E-commerce, with its 24/7 hours of operation and worldwide customer base, has certainly created marvelous opportunities for merchants to expand their customer base and increase sales. In trying to capitalize on those opportunities, however, merchants face new challenges. Potential customers are no longer defined by location, the target market is global, not regional. Competition has also increased. You are no longer competing for market share with the other guy in town: your competition is all online businesses.

To solve this problem many businesses participate in affiliate marketing programs. In affiliate marketing, a vendor allows their product to be marketed by non-related third parties (affiliates). The affiliates are paid a commission for each sale they generate. This is an effective way for the vendor to increase the marketing of their product without incurring significant overhead costs. Typically, the affiliate will utilize search engines, forums and blogs as a means to "get the word out" about the product they are promoting. The more traffic the affiliate can drive to the product they are promoting, the better opportunity to make a sale.

The use of affiliates is not just limited to small online entrepreneurs looking to market their products. Retail giants Wal-Mart and Amazon.com both have affiliate programs. In a very real way, the use of affiliate marketing levels the e-commerce playing field and allows the small merchant the opportunity to compete for market share with the larger retailers.

The entrepreneur looking to start an online home based business might want to consider becoming an affiliate. The ever increasing growth of e-commerce will most likely continue to fuel the demand for affiliates.