Amazon and me - I don't think it will ever work out fine
A while ago I wrote about my hesitance to apply or not as Amazon affiliate. It's recommended in one of Kyle's lessons, and my previous experiences were from a long time ago, so OK, I applied.
Being an affiliate of Amazon? I am having a hard time with that decision.
4 months and a couple of treathening emails (not really of course, just messages to remind that I should work on the qualified searches, because I didn't meet the standard yet of 3 sales) later, I am concluding that yes, a lot has changed and no, Amazon and me, that's not a suitable couple.
Different Amazon stores
My problem back then was trying to serve an international public who each would be going to their own country's shop. So my link to Amazon US would vanish. The only way to solve that would be making a different link for all the different countries.
Nowadays this is solved by OneLink, a tool that connects all the different shops. Mind you, by now there are 17 shops and you have to apply for each one separately.
Qualifying
Last week I read a blog of someone who was approved. I can't find who it was, otherwise I would put her link here. And she had a tip about chatting with the helpdesk.
I chatted this afternoon. My question was about when is someone a qualified buyer? Or what does it mean to make 3 qualified sales?
These have to be made by 3 different people (not me or direct family), who have to buy physical products (Kindle ebooks don't count) and they are counted for that country only. I applied for the 6 countries I guessed would suit my websites best, so do the math: that's 18 qualified sales.
What is best?
I am not sure what to do now. I guess I leave it the way it is now and with the next round of threat mails, depending on if any sales were made, I'll make up my mind.
What would you do?
Recent Comments
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I have a policy of reading/commenting on 20 WA blogs a day & if not read from those WA members who write motivational posts. They always set me up for a good day. A maximum of 20 a day.
Im so pleased I read your blog today.
I fell into the Amazon trap too. I remember years ago when they were small & needed help to grow that they were happy to work http://with.me selling old books on line. Today they are a huge company, in many ways a monopoly as so many people use them. & frankly I dont like Amazons ethics. They are far too large & arguably not consistent with the philosophy at WA. In fact neither is their business model where Amazon do as you describe to small companies. Its certainly not consistent with my company philosopy. So Im no Amazon fan.
I think the WA training should be much clearer. Dont sign up to Amazon until your site is mature. If at all. There are others out there. Use others. One of my new affiliates is a small company who produce their own widgets.
In my own case I now work with much smaller companies & have shorter supply chains & do not have goods sitting around in huge often hot warehouses that for the products I promote, impact on their shelf life. So Im with you. No to Amazon.
Best Regards for a productive day.
Trevor
Very true, Trevor, IMHO, they should be busted up like other monopolies have been in the past! Bezos is too big for his britches!
Jeff
Good evening Hannie,
I will tell you my calvario with Amazon
Sign up with U.S 29/3/2017
UK, IT, FR, ES. DE, sign up 11/11/2017
CA, 13/27/2018
Then I started getting those letters and slowly but surely I lost them.
The only one still surviving is US and I get an email every month I have sold nothing, go figure.
Greetings from the south of Spain,
Taetske
LOL!
I gave up on Amazon too; with 24 hour cookies, WHO CARES!
I used to get 8% commissions I believe, because I'm doing supplements, but now it's down to 1%.
It's not even worth my time.
I made a whopping $6.50 with 5 sales in 6 months, and Amazon said several of the sales made were from the same IP address, so they didn't count as individual sales.
So they kicked me out.
AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF, Amazon is now writing their own articles for the type of supplements I'm promoting.
They're nothing but competition for me now; they're in my way...
Unless you're promoting big ticket items, and you can get people to make a purchase within 24 hours, and you get a decent percentage on it, not worth your time either.
That's my 2 cents...
I totally agree with my friend.
I have made 1 sale with shareasale and my commission was $45.48. Who needs Amazon.
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You know, when Amazon first kicked me out for not making those 3 sales, I was so sad. Looking back today, I just wish I had never re-applied.
1 day cookie period is so short, commissions so low. I`m in skincare niche so most of the products on my site only earn a 1% commission. You do the math how long or how many products it will take to make $1000. Because honestly, I don`t know
This week, I sold $ 249 products, you know what my commission id? a whole $8.06.It takes the last out of you promoting Amazon products because Amazon makes you feel so useless as an affiliate(I know I do)
I`d suggest you move on to other sites. Why am I saying that yet I`m still with Amazon? My site is old, with thousands(I think) of links, so it`s a work in progress changing the links.
Thanks Roamy, and I take your advice to heart. I don't have as many posts up (yet) as you have, so for me it's easier to either switch or just quit the links. Kyle gave the advice not to put links on every post, so I am trying to keep that in the back of my head as well. :)
Take care and thanks for the reaction.