Affiliate, Merchant or both?

I’ve put this in the ‘affiliate marketing’ category because recent activities has me thinking quite a lot about whether most affiliates stay firmly within the ‘affiliate’ role (sending traffic to another business for them to close the deal - or not as the case is quite often), or whether they also Drop Ship or even buy items Wholesale and become a merchant. Having recently seen the view from the other side of the fence, I can say with hand on heart I wish I had become a merchant much sooner in my career.

I’ve been trying hard to make a go of affiliate marketing for about a year now, I have some reasonable sites that make some money, however, it is normally barely enough to cover the cost of my server, I’ve worked long and hard (as mentioned in a post below I’m often still found in my office after 18 hours of work), I’ve taught myself new skills such as mySQL and PHP and at times have been so stressed at the lack of sales that I’ve often wondered if it’s all worth it. Then I look at people who inspire me such as Keiron Donoghue and Keith Budden and realise what is possible if I could just find that magic formula, don’t ask me what it is as I am still searching myself!

So that brings me back to the main topic of this post, affiliate, merchant or both? Well as I said in the previous post I have now entered the merchant arena and I’m loving it! We have positive cash flow, we have stock, we have control and most of all we have a business! I cannot speak for other affiliates but personally I’ve never quite felt like a businessman, maybe it’s the lack of income, maybe it’s the lack of control once the visitor leaves my site, maybe it’s just me!

So what do you think, is it possible to be successful at being both an Affiliate and a Merchant or would you concentrate on just one or the other?

Mark