
Amazon guts affiliate program, cuts fees for electronics in half - Domenic_S
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/operating/compare?ref_=pe_2511080_224596230
======
codingdave
I make some money with their affiliate program. Not a lot, just enough to buy
ourselves dinner out a few times a month. But I always consider it to be a
nice bonus. I know the program can change any time. I know my web traffic can
die off. Someone else could build a new site that is better than mine. Or
something completely unanticipated could shut down this income. These are all
risks that I accept with open eyes.

The danger comes if you are not aware of the risks inherent in your own
income. Sometimes it does make sense to let your income have some instability
in it, and let someone else control it -- maybe it is a case like mine where
it is small enough to not matter. Or maybe it is large enough that it is worth
the risk. Just don't let yourself get in a situation where it is large enough
that you are living on it, but not so large that the risks are acceptable.
Because that is when changes like this will bite you.

~~~
monkmartinez
It will change again, you can rest assured of that. I think you have the right
attitude toward it, FWIW. The FBA'ers out there are in a similar position and
many of them rely way too heavily on Amazon for their income. These guys/gals
started with/as affiliates... and have graduated to "branding" cheap chinese
stuff.

I tried doing some FBA, but it felt super scammy. Research products that
people are buying then just work the pay per click, give some products away
for review, and try to "out manipulate" your competition. It is going to end
badly for a lot of them. China is learning how to beat them at their own game.
The guys that run seminars on this stuff... uggh... nuff said.

~~~
rebootthesystem
The FBA thing and the seminars are a slow motion train-wreck waiting to
happen. You are right in highlighting the folks running seminars. They are
running such scams.

A good friend of mine jumped into the "amazing opportunity" he was presented
with. He paid them $5,000 for an FBA course. Long story short, he ends-up
importing a bunch of kitchen crap from China, dropping tens of thousands of
dollars.

As things progressed, many of the people on the same course did exactly the
same. Very soon you had page after page on Amazon with poor bastards selling
the same products from China under different brand names and packaging. I
mean, exactly the same damn product.

Here's an example:

[https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-
alias%3...](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-
alias%3Daps&field-keywords=avocado+peeler)

Funny as hell if it weren't so tragic because of how these folks are
suffering. People are losing their asses on this stuff. They are killing each
other paying incredible amounts for Amazon PPC advertising. Amazon is laughing
all the way to the bank and these vendors are bleeding right and left selling
the same products, from the same suppliers in China at minimal, if any,
profit.

And then you have the Chinese suppliers who got wind of this and are doing two
things:

First, they raise their prices. How stupid do you have to be as a supplier not
to recognize something is going on when you get call after call from would-be
entrepreneurs using exactly the same script to negotiate with you. These
suppliers are nailing people for all they are worth.

Second, they are listing their own products on Amazon at the best possible
prices because, well, they are the manufacturer!

And then, to make things even more interesting, people following these amazing
formulas start importing stuff that runs right smack into intellectual
property issues. So, the patent or trademark owner files with Amazon and the
listings are suspended. The inventory now can't be sold and, to make matters
worst, the vendor has to pay through their teeth to have it shipped out of
Amazon. Ship it where? None of these people are real businesses with real
warehouses and employees! So now they have a a few pallets full of crap they
can't sell almost anywhere in their garage and living room. In some cases IP
owners have gone as far as issuing C&D orders to these vendors.

The whole thing is absolutely surreal. Carnage is the first word that comes to
mind when I think of the results. Sure, as always there are examples of folks
who are just killing it because they got lucky, chose the right product or
whatever. I'd say 95% of the folks who enter into these FBA "get rich quick,
work from home, travel the world" schemes would have made more money if they
took $5,000 and burned it.

As for my friend, some $35,000 later he quit and licked his wounds.

Not mentioned is the damage to consumers. These desperate, low capital, no-
experience vendors are importing absolute crap from China. There are stores of
phone chargers that go "poof" and other crap product issues right and left.
And, if you dig deep enough, it will almost always land on some poor fucker
who thought he or she was starting a business that would set them up for life.

