David Fiske Affiliate marketing & web development musings from Fiske Towers

The credit crunch is synonymous with doom and gloom - food and energy price hikes, job cuts, loss of share value, loss of financial security....

For affiliates, it can be synonymous with a drop in traffic and a drop in revenue. Less money to spend overall equals more spent on essentials and less on luxuries.

I've already commented on how Christmas sales are likely to be poor (although Christmas in a manic time where a lot of cash is splashed) but there are some segments in the affiliate market that will thrive regardless of this downturn.
 
Loans

As more people get into financial difficulty, they will be turning to loans. The offering of money by loans and mortgage companies has been somewhat restricted since they started looking closer at who they've lent to but this market will be resilient (once there' s a solution to the current lack of trust between companies).

IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement) & Debt Consolidation

These will become more popular as more people gradually can't afford their mortgage and loan repayments. Again, as a form of repayment is involved, Debt Consolidation companies may be less likely to help as much as they could have a year ago. Nevertheless, still big business.

Cashback

Shoppers are going to be thrifty. This year will see a boom in cashback registrations I reckon.

Discount Vouchers

If cashback is going to be popular due to thriftiness, discount vouchers will also be popular.

Price Comparison

Once you've got the cashback and discount vouchers sorted, price comparison helps to identify the cheapest available option. I imagine a load of these will appear over the next few weeks.

Thanks to MySupermarket, you can now price compare your Christmas dinner :-)

Other areas?

I've stated the obvious. As money goes down, people will struggle with existing debts and will be looking to minimise their outgoings. Anything to do with saving money will be a hit but it would be nice to see some innovation. People are still spending money - some rent and so don't have huge mortgages. Some don't have families and so don't have children to look after.

Don't be fooled by the doom and gloom - there's still opportunities out there to make money. Look outside the box.