The affiliate programme, and how referral links work

Word of mouth already drives a large share of sales for most small brands, whether it is a friend tagging another friend in your Instagram post or a customer recommending you in a group chat. An affiliate programme takes that same behaviour and gives it a way to be tracked and rewarded, so the people already talking about your brand have a reason to keep doing it.

What the affiliate programme actually is

Your Varchas store supports an affiliate programme where people can get a referral link in the shape yourstore/r/your-code. When someone clicks that link and makes a purchase, the order is attributed to whoever shared it, and that person earns from the sale. This turns an informal recommendation into something you can actually track and reward, rather than relying on a customer mentioning "so-and-so sent me" in a DM.

Who becomes an affiliate

This is entirely up to how you want to run it for your brand. It could be an existing happy customer who talks about your products often, a smaller content creator who likes your brand, or a friend of the brand who is happy to share a link in exchange for a cut of what they bring in. The referral link is what makes this trackable regardless of who is sharing it.

How this is different from a general shoutout

A regular shoutout or tag gets you visibility, but no way to know how much it actually contributed to sales. A referral link changes that, since every order coming through that specific link is tied back to the person who shared it. This also means you are not guessing at who deserves credit or payout, since the store tracks it directly.

Where this fits with reviews and reputation

Affiliates work particularly well alongside genuine customer reviews on your store, since a new visitor arriving through a referral link is more likely to convert if they land on a store that already shows real reviews from other buyers, rather than a store with no social proof at all.

Keeping the programme simple to start

You do not need a large network of affiliates to make this worthwhile. Even a handful of people who genuinely like your brand and share their referral link occasionally can bring in orders you would not have gotten otherwise. The programme is there to be used at whatever scale makes sense for your brand right now, not something you need to run at full scale from day one.

What this is not

An affiliate programme is not the same as a partner or agency relationship. If you are looking at agencies or freelancers who bring in entirely new brands to Varchas rather than sending customers to your specific store, that is a different arrangement, covered in this post on the partner programme.

Next step

If you already have people who talk about your brand without being asked, an affiliate programme gives them a reason to keep doing it, and gives you a way to see what is actually working. The Founding Offer covers the first 10 stores with setup done together. Get in touch at /early-access.