Ecommerce has become part and parcel of everyday life. We rely on it, more than ever before, to get what we need in a pretty hasslefree way. It’s no wonder then that in 2018, worldwide ecommerce sales reached $653 billion, more than double the sales in 2013. Hence, it’s quite reasonable to assume that ecommerce sales will continue growing for quite some time.
Amazon obviously accounts for a major portion of overall ecommerce sales. However, there are hundreds of thousands of smaller niche online stores cropping up spurned by the ease of starting an ecommerce operation through dropshipping. Small ecommerce stores are usually one-man operations, and are thus started with small budgets.
Making this possible are hosted ecommerce platforms that allow anyone to launch an online store with absolutely no technical knowledge and at affordable prices. This domain is extremely competitive, as users tend to stick to the ecommerce platform they choose. Because of this, ecommerce service providers pay handsome affiliate commissions to anyone who recommends their service.
In this post we are going to introduce you to some of the best ecommerce platform affiliate programs, and what you should do in order to make money from them.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the best online store builders available today. They initially started as an online store selling snowboard equipment, but soon realized that budding merchants could greatly benefit from an all-in-one hosted ecommerce platform to start an online business.
They have certainly come a long way, as there are more than 600,000 active Shopify stores today, responsible for over $55 billion in sales. Part of the reason for this success is the flexibility in Shopify’s pricing structure. There’s a price plan for every budget – from just $9/month all the way up to $2000/month for the enterprise-oriented Shopify Plus plan.
Shopify’s affiliate plan is quite compelling: you get 200% bounty on the first 2 months of paid subscription fees. So if anyone who uses your link signs up for a paid subscription plan, you’ll get 200% of the plan’s monthly fee.
Affiliate program details
- Link: https://www.shopify.com/affiliates
- Commission: 200% bounty on monthly subscription fee for standard plans, 100% for Shopify Plus enterprise plan
- Affiliate link validity (cookie): 30 days
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a hosted SaaS (software as a service) platform that lets anyone create and launch an online store. Their main competitors are Shopify, Wix and Squarespace. The service offers a strong suite of built-in features that can be appreciated by beginners and advanced ecommerce users alike. There’s even an extensive plugins library to fulfill any further feature requirements you might have.
When it comes to popularity, BigCommerce is certainly one of the more popular store builders out there. Thanks to its competitive pricing and impressive set of features, it is gaining users everyday. How can you use that to your advantage? Well, by participating in their affiliate program.
Any BigCommerce sale that you refer will net you an upfront 200% bounty on the buyer’s chosen price plan. What’s more, your affiliate link cookie remains valid for longer (90 days), so you get more chances of generating a sale and earning commission.
Affiliate program details
- Commission: 200% bounty upfront on referral’s chosen subscription plan fee
- Affiliate link validity (cookie): 90 days
Wix
The Wix website builder is widely known for its ease of use, and the fact that anyone can use it to build a website for free. That’s the major reason why over 109 million people worldwide have created a website using Wix. Of course, paying users amount to a fraction of that, but it’s still a sizeable user base.
With the rising popularity of ecommerce, it’s only natural that Wix has also decided to release their own online store builder, called Wix Commerce. With years upon years of experience in the SaaS domain, Wix has managed to put together a pretty competitive store builder. It competes directly with heavyweights like Shopify, BigCommerce and Squarespace.
Wix also has an affiliate program which rewards users for recommending their service and driving traffic to the Wix website. Signing up for it is pretty simple, and once you’re an affiliate you get access to the Wix affiliate dashboard where you can choose from a number of Wix services to promote.
Commissions are very good, as you earn upwards of $100 for every conversion. There are no limits on the number of users you can recommend, so the sky’s the limit.
Affiliate program details
- Commission: $100+ for every conversion
- Affiliate link validity (cookie): 30 days
Volusion
Volusion is a hosted SaaS ecommerce solution geared towards small businesses. Similar to Shopify and BigCommerce, it offers everything you need to create and launch an online ecommerce store. The service comes with impressive tools to assist you in the design of your online shop. Anyone can create an online store using Volusion, but by properly utilizing the design customization features, you can really create a unique-looking store.
With Volusion, you don’t have to worry about buying a domain or purchasing web hosting. All you need to do is sign up for the trial period and start creating your online store. If the platform suits you needs and budget (pricing starts from $15/month), you can sign up for a paid subscription plan once the trial period expires.
Similar to BigCommerce, Volusion uses Impact Radius as its affiliate platform. They provide a variety of creatives for you to use to promote Volusion services. Commission is 200% on any sale that you refer.
Affiliate program details
- Commission: 200%
- Affiliate link validity (cookie): 45 days
3dcart
3dcart is a leading hosted ecommerce solution and is used by tens of thousands of users worldwide. They provide comprehensive features for managing your store’s design, features and importantly, SEO. You can also use 3dcart to add shopping cart functionality to an existing website (similar to Shopify Lite). Features-wise, 3dcart is competitive with other solutions available today and should fulfill any small business owner’s requirements.
3dcart offers an affiliate program to boost its sales. A highlight of their affiliate program is the relatively high commission rate: you get 300% of a sale’s monthly subscription price. Pricing plans start at $19/mo, so you’ll be earning $57 on each sale at the very least.
You can sign up for the 3dcart affiliate program with either Commission Junction or Shareasale. Both platforms have the same affiliate terms and conditions as well as the payouts. They are offered for your convenience, as there is a chance you could be already signed up with one of these services.
Affiliate program details
- Commission: 300% on chosen monthly subscription plan price
- Cookie: 45 days
Ecwid
Ecwid enables you to deploy a full fledged shopping cart feature on any website that you build. It works with custom websites made from scratch, as well as sites built on popular platforms such as Wix and WordPress. While Wix and WordPress have ecommerce solutions of their own, Ecwid was built from the ground up to be an ecommerce software tool. Hence, it comes with a slew of features that are just better and make it easier for you to manage your ecommerce store.
Ecwid is not a hosted ecommerce solution, but you can still earn a decent amount of commission by referring it. Ecwid’s affiliate program is geared towards developers, agencies and publishers and provides a flat 20% commission on each sale.
So if you’re a developer working on a client’s website, simply install Ecwid on it to take care of ecommerce and earn yourself a 20% commission.
- Commission: 20% on each sale
How to Start an Ecommerce Affiliate Website
If you’re interested in starting an affiliate website for ecommerce platforms, there’s plenty of content ideas that you could make use of. A pretty straightforward one is to create a website focused on reviewing different ecommerce platforms. These could be simple platform reviews, comparison articles as well as tutorials (e.g. how to setup a Shopify store).
Another idea would be to create a website that is focused on ecommerce beginners, with content revolving around how-tos, FAQs and tutorials. You can mention the various ecommerce platforms out there in this content to educate your users and of course, generate affiliate sales.
Ecommerce platform searches have a decent amount of volume on Google, so there is certainly a large audience waiting to consume your content. As with any affiliate site, you have to focus on quality content first and then think about ranking it. Without quality content, users simply won’t stick around on your website.
And remember, people searching for ecommerce tools are likely to be part of a technical audience, so they’re knowledgeable and can definitely appreciate good quality content. If they sense your website isn’t providing the right information, they’ll simply go to another one.
