Big Changes to Amazon's Commission Structure
So my partner was reading things on her phone at some ungodly hour of the morning and came across a thread in the Warrior Forum that was discussing some pretty concerning changes to the commission structure.
It appears they are wanting to shift towards a flat rate. What this means is that if you have based your income on being an Amazon affiliate and you have been used to receiving 8% then you could potentially lose 50% of your income!
Just thought I would share!
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I'm not an active Amazon affiliate partner yet, but this sounds not so good... thanks for that.
Interesting, thanks for posting this. Kind of stinks that they may be changing to an overall flat rate and I'm worried that it will be on the lower end.
I'm also signed up a couple of years ago for Best Buy's affiliate program as they also sell the products I promote, but about a year ago they changed their affiliate rate to something very low which I believe for most products now is 1%. It's a big reason why I don't promote Best Buy much anymore.
Thanks for the share. That's a bummer, though:(. I guess we will all just have to move forward...
Amazon are maneuvering themselves into an unstoppable position at the moment - the are after being a one stop shop for everything.
they are learning their market and starting to play hardball. leaving the people who have helped put them in that position out in the cold.
due to their branding most people now will go straight to Amazon before anywhere else and stay in their until they leave the internet for shopping, adding their other services gives you a habit of going there - similar to the growth of microsoft.
they will have their day - but there are other affiliate partners out there offering better rates but it will be a lot harder work to turn the commissions!!
but then a small amount of a lot of sales will add up - but they now prefer either FBA or dropshipping.
who can stop them?
phil
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The problem right now is that the commerce segment of Amazon doesn't make money, but a big portion of their business relies affiliates.
They have done things in the past that have worked against affiliates, but the sheer nature of their "vastness" has worked effectively for affiliates as it has given us a subset a 488 MILLION products to promote.
Lower commissions may come or a shift in how commissions are structured and that would be a natural shift for their bottom line. They are in control of their affiliate program and we will just have to see how things shake out, hopefully it is decent.
The goal of a business is to be profitable and Amazon has gone on far too long without profits. It will be interesting to see how they accomplish this or who they annoy. They are killing retail, but this is at the expense of losing money that is not theirs (investors).
Thank you for sharing that, Kyle! I knew the big dawg himself would have a POV!
Yeah, and there are many alternatives outside of Amazon. Obviously it is the largest subset of products held within any single affiliate program, but it doesn't mean there aren't millions of other ways products that can be promoted through other affiliate programs.
If they keep it around 6%+, I think that can honest be a fair commission rate considering if they are working their way to same day shipping through the US. The incubation period of creating a customer is shortened drastically when the customer knows they are going to get the product the same day.
6% may be lower, but if conversions move up 30% as a result of their activities this could still be a positive move. All speculation at this point, we will have to wait and see here.