Most people do not become successful on their own there is usually someone who has influenced their idea or strategy. If you have a product to sell, why not stand on the shoulders of those who have gone through the process of retailing before.

I am talking about Amazon. All small and midsize online retailers have faced the challenge of attracting customers and finding an efficient way to sell to those visitors. Many small and midsize online retailers have used affiliate marketing as a strategy to bridge that gap. However, the cost to use affiliates is becoming expensive. The commissions that retailers have to pay out to affiliates can be between 30-50 percent and sometime as high as 75 percent.

I am not here to criticize affiliates but to inform you that there are alternatives that can benefit you as well. Amazon estimates that they have 257 million credit card holders purchasing information on file.

Amazon is one of the most recognizable and popular online retailers. Amazon claim that about 5% of internet users’ worldwide visit Amazon each month. Amazon is rank 5th in the U.S and 14th globally. The average time spent on an Amazon page is eight, half minutes compared to one minute for other retailers, and 61% are from the U.S.

Amazon’s business model is so well constructed that they are a good partner to have if you are a retailer because they have position themselves to help small and midsized online retailers.

Amazon Prime- Amazon Prime is an “incentive based membership” program. The membership consists of loyal customers who have previous purchased whereby their information is the system. The sharing of information between the customer and Amazon allows future purchasing by the customers’ quick and easy. When I have used Amazon, all my previous credit information is stored so all I needed to do is click the button and my transaction was completed within minutes.

There are some advantages to using Amazon as a strategy to sell you products. To partner with Amazon is very easy and Amazon offers several platforms to make that transition simple. As a partner with Amazon, you can feel comfortable with Amazon’s secure order processing and handling all sales issues and fulfilling all orders.

Selling on Amazon takes a simple process of uploading your items into Amazon’s system. Amazon does collect a fee for this service, it can start as low as.99 cent per item sold and does offer an upgrade to a pro merchant account.

The Advantage Program is designed to help online retailers who offer physical content such as books, music label, CD, D.V.D’s,. This paid program offers distribution and order fulfillment. As a content provider, you maybe asked for a percentage of the royalties.

The Web-Store for Amazon is a program for retailers who dream of having their own store online. The tools Amazon has to enhance your Web-Store presence is Amazing if you go online and peruse Amazon page site you can see how many online retailers has benefited from these tools. Do your research when it comes to creating a Web-Store because there is a cost involved.

Create-Space- Create-Space is own by Amazon and it is a print on demand service for books D.V.D’s, CD’s, MP3. Create-Space is unique because there no membership or set-up fees required compared to Selling on Amazon, The Advantage Program and Web-Store where there is a cost and or monthly fee. The Create-Space is very beneficial to the partner because it saves content providers a large upfront merchandise cost and it helps with editing, book design, layout and marketing. Moreover, Create-Space handles fulfillment of orders. Caution; Create-Space will want to negotiate royalties with you. Again, I urge you to do your research.

Kindle Direct Publishing- Kindle Direct Publishing is a publishing site for e-reading substances. The platform allows content makers to upload and format their material to be sold in the Kindle Store.

This leads me into one of my sound strategies that many writers would find interesting. On November 25 or the day after thanksgiving better know as black Friday in The U.S., most people reserve that day to shop for Christmas. Some believe this is when the best deals by retailer are given. Whether you believe that are not, one thing is for certain Amazon’s Fire, (the e-reader) was the hottest selling item on November 25 2011.

I included the success of the e-reader Kindle Fire for one reason. If you are a publisher or writer, it is crucial to add your content on as many electric e-reading platforms possible.