An Affiliate Program is an important way to drive traffic to your site.
The shopping cart provides a simple affiliate system.
The steps to implement it would be:
1. Find sites that are willing put a link to you on their web site.
2. Create an affiliate link for that site. For every unique domain you
will advertise on, you will need to 'Add a new Affiliate' code in order to
track them.
You will see a screen like this:

The first affiliate is 'hobbyshop', and a second affiliate is being
added: toyreview. Assume the Name of Source: hobbyshop is for
www.hobbyshop.com. If hobbyshop
agrees to place a link on their site for "the Fitness Store", we could send
them the 'Sample link url' . That would link directly into the shopping
cart. Notice though, the column is titled 'Sample link url', so there are
a number a links that could be sent, the ONLY NECESSARY PORTION OF THE
LINK is 'source=hobbyshop'; the first variable after a page name is
preceeded by a ?, everyone after that is preceeded by an &. For instance,
if we know that the hobbyshop visitors are really interested in Electric
Trains, then maybe a more appropriate link would be:
http://www.bluequartz.ca/shop/?shop=1&cat=3&cart=57&source=hobbyshop
So, the link above is directly to the 'Elliptical Trainer' category in the shop
(Click here for information
about obtaining links from the cart).
3. Have the link placed on the affiliate site.
4. When you receive an order, and you view the order in the View Pending
Orders section, the Affiliate code will be at the bottom of the page:

5. Send the agreed upon commission to the affiliate.
Additionally, the shopping cart can work with affiliate software
provided by outside vendors. Normally the process involves having a coded
image displayed on the shopping cart confirmation page. The field for
inserting the HTML for this is on the shop/owner General Settings page
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