It feels at times like I’ve covered all the niches and sub-niches there are, but something catches my attention, or in this case, someone says it outright, and voilà! Another niche to look into and write about.
Such is the case for this week’s Niche of the Week.
I was staring at a blank Word doc, thinking about what to write for the coming week’s NOTW, when another Affilorama staff member, Melissa, bless her, says to me: Have you done a feature on shopping cart affiliate programs? (Editor’s note: Hi folks! I’m Melissa.)
I hadn’t, but here it is now. Grin.
Shopping carts aren’t just the carts we push around at the store. They also include the electronic setups where the items we want to buy from an online store are placed until we “check out” and pay. Shopping carts are essential if you want to sell anything online, making them a crucial e-commerce tool.
E-commerce covers business-to-business marketing, online shopping and online marketplaces. It is a multimillion-dollar industry that continues to grow year after year. It’s easier than ever for someone to set up an online shop and start selling. You don’t even need a significant amount of startup capital thanks to dropshipping.
This has given rise to various e-commerce platforms that offer shopping carts, buy now buttons, store hosting, and various tracking for inventory and sales — in short, everything you need to set up an online store.
If you already run a successful online shop, or you’ve always wanted to run one, you can use these affiliate programs to boost your income.
Keywords: All About Shopping Carts
There’s a decent amount of competition in this niche, as seen in the Competition column in our keyword research results. The obvious target keywords are “shopping cart,” “shopping cart software,” and the like. All of them have high monthly search values alongside equally high competition.
Keywords in these niche are mostly keywords with buyer intent: “best shopping cart,” “ecommerce packages,” and “get shopping cart.” You’ll also see interest in “free” keywords, like “free shopping cart.” They have good monthly search values, but there’s not so many of them in this niche compared to others. Probably because there aren’t that many free shopping carts available.
You’re going to need to dig a bit deeper to get some viable keywords in this niche. Ubersuggest.org can give you good variations. However, you should really consider related keywords that you can write about in blog posts and articles, like “setting up your online store,” “successful online business.” or “what you need for your online store.” These are keywords that are related to the general e-commerce niche, but you can write an article about them that includes and refers to shopping carts. They will also help establish you as an expert, leading your readers to trust you.
Shopping Cart Affiliate Programs
As always, I checked on ClickBank’s Marketplace first before searching online. There were no shopping cart affiliate programs. However, I did come across an interesting WordPress theme that will turn your site to an e-commerce website. It’s related to what I’m looking for, but not related enough to include here.
So, I went online yet again to look for shopping cart affiliate programs. Some of the good ones re as follows :
Shopping Cart Depot
The affiliate program pays affiliates 10% commission on all referred customers. Just sign up on Shopping Cart Depot’s affiliate page to join.
E-junkie
Some of you may have heard of E-junkie: It’s an affiliate network similar to ClickBank. You can sign up as an affiliate and promote the products on the network.
Like ClickBank, the site offer e-commerce solutions such as shopping carts and buy now buttons. You can promote E-junkie and get 20% recurring commission for up to one year of the referred user’s membership.
X-Cart
X-Cart provides small and large businesses alike with e-commerce solutions ranging from an SEO-friendly catalog, to a newsletter feature for marketing. It’s like a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs looking for a good e-commerce package.
X-Cart manages its own affiliate network and pays affiliates 15% recurring commission for each customer referred that signs up for the program.
Shopify
Shopify is a popular e-commerce provider. On top of shopping carts, the site offers store design templates, online marketing tools (including a Buy on Facebook feature), web hosting, analytics, and a lot more.
Shopify affiliates can earn money two ways: first, you can opt for a 20% recurring commission for each customer you refer who signs up for the service. That’s 20% of the bill — including transactions. That’s more than $35 per month for each customer. The alternative is an upfront payment of 200% of the customer’s subscription fee, or up to $358 per sale.
CS-Cart provides a comprehensive shopping cart package, including an eBay add-on and a cloud storage option. The site also offers multi-vendor software for the daring entrepreneurs who want to create their own marketplaces.
BlueSnap manages CS-Cart’s affiliate program. After signing up with BlueSnap, you can start promoting CS-Cart and earn 15% for each license purchased through your affiliate link.
Shopping for Links
Link building is challenging, but it’s a crucial step in getting traffic to your site. Knowing the various link building methods, and having a link building strategy in place helps a lot in transitioning from site building to traffic generation. Make sure to have at least a rough draft of your plan before you build the site so that when the time comes for building links, you won’t get stuck.
Content Strategy
Long gone are the days when an e-commerce store could just stick up some product descriptions and call it done. If you want your online store to thrive, you need to think about content — even before you start thinking about link building.
Content strategy is about planning and managing the content you publish on your site. You can’t just sit down and write something when the mood strikes you. If you want successful content that turns readers into loyal customers, then you need to do proper research on your topic, be creative on how you present your content , and publish regularly. You can do blog posts, videos, and even infographics related to trends in your niche, shopping guides to help people select products, information about sales promotions, and of course, information about shopping carts and e-commerce software. Then, you can spread your content via email newsletters and social media to help get the word out and encourage people to share links back to your site.
Link Indexing
This is an oft-forgotten link building method, probably because you don’t really have to do it often. You can gather the backlinks you’ve created, and after a certain point, run them through sites link Pingler.com and get them all indexed.
Don’t let any good backlinks you’ve made sit and wait to get indexed. You can help speed up the process, which means you might see changes in your search engine results sooner than later.
Press Releases
Businesses often have special offers to help increase sales. They also have product launches, and other sales events. You can write press releases sharing these information, with a link going back to your site. These backlinks have an advantage in that they’ll bring consumers eager to buy right to your site.
Shopping Cart Affiliate Programs: In the Bag or Back on the Shelf?
Shopping cart affiliate programs go in the bag. Definitely! The commission might not seem a lot, but e-commerce packages usually costs hundreds of dollars a year — and sometimes more than $100 a month! A 10% commission for a $300 package gets you $30. Some of the commission are recurring, too, so you earn as long as the member you referred is subscribed to the service. Give your customers some good resources to help them thrive and you’ll have commissions rolling in for a while.
You have to watch out for the competition though. Be ready with your link building and marketing strategies. Having a solid content strategy in place is a must: High-quality, creative content can get users to your site, and get them to keep coming back.
I would recommend this niche to people new to affiliate marketing, but I would suggest they build a site that focuses on e-commerce as a whole. There’s only a few truly great shopping cart affiliate programs you can promote, and you can only write so much about them. I would include some web hosting affiliate programs too, and maybe some email marketing affiliate programs as well. These are all related to creating an online shop.
But I would start small by focusing on any of these affiliate programs, then add more later on.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s Niche of the Week! Please share it using the Share buttons below.
Would you go into the shopping cart or e-commerce niche? Are there any niches you think are better than this? Leave a comment and let us know!