Selling food online - partnerships, advertising, affiliates, & re-sellers

Now days, selling food online is quite common for specialty food manufacturers. As a result, there has been a huge increase in online food retailers, affiliate sites, and drop-ship websites in the past few years that offer to sell or advertise food products online. With such a large and growing (gourmet & specialty food) industry, it seems that everyone is hopping on the bandwagon. There are even several (annoying) MLM (what is MLM?) companies selling gourmet food online now!

Why is this important to gourmet & specialty food companies? Because when implemented properly, a strategy that utilizes these online retailers, affiliates, and drop-ship websites can be a great boost to your online food business. On the other hand, there are several so-called ‘experts’ in selling food online that can do nothing more than take your money and run with false promises of selling/advertising your food online.

Here are a few things to look for when considering an online partner, affiliate, re-seller, or advertisement:

Length of website establishment: If the company you are looking at partnering with to sell/advertise your food products online just built their website, there is a good chance they won’t be able to deliver much (unless they have an enormous marketing budget). New sites that are less than a year old usually don’t have good SEO (natural search engine rankings), and therefore probably don’t have good traffic. Also, if the site is just a few months old, don’t hand over any up-front money…they could be a ‘fly-by-night’ company that is looking to make a quick buck. Instead, ask for a pay-for-performance option or trial period till the site has been in existence for 9-12 months. Also, don’t take their word for it. You can find out exactly how old a site is by doing a WhoIs search here. Simply enter the domain name and click ‘Go’ - it will then tell you exactly when it was registered and by whom.

Google PageRank: A lot of people don’t know what this is, or misunderstand it. Google PageRank is a 1 to 10 scale of importance that Google gives to websites – 10 being the best. Click here to learn more about Google PageRank. You can download the Google Toolbar here to start checking PageRank of any website. Based on extensive research, the top gourmet food e-commerce websites (such as iGourmet.com) have a ranking of 5-6. If you are considering selling your products on a site with a PageRank of less than 3 or 4, don’t expect much.

Search Engine Rankings: If you are selling gourmet cooking oils, it is always good to see how well the site you are considering partnering with ranks for that term since you have the best chance of selling your products to someone searching with those keywords. To do a check, it is best to use Google as the benchmark since over 50% of searches are conducted on Google. Keep in mind that most online shoppers won’t search past page 2 when using search engines. Find out if their website ranks better than yours for the same search terms. If your site outperforms theirs for the same search terms, you are probably better off not wasting your time (unless it is a free advertisement, of course!)

References/Testimonials: This seems obvious, but a lot of people discount the importance of checking references. If you are considering listing/advertising your products on a site that doesn’t have any references/testimonials listed on their site, it should raise a red flag. Don’t accept verbal references from the company representative trying to sell you the listing/ad; instead, contact current clients/advertisers in person to see how their experience has been.

Security: With hackers and identity theft being a bigger concern each year, security measures must be taken seriously. If you are listing your products for sale on an affiliate/re-seller site, they absolutely MUST have SSL in place to secure transactions. If customers are going to an non-secure website, they most likely won’t hand over their credit card information – which means your products won’t sell. Don’t waste your time working with companies that don’t secure their site with SSL. If the site question doesn’t process transactions and only lists advertisements, then SSL is not necessary.

***Summarized question checklist when considering an online affiliate, re-seller, or advertising site:

1. How long has the site been in operation? If less than 9-12 months, don’t agree to a program that requires up-front money for listing your products. Instead, ask for a pay-for-performance program. Remember to do a WhoIs check to verify.
2. What is their Google PageRank? If less than 3 or 4, ask them why. If they claim it’s because they are a new site, refer to question 1.
3. How well does their site rank for relevant keyterms on Google? If they don’t have good SEO, find out how they are driving traffic to the site and verify that they are actually visible to your target end-users.
4. Call their current advertisers/clients to see how it has worked for them.
5. Make sure their website has SSL configured with the SSL seal prominently displayed. Also, don’t take their word for it. Add an item to the shopping cart and start the checkout process to see if it actually works.

Looking to save some of the hassle in finding good online partners/advertising sites for gourmet/specialty food products? Here are a few that we have already researched and feel are a good ‘bang for your buck’ when selling food online:

GourmetFoodMall.com
GourmetFoodMall gives food companies individual branded ‘webstores’, which are essentially mini-websites within the main ‘Shopping Mall’ website. As opposed to other sites that simply list products in categories, GourrmetFoodMall lists companies and products in a way that helps create more brand recognition for the vendor – similar to an actual shopping mall - so that shoppers identify with the brand and company story as much as the description and price. Recently, GourmetFoodMall launched a new program that allows vendors to sell their products to both consumers and wholesale buyers (www.GourmetFoodMall.net) for a one-time storebuild fee and sales commissions thereafter.

Length of website establishment: Since 2002
Traffic: 3 Million Page Views per year
Companies Listed: 230+
Products Listed: thousands
SSL: Yes 128 bit encryption
Google PageRank: 5
Notable Vendors: Crustacean Foods, Galaxy Desserts, Bubbie’s Ice Cream, A Perfect Pear

———————-

iBuyGourmet.com

Ok, so it’s a site we used to own and operate (sold in October 2008), but in all fairness, we spent a lot of time and money building this site ‘by the book’. iBuyGourmet.com is a drop-ship program that allows companies to gain additional exposure online without breaking the bank. Food companies can list products for a nominal one-time setup fee and 15% commission on items sold. If you already have a solid shopping cart and simply need additional traffic, you can list your products with a link back to your site (customers order on your site) for $20 per product (per year) and no commissions.

Length of website establishment: Founded in April 2007.
Companies Listed: 100+
Products Listed: over 1,000+
SSL: Yes, 128 bit encryption
Google PageRank: 4

Notable Vendors/Advertisers: Sable and Rosenfeld, D’Artagnan, Ceylon Teas, Milo de Vino, Tillen Farms, A Perfect Pear from Napa Valley

——–

GourmetFoodGarden.com

GourmetFoodGarden is a strictly ad-based website with no transactions being processed on their site. Considering their first page ranking for the search term ‘gourmet food’, their advertising rates are an excellent value.

Length of website establishment: 3 years
SSL: not necessary
Google PageRank: 2
Notable Vendors: Omaha Steaks, iGourmet.com, GourmetGiftBaskets.com
———————-

The Ratings Guy:

Ok, this one is a bit different. They don’t actually list and/or sell products, but they write reviews of your website, which essentially becomes an advertisement. You can nominate a site for a free review, and they actually do it!
http://www.theratingsguy.com/

Do you know of a good online program for selling/advertising gourmet & specialty food that we missed? Let us know!