Changes Coming To Amazon Affiliate Commission Rates

Tay

Tay

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This might affect some members here - "Allegedly" Amazon is moving away from volume based commissions:

I had a call with an affiliate rep from Amazon, and since I wasn't asked to keep it a secret, I thought I'd relay what I was told.

Starting March 1, Amazon is moving away from a volume based fee structure and moving toward a category based fee structure. In other words, you'll get the same rate whether you sell one product or one million products, but you'll likely get very different rates depending on what types of products you sell.

[..]

This may well be good news for those whose volumes are low, but it's likely going to really hurt businesses like mine that easily hit the maximum volume-based rate of 8.5% every month. How each of us should respond will depend on what we sell and how much we sell, though on our end we've already started making plans to de-emphasize Amazon or perhaps even to eliminate it completely within our portfolio of revenues.

Source: WAFO: Big Changes with Amazon Associates Commission Rates​

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The news source is WarriorForum, so it might be best to call your amazon rep. and get solid information whether this is true or false.
 
Actually from today I noticed that looking at detailed reports in the Amazon backend shows you the category of the products ordered/shipped first, and only when you click on the category can you see the actual ordered items.

This may be evidence of them moving towards a more category heavy approach, or just a redesign..
 
If this rumor proves to be true it looks like the big winners will be apparel promoters. I'm basing that off of the UK associate rate of 10% which there is a link to in the source of this rumor.

https://amazon-affiliate.eu/en/about-the-programme/advertising-fees/

It's really not all doom and gloom. Just parts of it are, depending on what niche you operate in.
 
Weird "coincidence", I mentioned being worried about amz screwing me/ppl over in my journal last night... looks like amz really wants people to get into apparel.
 
They dropped one of my main categories from 4% to 2.5% back in 2015. Hurt real bad. At least, though, this announcement has some offering of an upside to it.

I do love how they wait a week before they are going to change anything to officially announce it. That's always been my favorite part of the Associates program.

Nat said:
Weird "coincidence", I mentioned being worried about amz screwing me/ppl over in my journal last night... looks like amz really wants people to get into apparel.
Click to expand...

Starting research on my apparel site today! See you in the trenches?
 
Calamari said:
Until they change it again. Just like when we were all given incentive to put their native ads on our sites this holiday season.
Click to expand...

I thought they mentioned that was only for the holiday season though.
 
Yeah, I hope they run everyone off. :evil:

Honestly, if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, this shouldn't matter at all. Just like you shouldn't hinge everything on SEO and Google, you shouldn't have all of your monetization eggs in one basket either.

For instance, I'm using Amazon, but I set up my aff link system so that I can jump over to one of the other 5 or 6 giant programs and change each link one time, and bam it switches sitewide. Will be about a two hour ordeal if I have to bail on Amazon.

It also comes down to really doing your market research. Are you focused on items with low profit margins for distributors like Amazon (like computers)? If so, you're probably already at the lowest and highest commission anyways. But it should have been a warning sign up front that you're not going to be able to skim too much off the top.

Bottom line is always be ready to pivot in any way in all directions.
 
From the page provided by @andreint :

associates_rates_table_20170301_V534661838.png
 
Glad I started focusing on a new site
 
I was thinking about this. Based on the UK and DE tiers, I figured I'd be taking a 33% pay cut on one project.

With everything factored in now, It looks like it'll be more like an 18% cut on this monetization channel. That feels much better.

The current answer? Scale faster, grind harder.

If it gets any worse, I can bounce to a number of programs. I'll lose the extraneous items but the main items will be 8% based on volume. I had a company reach out yesterday to offer this exact thing, on top of the other programs in existence. Amazon should tread lightly or they risk losing some bigger accounts.
 
An 18% paycut? I'm guessing you calculated 7 / 8.5? So, going from 8.5% to 7%, eh?

Well, if you're like me... most of your sold items might be in a 7% niche. But then again... you're also selling lots of things in other niches.

I'm not expecting the handful of beauty and home things to save me here.

I thought I had just fucking made it. Now they're setting me back from 15k to what I assume will be 10k.

I'm sick to my fucking stomach, can't think straight and hitting the bed early. This day is done.
 
Really dissapointing... :(

I had hoped this rumor woudn't prove to be true, but it did.

Definitely a speed bump in the road for a lot of IM people out there.
 
As an Amazon seller, my perspective is a little different I guess. Honestly, I'm surprised their rates are still as high as they are. A lot of physical goods are only in the 20-30% profit range and there is a hell of a lot more capital risk and headaches involved. I see those 7-8% rates on some big categories with no where near the startup costs to get going. Still plenty of $$ to be made.

Especially when other affiliate programs like WalMart pay out only 1-4%... HomeDepot is only 3%...
 
Has anyone noticed that the charts laid out are very consistent with the level consolidation of the respective industries?

Amazon branded products aside as they are a biased anomaly, items at 4% and below have seriously few to the palm of my hand variation between brands whereas nidustries with ettr rates have more diversity and competition.

THats a Big hhint for what to bank on if you are not entrencede n a niche now.

#drrunnkpost #satuday
 
This may be a bit of a retarded question but as I've never worked with Amazon associates before I wanted to ask: This fee schedule amazon talks about and that is posted above by @Tay - is that the comission that they pay you or is it something else? The term 'fee' is just confusting the hell out of me if indeed those are comissions they're talking about.
 
RiverStyx said:
This may be a bit of a retarded question but as I've never worked with Amazon associates before I wanted to ask: This fee schedule amazon talks about and that is posted above by @Tay - is that the comission that they pay you or is it something else? The term 'fee' is just confusting the hell out of me if indeed those are comissions they're talking about.
Click to expand...
Yes, it is the commission rate. I'm not sure why they use the term "fee" or "schedule" to be honest.
 
@ryandiscord thanks for clearing that up for me, its such a basic question that googling it didn't give me the answer.
 
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