Commentary Online Advert. From books and music to clothing and airline tickets, affiliate marketing just won't grow up. Meanwhile, the real meat of the economy rests in thousands of companies toiling away in dozens of unglamorous industries. At last, one of these middlemen delivers a final product to the consumer. For example, consider the technology industry.
Most products begin life offshore.
From here the products go their separate ways. OEM packs of Pentium chips, for example, may be shipped directly to Dell . Just about every other form factor probably stops somewhere else first. Hence the two-tiered distribution systems the technology industry is famous for. White boxes of modems, speakers, or power cables often take very circuitous paths.