Could be the scam of the century. The only people getting rich with
consistency are those peddling the courses.

~~~
ryandrake
It's sad on one hand, but with the Internet and all the information out there,
it's getting harder and harder to feel sorry for people falling for any kind
of scam. I had relatives that fell for the whole Amway thing a long time ago,
and they couldn't do a quick Internet search for "Amway scam" like they could
today. Would they get taken in today? Not a chance. Before you hand over $5K
to someone, does it really hurt to do a quick search to see if it's a scam or
if you're likely to be unsuccessful?

I pretty much consider any money-making pitch I get to be a scam by default,
which saves me the trouble of looking it up.

~~~
waisbrot
It's easy to find evidence that it's a scam/bad idea. It's also easy to find
evidence that it's not a scam and that the place that told you that it was a
scam is the _real_ scam.

Just having access to a lot of information does not produce an informed
population, especially when there aren't really any controls on that
information.

------
Domenic_S
Amazon's deleting volume tiers and adjusting commission ("fee") percents.

It's a massive loss (~50%) for affiliates like Wirecutter that do mostly
tech/electronics, and a huge boost for the luxury beauty category.

Current fees:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170106214444im_/https://images...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170106214444im_/https://images-
na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/2012/associates_rates_table_20170101._V523087001_.png)

~~~
LeoPanthera
Wirecutter is now owned by the New York Times so they can probably absorb the
hit.

~~~
Baeocystin
Considering the New York Times just vacated half their office space so they
could lease it out, maybe not.

~~~
u_wot_m8
and saw a 94% loss in profit in the last year. But it doesn't really matter
since they are just a propaganda rag for Carlos Slim anyway.

~~~
rev_bird
Yeah I'd request maybe a citation or two

~~~
u_wot_m8
1\. [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-times-warrants-
ca...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-times-warrants-carlos-slim-
idUSKBN0KN2M820150114)

2\. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3897406/New-York-
Tim...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3897406/New-York-Times-
reports-95-7-percent-fall-quarterly-profit.html)

~~~
rev_bird
First off, thanks for the response. I got interested in this, and did some
digging around to see what kind of context I could find. To be honest, this
96-percent drop seems like cherry-picking to support a narrative. Granted, I'm
probably doing some of the same in the opposite direction, but there seems to
be a lot more evidence that the Times is doing OK than that they have
literally no money.

For starters, your description of "a 94% loss in profit in the last year"
seems to be a pretty clear mischaracterization: That number in the link you
provided says the loss is in "net profit attributable to the newspaper
publisher" _in the third quarter alone_.[0] In addition, it seems like most of
that is because of increased expenses, __not __horrifyingly reduced revenue --
the third paragraph points out overall revenue dropped by just over _1
percent_. (Incidentally, if you exclude "restructuring-related costs," per-
share earnings dropped about 33 percent,[1] NOT 96 percent.)

Now that the Q4 numbers are out, we also have a pretty good picture of what
their 2016 actually looked like:[2]

* Total revenue down 2 percent.

* Overall operating profit down 34 percent. This is the one I think you were referencing, and yes, it's lower, but "94 percent" is off by a significant amount.

* Digital ad revenue up 6 percent.

* Digital subscribers up __47 percent __, more than half of whom came in the fourth quarter.

* Digital subscription revenue up 17 percent.

So yes, at one point someone _did_ write an article that mentioned a
precipitous drop in one specific metric for a particular quarter -- but if
you're interested in anything other than scoring cheap political points, the
picture is way more complicated than that, and far less bleak.

For what it's worth, after the Times released the numbers you referenced,
here's[3] what their stock price has looked like: It was up 10 cents by the
end of the week, and has gone up _38 percent_ since then. If the New York
Times is failing, investors haven't noticed. If anything, they're actively
disagreeing.

