Why We're Switching from Dropshipping to Affiliate Marketing
By Stuart Robb Schrader, AI Corp Inc
Affiliate disclosure: This post contains no affiliate links. Our affiliate applications are still being reviewed. Once they're approved, some links on toolsandagents.com and in our videos may be affiliate links. That means we could earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. We'll label those links clearly every time, and a commission will never decide which tools we list or how we describe them.
I want to share a change we're making at AI Corp Inc, and why. We're moving our main focus from dropshipping to affiliate marketing. This isn't a success story. We haven't earned anything from affiliates yet, and our applications are still pending. It's our plan and what we've learned so far, written down in the open so you can follow along.
Why we're making the switch
Dropshipping taught us a lot, but it has a basic problem for a small company: money gets tied up in products. Even when you don't hold a warehouse full of stock, you're paying for products, samples, ads and returns before you know what will sell.
Affiliate marketing works differently. We recommend products and tools made by other companies. If someone clicks our link and buys, the company pays us a commission. There's no inventory to buy, no cash sitting in boxes and no shipping to manage. Our main costs are our time and the effort to make useful content.
For a small team, that trade made sense. We'd rather put our energy into honest recommendations than into managing stock.
The two networks we're applying to
An affiliate network sits between brands and people like us who promote them. It tracks clicks and sales and handles payments. We've applied to two. Both applications are still in progress, and each brand on a network approves or declines partners on its own, so nothing below is guaranteed. Rates can change, so we'll confirm each one inside the network before we link to anything.
CJ Affiliate for physical products
CJ Affiliate has a lot of physical-product brands. We built a shortlist of brands reported to pay roughly 10% or more. Here's where we plan to start, based on our research on October 17, 2026:
- AllSwift (performance sneakers): up to 20%, with a 30-day cookie, according to AllSwift's own affiliate page.
- Muscle & Strength (supplements, gear and apparel): 10% on orders, according to its affiliate page.
- KiwiCo (kids' project kits): up to $20 per renewing subscription, up to $10 per non-renewing one, and 10% on store orders for content sites, according to KiwiCo's affiliate page.
- Bollman Hat Co. / Hats.com (hats): about 10% per sale, based on third-party listings of CJ's records. We'll confirm the rate inside CJ.
- IZOD (men's apparel): about 10% per sale, also based on third-party listings of CJ's records, still to be confirmed.
One thing we learned: on CJ, most of the highest-paying programs are digital, like VPNs and security software. Physical brands paying 10% or more tend to be mid-size direct-to-consumer companies, and they pay once per order, not every month.
Impact.com for digital tools
Most of the AI and software programs that fit toolsandagents.com run on Impact.com. These are the ones we're most interested in:
- InVideo AI (AI video maker): 50% of a customer's first monthly payment or 25% of their first annual payment, with a 120-day cookie. Renewals don't pay.
- Lovable (AI app builder): $100 one time for each customer's first paid subscription.
- HubSpot (CRM and marketing software): 30% recurring for up to 12 months on a customer's first purchase. It's not a lifetime commission.
- Bluehost (web hosting): $65 or more, one time, for qualifying 12- or 36-month hosting plans.
- Shopify (online store platform): a flat amount per referred merchant who signs up for a qualifying full-price plan. The amount depends on the merchant's region.
Software tends to pay more per sale than retail, and the cookies often last longer, which is a big reason these programs appeal to us. VPN brands like NordVPN also pay well, but they run on other networks, so they're a possible next step rather than part of this first round.
How the cookie window works
When you click an affiliate link, the brand's site saves a small file in your browser called a cookie. It records that you came from us. The "cookie window" is how long that record lasts.
Take AllSwift's 30-day cookie as an example. Say you watch one of our videos, click the link to a pair of sneakers, and don't buy right away. If you come back and buy within 30 days on the same browser, AllSwift can still credit the sale to us. After 30 days, or if you clear your cookies or switch devices, it usually won't. Each program sets its own rules for which click gets credit, so we'll read every program's terms.
That's why cookie length matters. A 30-day window gives people time to think. A 120-day window, like InVideo AI's, gives even more.
Our content plan: useful videos first
We plan to make good videos that are worth watching even if nobody clicks a link. We'll post them on:
- YouTube for longer demos and walkthroughs
- TikTok for short clips
- Facebook for our community
- X for quick updates and threads
We'll use relevant hashtags so people can find the videos, and we'll put links in our bios and video descriptions. Whenever a link is an affiliate link, we'll say so in the post itself, with "#ad" or "affiliate link," not hidden in a profile somewhere.
The AI tools are a natural fit for video. It's much easier to show what an AI video maker or app builder does than to describe it in words.
Learning from what already works
We're not going to pretend we have this figured out. Right now, we're studying affiliate videos from other creators to understand what makes people stay, trust the recommendation and click. We're looking at how they open their videos, how they show the product, how they disclose links and how they handle honest downsides.
That research is still underway. When we have something useful to share, we'll write it up here.
What happens to robbies.store
Our Shopify store, robbies.store, isn't going away. It stays as its own separate engine. We'll keep running it, but affiliate marketing gets most of our focus for now.
We'll also keep the two apart. We don't plan to put competing brands' affiliate links on the store, because that would send our own customers somewhere else.
Dropshipping isn't gone for good either. Our plan is to bring it back once affiliate income is coming in, so that new products are funded by earnings instead of up-front cash.
What's next
Here's where things stand: our applications to CJ Affiliate and Impact.com are in progress, we're researching affiliate videos, and we're planning our first content. We'll share what works and what doesn't, including the mistakes.
If you run a small business and you're weighing the same choice, I hope this helps. And if you have a question, we'd like to hear it.