A: Affiliate programs can be an excellent way to start an ebusiness. Before we dive into specifics, let me explain how an affiliate program works.

An affiliate program simply means that you sign on as an affiliate marketer for someone else's product. It's your job to market product, send company customers, and get a cut each time a sale is made from your efforts. Affiliate program commissions can range from as little as 2% for high ticket items up to 50% for ebooks and informational type products.

As an example, let's say you sign up with Amazon.com's affiliate program. You are assigned an affiliate code which you use to promote Amazon's books on your website. When someone clicks to purchase an Amazon product from your website, your affiliate code is included in URL and you get a commission for sale. Some folks have built elaborate websites that sell nothing but Amazon.com's books, and each time they make a sale they get a piece of pie.

At dropshipwholesale.net we are affiliates for many products that fit our entrepreneurial niche. We market mostly ebooks and software, but we do have an Amazon page for business books.

One of most appealing aspects of affiliate programs is how quickly you can begin making money. You can literally sign up as an affiliate and begin making money in minutes. I've done it, I know it works.

Admittedly, I am not an affiliate program expert, so I sought out person that many call Ultimate Affiliate Program Authority, Rosalind Gardner.

As online joint venture partnerships, affiliate programs allows both content publishers and web merchants to maximize their online profits by working with each other.

Content publishers, including webmasters, ezine writers and forum owners, are able to focus their energies and resources on what they know best...creating great content to attract web visitors.

Affiliate merchants on other hand, are able to focus their efforts on creating great products, receiving online payments, and getting their products to customers.

The success of affiliate marketing has resulted in an unfortunate problem:

Because they are so popular, there are now so many affiliate merchants fighting for affiliates that it has become hard for them to differentiate themselves from each other and to attract good affiliates.

Put another way, while affiliates can help merchants solve problem of finding customers, merchants are now facing problem of having to first find good affiliates!

This has given rise to some innovative merchants setting up affiliate programs that pay affiliate commissions to multiple tiers of affiliates, most popular being 2 tier affiliate programs.