0 - [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3897406/New-York-
Tim...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3897406/New-York-Times-
reports-95-7-percent-fall-quarterly-profit.html)

1 - [https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-times-profit-slumps-
pr...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-times-profit-slumps-print-ad-
sales-drop-19-1478092100)

2 - [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/business/media/new-
york-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/business/media/new-york-
times-q4-earnings.html)

3 -
[https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...](https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1487964240000&chddm=30130&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NYSE:NYT&ntsp=0&ei=tQiyWMiaGcXO2Aa66rrQCg)

------
oliwarner
People get a bit bratty when Amazon drops the rates on certain categories.
They need to be clear on what the Affiliate program's purpose is. The goal
isn't to kick back money to people who link to Amazon, it's there to make
Amazon dominant in multiple markets.

They're there now. They have critical mass. They're the first place organic
search for new stuff.

There's no sense in throwing money after sales they'd already get. They're
better off using it as discount to get sales they wouldn't.

~~~
scottcowley
True, the goal isn't to kick back money, but the goal is to refer people to
Amazon that wouldn't have purchased from there otherwise. They have good fraud
detection systems in place to make sure that people aren't just using the
affiliate program to give Amazon discounts to themselves, friends, family.

Ultimately Amazon does what every company does in some form or another as it
scales--cut incentives, trim margins, increase on-site advertising, etc. It's
one long life cycle game that plays out again and again.

~~~
cstejerean
The problem with that goal is that affiliate links are having less and less of
an impact on convincing people to buy from Amazon, because Amazon is becoming
the #1 place where people buy things anyway. If I read about something on the
Wirecutter and I decided to buy it, I will buy it on Amazon whether or not
they have a link to Amazon. Amazon knows this, and as they begin to dominate
online sales in a certain category they can afford to drop their affiliate
commissions knowing full well that it won't really impact their sales.

------
usaphp
It will be a big loss for pc tech YouTube reviewers, I know it's a big chunk
of their revenue. They already removed a lot of them from their affiliate
program because youtubers used to just tell viewers to bookmark their
affiliate amazon link because it supports their channel. So a lot of them had
to open a new affilaite account to comply with new rules and all previous
videos were demonetized because of account suspensions.

~~~
arcaster
Immense loss for PcPartPicker as well, their entire revenue stream was built
on Amazon affiliate links.

~~~
_delirium
It doesn't look to me like there's a change in the payouts for PC part
referrals. In both the old and new structure, those are a flat 2.5%.

~~~
exolymph
Volume pricing is gone.

~~~
_delirium
PC parts (along with electronics and a dozen or so other categories) were
already ineligible for volume pricing under the old program. Volume pricing
applied only to items that did not fall into one of the flat-rate categories.

------
robbrown451
I'm not sure I understand where you're getting the "half" figure. I'm trying
to compare the linked chart to this
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170106214444im_/https://images...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170106214444im_/https://images-
na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/2012/associates_rates_table_20170101._V523087001_.png)

and not seeing what is cut in half.

(Also I notice that the new chart says musical instruments are 6%. For
electronic musical instruments -- digital keyboards, for instance -- does this
mean the fee has gone up from 4%?)

~~~
graeme
They removed volume pricing. For instance, books used to start at 4% (I
think), but it you sold even a nominal volume you quickly got a 6.5-7%
commission.

Now it's a flat rate 4.5% in that category. Which amounts to about a 33% cut,
because almost everyone was earning 6.5-7%.

This is likely to have a massive affect on the blog/article review ecosystem.
Most of the review sites that exist today only do so because of amazon's
fairly generous programs. I expect in aggregate there will be a shift in what
lines of business people decide to get into, based on this.

Of course, there's not really a good, easy replacement for amazon affiliates,
so people will still use it. But I expect people will deprecate affiliate
marketing as an activity to some extent: this is a _major_ change in the
niche.

