What is the Difference between Publishers and The merchants?

What is Affiliate Network?

An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between publishers and the merchants.

Differences between Publishers and The merchants:

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Publisher	Merchant
An affiliate marketer ( publisher ) is he/she who sell products and services.	A merchant is he/she who create those products and services and their affiliate programs
Network services include a central database of available affiliate programs organized by category and popularity to choose from, a simple registration platform for those programs, reporting tools, analytics, and payment processing.	Affiliate network services provided often include reporting, tracking, payment and refund processing, affiliate management, and most importantly – access to a large base of publishers (affiliate marketers).
Affiliate marketers are generally able to join affiliate networks for free.	Merchants usually have to pay a fee to participate in the network.

Relation between Merchant and Publisher.

Note : Affiliate networks usually charge an initial setup fee for each merchant and often a recurring membership fee. It’s also common practice for affiliate networks to charge merchants a percentage of the commissions paid to affiliates. This percentage is known as an ‘over-ride’ and is payable on top of the affiliates commissions.