY answer to this is to create a funnel and create a way to get 100% free traffic and build my list.

It's free, because my products in my funnel make me enough money to pay for more traffic regardless of which traffic source I am using. I can do this because I have created a few products and have a sales funnel in place that I am constantly tweaking in order to get the best conversions I can.

I also get people to become affiliates for my funnels. This gives me 100% free traffic as well. And there are a lot of ways to get free traffic if you have a proper sales funnel set up. (A sales funnel is just a few products stringed together).

My products are pretty good, but are they the best in the industry? I like to think so, but I am guessing they're not. BUT, because I am the product creator, people are looking at me, getting to know like and trust ME.

So, guess who they'll buy affiliate products I pitch them from easier? You with no authority, or me who looks like an authority?

Now this whole debate is flawed for this reason...how many product creators do you know that are not affiliates? I'd guess 0.

See, I didn't become a product creator only to sell my own products. I became one to build a list of buyers and then to sell them more stuff, mine or someone else's.

Most product creators I know do it for the traffic and authority. NOT for their only income source. It's a way to get quality traffic. 100 WF buyers of your latest launch will make you far more money that 1000 freebie seekers if you treat your list well.

There are a ton of reasons why I like being a product creator. BUT, I also like being an affiliate too. As is ANY other product creator.

My point is being a product creator isn't about making money from your own products - to a point. And I am talking "Internet Marketing" products here.

You create products to build a brand (you or a business) to get people to know like and trust you so that you can sell them affiliate produts as well and they're more likely to buy from you.

YOU control your own products, so you never need to worry an affiliate will shut off their commissions. You can constantly tweak to make conversions better as you go. You control everything. And now you can leverage your products in a ton of ways.

Okay, I think I bet this horse to death. So I'll stop here.

Yes, being an affiliate "can" be easier. But not always. And to be strictly an affiliate, it still means you must master traffic, and know enough about sales to know what offer is going to convert to your list. So you still need some skills.

And if you can master those and make money, then you do have a "product". Many actually. So why not go the extra distance and have your own products and be an affiliate. That's what the biggest marketers do.

After many years in online marketing, 2014 was the first year I began to create my own products! I have always purchased products wholesale and re-sold them for profit. This year we began working on a vegetarian cook book that should be published within a few months. In November I finished my small eBook Top 5 Health Secrets to be a free gift for subscribers, but I'm working on a larger more complete health guide that I will sell as an online PDF book.

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I'm on the side of the fence about creating your own products. You have a property that is yours, and you have customers that are now part of your list. And they come to you over time for other things as well.

It's also the type of psyche that you have. Some people become affiliates because they don't know how to create a product and don't care, but they want to make money. That's fine.

Other people like to create things and like to sell those creations. And there's a great satisfaction in that, if that's where your head is at. So we have to take aptitude into the equation as well.

The great thing is product creators need affiliates to sell stuff. So, I'm glad that they're out there. And affiliates need something to sell. So, it all works out in the end...

I'm thinking of making a product that would work well/synergise with my affiliate product, and advertising it on my blog (that is not about my affiliate program, but about related topics and research, and contains links to my affiliate pages). Would this be a usable idea, and how would you suggest i implement it?

I have only been IM for about 6 months. For me the light-bulb moment came when I realised that driving top-quality traffic to somebody else's high-converting sales funnel was only one option. In fact, driving traffic is actually the easy part. Converting traffic into sales is a different skill altogether. So you offer a high value free product to get people to opt in. Then you immediately show them your low-cost congruent product for $20. Upsell them with a great affiliate membership each month for $50. Then re-engage with those who have grown to trust your products over time and discuss your high back-end end $200 plus products.

But to get to the $2000 back-end conversions needs special sales skills, and preferably one-to-one contact by phone. That's where sales skills start to kick in. After all it's much easier to sell 10 x $2000 than 1000 x $20 products a month!! That's where the real income comes from with the successful entrepreneurs. High price back end sales.So I am working up to my own congruent portfolio of products and making sure they are all in place before starting to drive traffic. Just my opinion

If you really want to help people creating a product is very easy. If you've got information that can help people or if you have an interest in solving a problem then you can put a good product together in a few hours.

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