~~~
_delirium
That's true for some categories, but the HN headline says electronics rates
were cut in half, which I don't see when I'm comparing the two tables.
Electronics were already excluded from volume pricing, and had a flat 4% rate
under the existing fee structure. The only electronics subcategory in which I
see fees being cut in half is for televisions, which were previously under the
general electronics category (4%) and are now in their own category (2%). Most
other electronics stayed the same, e.g. PC parts were already at 2.5% (and
stayed there), videogame consoles were at 1% (and stayed there), and
miscellaneous/other electronics were at 4% (and stayed there).

~~~
graeme
Oh, I didn't note the electronics in the headline. Not sure where that's from
– quite probably an error, based on what you wrote. In fact, the headline
should have been something like "Amazon cuts volume pricing, greatly reducing
affiliate commissions"

I don't think it's half in most categories.

(To be clear, I didn't write the headline. Had just been attempting to explain
it)

------
startupdiscuss
Confused. Which is the previous structure?

This:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170106214433im_/https://images...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170106214433im_/https://images-
na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/2012/associates_rates_table_20170101._V523087001_.png)

or this: [https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/welcome/compensation](https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/welcome/compensation)

If they are going from a volume based approach to a margin based approach that
is rational, and good for everyone.

(i.e. why payout more for 1000 rubber bands that makes them uncompetitive to
sell, and you should pay out more for that high end tv).

~~~
fencepost
Previously it was (in general) 4% for up to 6 items, then 6% (or apparently
higher) as the number of items sold increased. I don't recall whether
quantities within an order impact that or not, it's possible that an order for
10 of item X would be counted as a single item for that calculation. Obviously
the percentages could go quite a bit higher.

The "gutting" in this I'm sure is referring to the change from "electronics
get 4-8.5% commission" to "electronics get 2.5% commission and never more than
that." Having a huge range of other items also all capped at below 6% is also
a huge blow to people who've been doing a lot of Amazon Affiliates work.

I've never really made much from it - probably less than $100 in any given
year with one outlier when someone bought ten copies of Dragon Medical ($1800
each) after using one of my links. Still, this does give a good indication of
whether it's worth putting together a focused product comparison site I've
been contemplating. 6% or more on products with prices in the $100-1000 price
range could make it worthwhile to build and maintain (content curation). 2.5%
capped makes it a much less appealing proposition unless the site can have
affiliate links to vendors other than Amazon, and I'm not sure if that's
against their TOS.

------
sharkweek
As an Amazon affiliate who has done quite well with it, this is definitely a
gutting.

But... if I'm being honest with myself, it also seems kind of reasonable. I
think their original plan was pretty generous. I was kind of expecting this to
happen at some point.

~~~
giarc
Was this this first you heard of the change? I'm not sure how old that link
is, but to say on Feb 24th that your rates as of March 1 are going way down is
a pretty tough pill to swallow.

~~~
sharkweek
Yep, I don't see any recent news about it either, so I'm assuming this is new.
I don't think I have received an email about this update either...

[https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+affiliates&oq=amazon+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+affiliates&oq=amazon+affiliates&aqs=chrome..69i57.1857j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=amazon+affiliates&tbm=nws)

~~~
graeme
I got an email about it from amazon yesterday.

------
encoderer
My heart breaks for the Wirecutters of the world affected by this.

~~~
whafro
Alternatively, great luck and timing for the Wirecutter team to sell to
NYTimes before this happened.

For consumers, it's more likely heartbreaking, as we'll all likely have a
tougher time getting high-quality review content like what The Wirecutter
pushes out.

~~~
monkmartinez
Do you really need someone telling you why it is a good product to buy? If you
buy something from Amazon and it doesn't work in the way you want it to,
return it. Watching reviews is a waste of time.

~~~
graeme
>If you buy something from Amazon and it doesn't work in the way you want it
to, return it.

For a lot of categories, you might end up with an adequate product and miss
out on an amazing one.

I find reviews very quickly let me find the best product for my needs in that
category.

Also, returns are costly. For each one, I have to:

1\. Assess the product

2\. Go to the amazon order page. Click return.

3\. Print the return form

4\. Repackage the item. Tape the return form to it.

5\. Go to the post office, wait in line, send it.

6\. Order a new item, open it, and test it.

5-10 minutes of review reading can save all of that effort.

