Wow! Have you seen the new Amazon Fee Rate Changes?!
As of March 1, say good bye to Variable Standard Program Fee Rates for Other Products:
An email was sent to Amazon Associates today telling everyone they are eliminating the variable commission rates for Amazon products that are not usually on the fixed fee rate schedule, which are most products.
Now everything has a fixed fee rate and your volume of sales has no play in getting higher commissions!
I don't have a big niche Amazon site or anything but I'll be interested to see how this affects those who do have one or more of these sites.
Here is the new Fixed fee rates (commission rates earned by Amazon affiliates):
Good news for people in Arkansas though, as they will be able to participate in their affiliate program starting Mar 1.
What do you think of these changes??
Recent Comments
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I sort of have reservations, Amazon is a twenty one year old company and in those years it has never really been that profitable. So what better way to move things forward cut the commissions for the folks that are contributing toward your sales revenue. It is a business practice that has never worked across any industries that it has been employed in and usually signals that the company is at the end of it life cycle.History is littered with companies that have followed this path.
Their online shopping segment may be not profitable but their web services are a leading brand and growing. My husband went to their conference in Vegas last year for web services and it's amazing what they have in store.
I don't think Amazon will be going away that quickly yet.
I noticed paypal is making changes as well. Got an email from paypal saying they are making adjustments to their fees. Seems that some affiliate programs are lowering their affiliate commission percentages and it seems like some of the payment processing platforms like paypal are increasing fee amounts.
The affiliate marketing industry is changing as it's been growing so quickly, therefore, as there are more and more opportunities coming on the market, they are making adjustments for the growth.
Yes really wasn't much of a surprise, the people most effected are the ones who have amazon affiliate sites in niches that now get less than 4%.
People who are new now have an advantage though because they can start with a higher commission percentage without having to get a ton of sales to reach the high commission %.
For example with furniture it now will pay a fixed 8% commission this means you can actually earn more money in that niche.
That might just work out for the worst for some niches. Given up on Amazon, huge waste of time for pennies in my niche
Well, I just changed what I sell few months ago when this changed in European Amazonz, since I only want to write about what I love and not about which ever Amazon percentages are good. My current products give me 30% commission.
Yes, just trying to point out that there are other options out there than Amazon and their crappy percentages and people should check them out! I was so hang up on Amazon in the beginning but only made 300EUR after all the fees and advertising in 4 months.
It's time to get started in another niche.
Now I'm stuck with 4.5% where I used to have 6-7%.
Those fixed rates had been active in Germany and other countries for a long time. I was always wondering why the US was different.
Oh I see, I didn't know that about Germany. How has it been then for you? A decrease in commissions?
At the moment I only target the US market.
But I'm sure my commissions there will decrease.
I just applied for another affiliate program. Problem is, that there aren't many good ones in my niche.
Very bad to my knowledge.Is all going to be fixed as oppose to the increase commissions as you mention in the number of sales. What a bummer. And if am not mistaken, certain rates were removed from the Affiliate program.
Thank you for the knowledge.
Bishop
Hi Bishop, thanks for your input, there might still be hope for some niches I think. But yeah, I had bought a domain for the mommy niche, and all the baby and toys are stuck at a low rate.
There is actually another post about the Amazon fee schedule changes here: Amazon Fixed Commission Rates I chimed in with my thoughts and insights into these changes.
Thanks Kyle, appreciate your response. I just got their email a little over an hour ago.
Interesting changes though!
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Wow, this is quite a shocker, Grace. Thanks for posting.
Armand
Yes I was surprised to see this change. Thanks for stopping by.