It's one of those things that can seem like a good idea at the time. If people don't buy something from your online shop, why not make something out of them using affiliate links? Two bites of the cherry as the saying goes...
If you are not using an affiliate program to get potential customers to your site, you have little to lose except sales. You will lose sales because you have lost focus on converting potential customers into real customers.
However, if you are using a percentage-of-sale affiliate program to get potential customers to your site, you'll lose affiliates as well.
Affiliate marketing means that the affiliate gets the traffic for you to convert into sales. You only pay the affiliate commission on sales. If you try to make your own commission on that traffic instead of putting all your energies into converting the affiliate's traffic to sales, you are not playing your part in the process. So you'll lose the best affiliates.
Most merchants who try this are new at the industry. Some see the better affiliates earning good commission and underestimate how much goes into getting those potential customers to their site. They want their slice of what can seem to an outsider to be easy money.
Others get frustrated that they are not making the sales they hoped and think that they can increase their income with affiliate commission and advertising. Perhaps, they would be better looking more critically at their site and asking why it is not converting prospective customers to sales.
So make up your mind what business you are in. Are you an affiliate? Are you an online merchant? Try to mix the two and you'll get less than you bargained for -- less traffic from good affiliates.