It's also less wasteful for the economy: needlessly upping your return volume
causes negative externalities for everyone else.

~~~
monkmartinez
Wow.. and what if the reviewer sucks? That happens. What if you get a lemon?
That happens. What happens if the reviewer is being paid? That happens.

Returning on Amazon is one of the easiest things to do on the planet.

What amazing products are you going to miss out on? Most of the stuff on
Amazon is just re-branded FBA shit. Most of each category of consumer products
come from the same factories in China. Go to Alibaba and source some stuff...
It's what all the FBA'ers do.

~~~
jmduke
> Wow.. and what if the reviewer sucks? That happens. What if you get a lemon?
> That happens. What happens if the reviewer is being paid? That happens.

Literally the _entire value proposition_ of Wirecutter is that the reviewers
are really good and unbiased because they spend a lot of time and effort
analyzing products.

> What amazing products are you going to miss out on? Most of the stuff on
> Amazon is just re-branded FBA shit.

1\. Wirecutter / Sweethome don't constrain their recommendations / reviews to
things you can buy at Amazon.

2\. You can buy an _overwhelming_ number of electronics / products off of
Amazon. To insinuate that it's all white-label rebrands is disingenuous.

~~~
ghaff
I doubt any reviewer makes a perfect recommendation for a particular person.
But honestly, for most things, Wirecutter, Cooks Illustrated, Consumer Reports
(though don't use this much any longer), etc. will almost always get me to a
good to very good choice quickly. And they're all transparent about their
methodology and reasoning.

No one has time to do all their research from scratch themselves. (And I have
zero interest in doing so.)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
The title sounds editorialised (“guts”), yet there's no article.

~~~
eriknstr
Well, using just "Associates Compensation Overview" as is the title of the
page would not be very informative since this is about a change in the page,
so I prefer it the way OP wrote it.

\---

Edit: Then again, I don't see any difference between the current version of
the page [1] and what it looked like in a previous version archived 2016-08-26
[2].

[1]:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20170224190305/https://affiliate-...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170224190305/https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/welcome/compensation)

[2]:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20160826220446/https://affiliate-...](http://web.archive.org/web/20160826220446/https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/welcome/compensation)

\---

Edit 2: Never mind the above two links. The apparent lack of change is due to
some problem with Archive.org. Link [2] is using an image from today [3] for
some reason, and it's not even the same archived version [4] on link [1]?! The
one used on link [2] is from 2017-02-24 19:03:14 according to the timestamp in
the URL, whereas the one for today is from 2017-02-24 18:59:28 according to
the timestamp for that image. (Both of these timestamps are probably UTC I'd
venture to guess.) Maybe Archive.org was missing the image for some reason and
it was refetched when I loaded the old snapshot?

By the way, are the rest of you seeing this as well?

[3]:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20170224190314im_/https://images-...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170224190314im_/https://images-
na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/2010/volume_rates_table.gif)

[4]:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20170224185928im_/https://images-...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170224185928im_/https://images-
na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/2010/volume_rates_table.gif)

~~~
ajross
I think the point was more: the OP clearly has an opinion here, but it's not
written and those of us who know zilch about the Amazon affiliate market
aren't able to intuit it.

Spell it out, basically. What are we looking at and why do we care?

~~~
eriknstr
I suppose you are right about that. Personally I think the title implies:

\- Lower prices on electronics for consumers.

\- Loss of profits for people relying on income from affiliate program on
electronics.

And furthermore I think both of these kinds of people are found in large
quantities among the HN crowd relative to the population at large.

But I might be mistaken in my understanding so in that sense I think you are
right that an article that explained what was meant would make sense.

Perhaps OP felt that doing so would only get them labeled as submitting
blogspam? Or perhaps OP is not comfortable with writing? Or perhaps OP wanted
to share this quickly without having to put a lot of effort into it. Only OP
knows the reason probably.

I think perhaps it'd been better if OP submitted a text-post with an
explanation, or at least wrote a comment about the change ITT.

