Most people don’t succeed on their own, usually there is 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 been through the retail process before?

I’m talking about Amazon. All small and medium online retailers have been faced with the challenge of attracting customers and finding an efficient way to sell to those visitors. Many small and medium online retailers have used affiliate marketing as a strategy to bridge that gap. However, the cost of using affiliates is getting expensive. The commissions that retailers have to pay to affiliates can range from 30 to 50 percent and sometimes go as high as 75 percent.

I’m not here to criticize affiliates, but to let you know that there are alternatives that can benefit you too. Amazon estimates it has 257 million credit card holders purchasing information on file.

Amazon is one of the most recognized and popular online retailers. Amazon claims that around 5% of internet users worldwide visit Amazon each month. Amazon ranks 5th in the US and 14th globally. The average time spent on an Amazon page is eight and a half minutes compared to one minute for other retailers, and 61% are from the US.

Amazon’s business model is so well built that it’s a good partner if you’re a retailer because they’ve positioned themselves to help small and medium-sized online retailers.

Amazon Prime: Amazon Prime is an “incentive-based membership” program. Membership is made up of loyal customers who have previously purchased so your information is in the system. The exchange of information between the customer and Amazon enables future purchases by customers quickly and easily. When I’ve used Amazon, all my previous credit information is stored, so all I had to do was click the button and my transaction was complete in minutes.

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

Selling on Amazon requires a simple process of uploading your items into the Amazon system. Amazon charges a fee for this service, can start as low as 99 cents per item sold, and offers an upgrade to a professional merchant account.

The Advantage program is designed to help online retailers that offer physical content such as books, music labels, CDs, DVDs. This paid program offers distribution and order fulfillment. As a content provider, you may be asked for a percentage of royalties.

The Web-Store for Amazon is a program for retailers who dream of having their own online store. The tools that Amazon has to enhance your web store presence are amazing. If you go online and look at the Amazon page site, you can see how many online retailers have 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 owned by Amazon and is a print-on-demand service for books, DVDs, CDs, and MP3s. Create-Space is unique in that there is no membership or setup fee required compared to Selling on Amazon, The Advantage Program and Web-Store where there is a cost or monthly fee. Create-Space is very beneficial to the partner because it saves content providers a lot of initial merchandise cost and helps with editing, book design, layout, and merchandising. In addition, Create-Space takes care of order fulfillment. Bail; Create-Space will want to negotiate royalties with you. Once again, I urge you to do your research.

Kindle Direct Publishing – Kindle Direct Publishing is a publishing site for electronic reading substances. The platform allows content creators to upload and format their material for sale on the Kindle Store.

This brings me to one of my solid strategies that many writers would find interesting. On November 25, or the day after Thanksgiving, better known as Black Friday in the US, most people reserve that day for holiday shopping. Some believe this is when the best deals are given per retailer. Whether you think they’re not, one thing’s for sure: Amazon’s Fire (the e-reader) was the best-selling item on November 25, 2011.

I included the success of the Kindle Fire e-reader for a reason. If you’re a publisher or writer, it’s critical to get your content on as many electric e-reading platforms as possible.