Converting ecommerce store to affiliate site

I'm in an interesting situation and would love for the experts here to weigh in with any thoughts.

I have an ecommerce store that relies entirely on drop-shipping by my suppliers. I'm considering halting all direct sales and putting up affiliate links instead.

The reasons are:

• My net margin averages 10%, while the affiliate programs offer a comparable 5-10% commission
• Dealing with customers, out of stock items, shipping problems, delays, etc, is a time suck and stressful for me
• My suppliers also sell online and are my direct competitors
• I'm not making enough money and would like to free up time to pursue other business endeavors and be more mobile
• My competitors probably do a better job at converting visitors than me, as they are the source and not a "middle man", they are larger companies, and with affiliate marketing I would be leveraging their marketing expertise instead of fighting against it

It could be a major blow to my revenue. But it also could result in a higher conversion rate than I can manage currently. I get about 300 visitors/day from search, and another 100 by various means.

One thing I have going for me is several product comparison guides that get search traffic. I can make more of those to get traffic. I know the industry well. I'm a good writer.

I have about 1,500 products listed. If I do this change, I would have to scrap most of the products and make new pages promoting products that the advertisers have, as most of my current suppliers do not have affiliate programs. But I'm considering having much of it laid out as I do currently, with ecommerce software, but with the "add to cart" button changed to an affiliate link (among other changes).

What do you think? Ever heard of someone making this kind of switch?

 

Converting ecommerce store to affiliate site is not very easy, one has make a strategy and proper planning for converting the ecommerce store to affiliate site. It is good to convert a ecommerce store to affiliate because as compared to ecommerce affiliate programs are quite good. You just use the plug-ins which will help you to process the affiliate link building.