------
iopuy
Would it be possible to post the commissions before the change?

~~~
moonlonely
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170106214433im_/https://images...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170106214433im_/https://images-
na.ssl-images-
amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/2012/associates_rates_table_20170101._V523087001_.png)

------
TekMol
Does anybody here know what the profit margins of electronics are?

I have been running onlineshops before (not electronics though) and we happily
spent all of the profit margins of an order on trackable advertising. Because
a) the lifetime value of the customer b) the word of mouth value of a customer
and c) the untracked sales generated by the advertising.

2.5% of revenue sounds unbelievably cheap to generate an actual trackable
order.

------
grandalf
Interestingly, Electronics are the area where I'd recently noticed Amazon was
least competitive.

I stopped by the local Microcenter (which is, incidentally, has a nice
assortment of hobby-oriented electronics items for sale) and they beat
Amazon's price on a Samsung EVO SSD by over $20. Since they price match, I got
a $3 discount on one of the other pieces of hardware I bought that day.

All in all, the time I spent driving there likely make the savings irrelevant,
but I was surprised that they were so much more aggressive on the SSD pricing.

~~~
MekaiGS
Completely the opposite for me in Canada, PC parts are now somehow 20-30 bucks
cheaper when ordering from Amazon than the local retailers
(NCIX/CandaComputers etc)

~~~
grandalf
Interesting. When the guy ringing up the order at Microcenter mentioned that
they price match Amazon, I felt stupid even checking the price on my phone,
but sure enough it was $20 more.

I hadn't thought it possible that Amazon could sustain that large a price
premium on a relatively hot item. I suppose this bias is why Amazon could get
away with it.

On the other hand, Microcenter might be selling it at cost to provoke exactly
the reaction that I had (telling others about it).

------
elsewhen
current commissions: [https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/welcome/compensation](https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/welcome/compensation)

------
dkrich
What I'm curious about is how this will affect sites that rely on affiliate
clicks but more for the 24-hour cookie (ie, where somebody buys anything
within a day of clicking the link).

I could see a site like the WireCutter getting lots of clicks to Amazon and
then the person not buying that product buy remembering later "hey, I forgot
that I need dog food." Well dog food happens to be a 10% commission now, so
maybe it isn't as bad as it would seem.

Also, the WireCutter's sister site is the Sweet Home, and I think home goods
are now up to a flat 8% rate, so they may not be any worse off.

------
eb0la
Does anyone know which percentage of all electronics sales go to Amazon?

Affiliate programs are a good way to get market quotas. If they're #1 in
sales, then there's no need to spend marketing bucks on it.

~~~
blowski
That's not entirely true. Coca Cola continues to spend a fortune on marketing.

------
MicroBerto
My business (PricePlow) is obviously affected. However, due to being a niche
site, Amazon is not a majority of our revenue, nor is it our top-trafficked
store.

My strategy is this: At these commissions in the Health niche, Amazon will no
be in our "preferred" tier of stores. On March 1, their products will no
longer show up on our blog (unless they are the _only_ store with it in stock)
-- and the blog gets the vast majority of our traffic.

They will still show up in our main site (where I need to decide whether or
not to keep their exclusive buttons), and they'll still be involved in our hot
deals and price drop alerts.

Stores need to earn our best visitors, and Amazon is no longer deserving.
Surprisingly, they're most often not the best deal on our site anyway, so I
don't think anyone will be too upset.

I may try to negotiate my own rates, but I don't think we're big enough for
that (not yet, at least). Everything is negotiable when you have legit traffic
and other options.

Meanwhile, we've been diversifying our revenue with various industry SAAS
services that can be scaled globally. This has been a big focus of mine,
knowing that these kinds of things can happen at the drop of a hat.

But at the end of the day, this is still a paycut, and it still hurts. Amazon
will ultimately lose more of our traffic for it, and I really don't think
they'll even notice this on their bottom line compared to the explosive
profits they get from AWS.

