Jet.com Affiliate Program – An New Marketplace for Niche Bloggers

The eCommerce market is largely dominated by Amazon, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t shopping elsewhere. Jet is a new retailer in the US that’s seeing some good performance as sellers seek for a new audience to make their brands stand out. For bloggers, it means there’s one more platform to increase your income stream.

So, let’s see what does the Jet.com affiliate program offer, shall we?

Jet Marketplace at a Glance

Jet is an innovative eCommerce company founded in 2014 and was later acquired by Walmart in September 2016. It sells almost anything from fresh food to electronic goods and delivers throughout the US.

To date, the site gets about 4.6 million visitors per month in which most of the traffic sources are coming from direct as well as the search engines.

What Attracts Online Shoppers to Jet

It’s not easy to convert shoppers who have always been loyal to a particular brand, but there are some killer factors that could entice them to switch to Jet.

1) For starters, the retail prices are amazingly low. A study that performed a price analysis on more than 16,000 products across different eCommerce sites found that Jet’s selling price were on average 9% lower than Amazon’s and 6% lower than Walmart’s.

2) Jet has incorporated some smart money saving mechanism into their shopping system and this can be achieved in several ways;

• Selecting products that can be packed together in order to lower the overall shipping cost.
• Order over $35 to take advantage of free shipping.
• Opting out of free returns if the consumers think they are likely to keep the products.
• Using debit payment versus credit due to lower transaction fees.

The result? People tend to buy more (3 to 4 items) in order to make their purchase worthwhile. More volume purchase equals to higher commission earnings 🙂 

3) For first timers, Jet offers 15% discount off their first 3 orders, so that’s likely to invite consumers to return again for their next two shopping rounds.

4) Whatever perks that are being offered, there’s no membership fee attached to it and for some shoppers, that’s a big relief because it’s more flexible for their expenditure and less obligation on things that they don’t really need.

5) Many reviewers have raved about the quality of their packaging, stating that Jet is more thoughtful and thorough so that’s one point for customer satisfaction.

6) The second plus point is that they are also reputed for their outstanding customer representatives who are real humans, providing good quality services.  

7) When retailers come up with their in-house brand, people don’t usually pay much attention because there’s a generalization that those products are usually in the lower range of quality.

However, that’s not the case with Uniquely J, Jet’s own in-house brand.

As it turns out, they are actually good quality consumables that are non-toxic and health conscious. For now, they are only limited to the coffee, clean living, food storage, snacks, paper and sauce & oil category. If you are interested, it’s something worth checking out. Hopefully, they will expand to other product range soon.

Some Disadvantages About Jet

Seeing that Jet is still at its infancy in online retailing, there are certain aspects that may not make them a favorite place to shop or to promote.

1) Number one, they clearly can’t match with their competitors in terms of good quantity; carrying about 10 million items while Amazon has about 309 millions. But Jet is picking up and we are seeing more brands and suppliers joining the platform.

2) For someone who are so used to reading customer reviews, the lack of them on the Jet marketplace is obvious and can seem like a drawback when convincing someone to try something new. The company needs to put in more effort to encourage more shoppers to leave reviews after their purchase.

3) Their deliveries aren’t really the fastest and can take anytime between 2 to 5 days to be fulfilled. So this might not fit well with customers who want speedy shipping.

4) Jet doesn’t seem to have a very strong social influence just yet. Among their traffic sources, only less than 2% comes from social networking in which YouTube appears to be the major contributor.

Why Affiliate Marketers Should Consider Jet

Despite the cons, Jet’s marketing approach is appealing to a growing population who likes to save on shopping – that’s basically all of us, really – so it’s safe to say that this type of audience already exist. But what are the other things that you can benefit from promoting Jet?

1) To begin with, they have some very attractive commission rates, most of which are higher than that of Amazon’s. Based on the list below, you can basically earn between 3 to 20% on net sales.

• First mobile app purchase (on special events) – 20% commission
• Household and office supplies (grocery, health & beauty, baby, pet supplies and etc.) – 15% (for new customers) and 8% (for repeat customers)
• Lifestyle products (furniture, home & decor, clothings and etc.) – 10% (for both new and repeat)
• Specialty products (sports, automotive parts, arts & crafts and etc.) – 8% (for both new and repeat)
• Electronics, Appliances and Toys – 5% (for both new and repeat)
• Computers, Books and Video Games – 3% (for both new and repeat)

And the good news is, there are opportunities to increase the commissions if you are able to drive more sales.

2) Many marketers often frown upon Amazon’s short cookie duration of 24 hours. Well, guess what? Jet offers a longer cookie window – 7 days – which is a more considerable time length for consumers to decide on their online purchase.

3) Although the popularity is leaning towards the Amazon associate program, there are a few situations that it may not work. Your state doesn’t allow participation in the program, your account is rejected or maybe, you just aren’t seeing enough conversion for your blog. Regardless of which situation you are in, Jet is a good alternative to promote your niche product.

4) Jet currently partners with Rakuten Linkshare to manage their affiliate program. Through the reputable network, you can access the latest text, products and banner links to help improve on sales conversions. You’ll also be receiving tips about how to market during the holiday seasons, so that information is surely going to give some booster.

What To Know or Have Before Signing Up

First thing first, what type of niche are you targeting? Are those products available on Jet? Do you think it will excite the audience if you introduce them to a budget saving retailer? If the answers are compatible to what Jet has to offer, then it’s worth referring them to the marketplace.

Having a website with relevant content is important because;

1) It communicates with people at a deeper level that interest them versus pushing them with just affiliate links. Information that is helpful can make your recommendation more convincing, so it’s important to find out and address the issues that are of concern within your niche. You can discover a lot of topics to write about if you know how to do a good keyword research using Google and an effective keyword tool.  

2) It is a testament of your knowledge in a chosen niche and the company needs to see this before they can accept you into the program.

Lastly, I think you should get to know Jet personally, if you haven’t done so already. Order some products from them, test out their shopping system and see if the entire experience meets your expectation. Whether it’s good or bad, it will give your review a more personal touch and consumers would usually appreciate that.

A Marketplace with New Opportunities

Jet may be small scale in many ways, but didn’t all successful startups come from humble beginnings? That’s something to think about. Consumer behavior is a very dynamic thing and with every new marketplace, you’ll learn these traits better and hopefully, leverage them to your marketing advantage.

If you like to learn more about building a successful blog using the Jet.com affiliate program, please visit my recommended platform for more training guides. See you there.

You may also be interested in;

Want to Become a Successful Amazon Associate? Read This 

How to Use Houzz for Online Marketing

Shutterfly Affiliate Program Review