Catch-22 Is Alive and Well at Amazon
Catch-22 Is Alive and Well at Amazon
Almost everyone is familiar with the phrase "Catch-22" and understands what it means.
But have you read the book Catch-22, by Joseph Hellier and published in 1961?
There are many examples of Catch-22 in the book, applied to many different circumstances, but the term is introduced by the character Doc Daneeka, an army psychiatrist who invokes "Catch-22" to explain why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity—hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions—demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus cannot be declared insane.
The phrase therefore means a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.
How Does Amazon Figure in This?
As some of you may be aware from my previous posts, Amazon is discontinuing the SiteStripe facility of Image and Text+Image code for Amazon affiliates.
The options will disappear from December 1 and from December 31, any links in your websites using this code will stop working.
You are supposed to switch to the much more complex calls to Amazon Associates PA-API function before it all happens.
PA-API Credentials
So I set up my PA-API credentials, intending to create a training video on WA to help my fellow WA members to implement this new approach.
But they didn't work!
Everything was set up correctly, the credentials were live but any attempt to call the PA-API function returned a seemingly irrelevant error condition.
Amazon support had no idea and my last message exchange with them requested an escalation to someone who might have an idea.
There's been no response to that. Not really a surprise!
Independent Research
However, independent research has turned up a possible cause.
To use the PA-API function, you need to have qualified with the 3+ sales in our first 180 days.
Which I did years ago, which is why I was able to create my credentials.
BUT...
Some people have suggested that you need a quota in order to submit a request to PA-API (to get an image, for example) and that quota will be zero unless you've made affiliate sales in the past 30 days.
For some reason, that has the ring of truth, but wouldn't you think Amazon Support would be aware of it?????
Here's the Catch
If this is true, Amazon are saying:
"You can't use PA-API to promote Amazon Products because you haven't made sales recently."
"But you can't make new sales because you're not allowed to use PA-API."
It's a classic Catch-22.
The Lasso WP Plugin
One of the places that has been helpful with suggestions and possible solutions has been the Lasso WP Plugin, with fast and relevant support, even though I'm not a customer.
I'm considering installing it on one of my websites just to see if it overcomes this problem.
Unfortunately, it's not free and could be out of reach for many WA members wanting to promote Amazon products.
But I'll keep you informed.
Recent Comments
81
Hi Phil
That catch-22 from Amazon makes sense in a vicious sort of way.
In addition to the book, there was a movie called Catch-22 released in 1970 with some pretty big stars like Bob Newhart, Jon Voight, Jack Gilford (the Doc), Art Garfunkel, Anthony Perkins, Martin Sheen, and Orson Welles.
Here is the movie trailer:
https://youtu.be/RxBQP2BdyOA?si=xGKX6ru3yOTObB7x
There was also a mini-series that premiered on May 17, 2019, on Hulu in the United States.
Check out the movie if you've never seen it. It's pretty entertaining. 😎
I don't know about using Lasso. I was only making about $25 to $35 a month on my site with Amazon, and that was before Google's Helpful Content update, so I'll probably lose money on it now. Lol
Frank 🎸
Thanks for that info, Frank.
Yes, I saw the movie on late-night TV many years ago. I recall Yossarian showing up naked to receive a medal and the officer having nowhere to pin it on him!
Aware that there was a series but never saw it.
I'll clean up one of my e-commerce sites and try one month's worth of Lasso on it.
I will.
As far as I know, Lasso has not released a migration solution, so if we stop using Lasso we may lose the Amazon API connection.
It's my understanding that they have (or will, perhaps).
I'm impressed with their help so far.
Thanks for the update, Phil.
I tried to figure out this API thing, but it is so complex!
I managed to get a rendered image of a product, but I’m completely lost what to do next.
Amazon’s instructions don’t tell you much and I couldn’t find any videos on YouTube to help either.
I’m seriously thinking about using Lasso as it might be my only solution even though it’s a paid plugin.
I'll probably try Lasso myself, Jenny and if it works, I can at least complete my training video.
I am not familiar with Lasso will it provide a similar function like that of the soon to be discontinued Site Stripe? Thanks again Phil for your continued effort on this topic. I will keep researching alternate ways around Amazon, this issue doesn't appearing to be coming to resolution anytime soon.
Thank again, Grant
It looks like Lasso uses its own credentials to access PA-API (so not dependent on yours) and then provides a variety of formats to display the results.
I have to do a major cleanup on one of my neglected e-commerce sites and then I'll install Lasso to see how it goes.
If it works well, I'll incorporate it into my video training course.
Thanks Phil. Does this just apply to the US market? As I just looked at both my accounts US and UK and in UK the sitestripe is stilled being pushed but in US account I couldn't "learn more" about sitestripe. I thought it would be global or maybe this is just coincidence that it wouldn't show me any info on it
It's definitely global, Darren, but they seem to be removing it from some jurisdictions ahead of December 1. But I think we can count on all the dependent links no longer working from December 31.
Thanks a lot.. I think they just invented a department to cause chaos and confusion for no reason at all lol
Seems like that might be the case. It'd be a fun department to work for, though. Lots of chuckles.
See more comments
Yes, your situation is identical to mine. I have had a couple of sales in the last 5 months, but nothing in the last 30 days.
It appears my only solution will be to take down the site after 12/31. Where I go from there is unknown at this point. It may be 4 years of very hard work, lots of coding behind the scenes and much frustration.
I really thought my design and ease of navigation on the website would generate a decent amount of sales. In addition, the total count of different products amounted to several hundred.
I didn't choose the blog route, nor did I choose to generate reviews of the products. I do have a link to one review of a product I had purchased directly from Amazon and not through my own website. I am just one to follow my own path and I guess I will pay dearly for that decision in the end.
Oh well, as they say................**it happens.
Eric
I will be putting out training that illustrates using plugins to overcome these issues. Hang in there!