Seems like bad PR more than anything.

~~~
dpark
> _Stores need to earn our best visitors, and Amazon is no longer deserving._

It totally makes sense that you would be unhappy with the change, but your
comment comes off as sour grapes. Amazon cut your fees and now they're "not
deserving" even though you say they're not your top-trafficked store and
usually not the best deal anyway? Were they deserving of your visitors traffic
before when they were still not offering the best deal but they paid you more?

> _Seems like bad PR more than anything._

Bad PR for who? Most of the people shopping on Amazon don't care about
affiliate earnings at all. They don't care if Amazon pays affiliates less or
stops paying them entirely. There is no PR hit to Amazon for changing the
affiliate payouts.

------
pasbesoin
Yet another variation on: Don't be a sharecropper.

~~~
logicallee
I know. Why anyone would choose to make a few thousand a month using someone
ELSE'S infrastructure, rather than be a 400.64B company is completely beyond
me. I coded this up so you can see it in black and white:
[http://codepad.org/7t5RvxUg](http://codepad.org/7t5RvxUg)

How anyone can get such incredibly simple math wrong boggles my mind.

~~~
ska
Thank you for such a clear example of the logical fallacy known as "false
dichotomy".

Now I'll have a link to demonstrate the issue when needed!

~~~
logicallee
My real point is that there's nothing wrong with sharecropping; because you
still have your past revenues, until the point the landowner pulls the rug.
The implication of GP, that you somehow shouldn't have chosen sharecropping
until that point, is totally wrong for the majority of the people who make
that choice. (For another example see app developers on Apple's App Store.
Nothing wrong with their choice.)

The GP post made it super explicit: "Don't be a sharecropper". Well, why not?
This news doesn't mean it wasn't their best choice.

~~~
ska
You would have been better off making that point, then. Creating a false
dichotomy didn't help you, it's even sillier that original implication that
you should never do this.

The real maxim is something like "be very careful when your business model is
(some better word than sharecropping) - because it can be disabled at any
point"

------
jrs235
If you think about industry/categorical margins, the new rates more closely
reflect them. As others have pointed out, the more appealing prior rates were
to encourage people to "push" and advertise products in categories that amazon
wasn't a dominant player. They are now doing better so they have let off the
gas on those products; they don't need to advertise them as much.

------
diminish
is anyone making 4 or more digits monthly revenue from Amazon associates or
any other affiliate program?

~~~
user_666
I used to make close to 5 digits in the fall months.

~~~
giarc
Christmas/Black Friday shopping, or was it a fall specific product? EG. were
you selling rakes?

------
twodayslate
It is very hard to get an affiliate account right now. I can't seem to get
accepted.

~~~
rapfaria
Really? What changed? I remember setting up one about 6 or 7 years ago, all I
had to do was sign up.

~~~
NathanKP
A lot used to be different about Amazon Affiliate program. 7 years ago I used
to make ~$100 a day off of it (although I did get banned a few times for
sketchy experiments I was doing with it, my own fault for exploring the edges
of what the TOS allowed.)

I think all that bad behavior of us early pioneers resulted in the program
being severely limited and audited.

~~~
brilliantcode
cookie stuffing? I know that was the rage 7 years ago.

~~~
NathanKP
I made a service that implemented Google AdSense type title and body text
examination with the Amazon Product API to automate ad selection. Place a JS
widget on a webpage and it would automatically examine body elements for
keywords, dispatch a request to our server and find an Amazon product that was
relevant, then inject affiliate ads on the page.

Then me and some associates applied the plugin to a massive network of content
scraped wordpress sites which basically reposted stuff from RSS feeds. There
was an art to making a site that has good SEO, would perform well in Google
SERP, be just attractive enough that people wouldn't immediately hit the back
button, but not completely satisfying so that they would be looking for more
and click a link which would take them to the Amazon store.

Once they had our affiliate attribution set we didn't care what happened, if
they made a purchase within the next 30 days we made money. And electronics
was very profitable at the time.

A few times I got banned because my affiliate link was all over the place,
like literally hundreds of sites, and Amazon wanted to control where the
affiliate links were placed, not have them on sketchy semi spam websites.

Another time I got banned because I was using the product API in a way they
didn't intend.

