My brother is quite the entrepreneur. He ventured into online marketing a few years ago, after moving to England from Israel and looking to start a new business in a new place.
There is a lot of similarity to what we do. Creating websites and promoting them is something we have in common. One big difference though -
I just create the websites and place ads on them – affiliate ads or others. My brother actually sells things on his. I mean, he does actually buy merchandise, stocks it up in his house, and then markets it online via his website as well as on Ebay.
Every now and again, he tries to talk me into taking the same route, telling me how his profit margins are so much higher than mine. When I advertise a product with my affiliate code, I rarely get more than 6-10% in commissions. My brother, on the other hand, buys wholesale and sets up his prices like a real merchant does – sometimes with hundreds of percents in profit.
I always say the same thing: I do NOT want to deal with clients. Let the merchants deal with shipping and customer service – my focus is with websites only.
As he and his wonderful family are staying with us this week, I got to see first hand what a headache those clients can be. As much as he had prepared for the vacation, he still had to deal with a couple of clients who didn’t get their orders, due to issues with shipping. They were furious, despite the fact that shipping was still within the time frame they had been guaranteed. Why? Go figure. Because they’re people, that’s why.
My brother had to deal with emails and make phone calls to appease them, promising compensation and gifts. All was well, in the end, but let me tell you – I’m glad I didn’t have to handle that!
Bottom line?
I guess it’s one of those cases of different strokes for different folks. My brother still prefers his way, and I mine. I guess it’s a good thing we each found the path that is right for us.
How about you? Do you market any actual “bricks and mortar” product? or even an e-product of your own? how do you deal with customers? Or do you, like me, stick to the web publishing end of things and let others handle them?
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Twitter: DennisEdell
June 9, 2010 at 6:45 am
Both. I’ve been in direct sales in one form or another all of my adult life; I feel your brothers love for it.
I’m just now starting to get into the affiliate marketing thing as well.
In DS you may have more headaches, but you also feel the loyalty much much greater.
On the flip-side, I’m sure your brother will concur, you can also “fire” a customer if the need should arise.
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Oh, the situation in where “no pain, no gain” adage is perfectly match. It seems your brother take more pain to have more gain. However, in this situation, we should measure if all of the pain is really worthy.
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You and your brother have a different understanding of life, you prefer freedom.I do the same.
I am like your brother. I like selling a product that I love and I love interacting with my customers. And I can’t complaint about the larger profit margins.
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