~~~
marktangotango
I'm really amazed by stories like this. It's the type of thing I would never
think of doing. Are you still working with affiliate marketing? What are you
up to now?

~~~
NathanKP
I was doing this while I was a broke college student. Luckily for me the
coding experience I got building this system out and scaling it to handle the
amount of traffic we were driving to it from Google Search helped me get a job
for a startup, and now years later I actually work for AWS, so I've come full
circle, but now much more legitimate now haha.

~~~
trevmckendrick
This is a much more interesting story than you make it out to be! "College kid
learns to code building sketchy Amazon Affiliate sites, gets job at AWS."

------
dawnerd
Just in time for LTT to get their account back...

~~~
tekism
What's LTT?

~~~
hoschicz
Linus Tech Tips, a YouTube producer covering tech.

------
johnnypalps
the real tragedy is that everyone you are likely to hear from on this subject
isn't earning real money. The big earners are all on custom rates already and
won't discuss terms or earnings.

Reading the Associates discussion forum is the definition of depression.
People running sites for many years talking about earning $200 in a month.
please, enlighten us as to your thoughts on the new rate structure!

------
vram22
Has anyone made more than, say, a few (tens of) dollars a month, via affiliate
schemes? I mean in the last year or two. Things might have been different
earlier, that is why the condition.

And related question, is there an affiliate scheme for Amazon India? I had
checked a few times earlier for the US-based Amazon affiliate scheme, and
IIRC, each time it said that it was only for the US, or not for India.

~~~
shellerik
My site makes a couple grand per month from Amazon commissions. You have to
sign up for each different Amazon program separately (.com, .co.uk, .ca, .de,
.fr, etc). There is a program for India.

[https://affiliate-program.amazon.in/](https://affiliate-program.amazon.in/)

~~~
vram22
Interesting. Thanks for the info.

------
the_watcher
This is a huge loss for independent reviewers. Sites like The Wirecutter
almost certainly would not have existed like the did without it.

------
eggie5
my Pinterest spam bot revenues will take a dip :(

------
skyisblue
This is another hit to publishers who are already struggling with low ad
revenue and an evergrowing number of adblock users.

------
wordpressdev
There is always a risk associated with grazing in the shadow of an elephant.
One day you get your heart's content and other other you may get crushed by
the mammoth. In the end of the day, it is better to have your own field -
launch own product and use Amazon and the likes as sales channels.

------
nnash
I would imagine that anyone in the space has multiple channels for affiliate
revenue and not just Amazon. There are literally dozens of companies in a
single niche that you could pick from for most of the affected categories.

~~~
strictnein
True, but Amazon's conversion rate is likely the highest, probably by quite a
bit since it's such a trusted store and has a huge number of registered users
with stored credit card data.

~~~
elsewhen
and not only that, amazon pays affiliates a commission on everything that a
user buys within 24 hours. so if a user clicks on an affiliate's link and
purchases a recommended sound card, then the affiliate gets a commission. if
the user also buys some diapers within 24 hours, the affiliate gets a
commission on that as well. amazon likely drives more of these these
"secondary' purchases than any other store due to the breadth of products they
offer.

------
Animats
What's the difference between a "video game" (1% fee) and a "digital video
game" (10% fee)?

~~~
Nullabillity
Probably boxed product vs download.

------
FT_intern
How is the Amazon affiliate commission compared to other online affiliate
ecommerce websites?

~~~
johnnypalps
amazon is still streets ahead of everyone else

------
robertcorey
welp had a web app idea for amazon affiliate kicking around for past year,
this is what I get for not implementing.

------
ceyhunkazel
What is annoying is Amazon pays non-US affiliates only by gift card or by
check. Direct deposit is only for US affiliates, which is nonsense. I earn
commissions from my web application
[http://www.jeviz.com](http://www.jeviz.com) .

~~~
alvah
I get my Amazon Affiliates commission (non-US) using Payoneer. Takes a couple
of days instead of 4 weeks, cost is about the same as what my local bank wants
for an overseas cheque anyway.

~~~
ceyhunkazel
I have tried Payoneer but Amazon did not accept Payoneer account. How did you
do it?

