Accepted Countries
USA, UK, Germany,France, Japan, Canada
And the best thing about it, it is FREE! I have had great success being a Amazon Affiliate. Especially around Christmas time. One Christmas season I made over $1,400 !!
Note that it takes a lot of time, effort and research to make this amount.
Amazon is a online merchant who sells just about anything and everything. Gift Cards, Books, Movies, Clothing, Housewares, Lawn Equipment, Car parts, Electronics, MP3 downloads, Movie Downloads and more.
So how does this work? It is simple, Amazon provides you with all the materials you will need to promote Amazon products. Banners, widgets, search boxes, video units, the works. When someone clicks on one of these Widgets, banners or links they are taken to Amazon's site. If a purchase is made, you will receive a cut of the sale.
You do not earn by clicks, only sales. So you must know what is popular and what is high demand.
For example, let say you have a Harry Potter blog. Where you are providing updates, movie trailers, pictures and open discussions on the topic of Harry Potter. On this blog, you would be able to promote and sell anything from Amazon that deals with Harry Potter. Let me give you some examples.
These are a few out of hundred different ways to promote your "topic" or "theme" of your site.
Note that Amazon can be used on just about any site. Have a site about religion or Politics? Great, Amazon has many books on this topic.
Have a site about music, Amazon sells that too.
Have a site about Gardening? No problem. They have that too. I can' tell you how much I made promoting Snow Blowers when the last snow storm hit.
The key is to know what sells. Do your homework. Research, and Google what is in demand. Also, do not create a site for the sake of putting a bunch of banners on it and expect people to click on them and buy amazon products. Give the people something they are looking for. Google will not index your site if they think your site is full of "Associate Content", meaning you are not offering anything but a bunch of affiliate links. So, give your viewers and your site some context and some useful information, and you will do well in getting indexed in Google Search.
As I said before, it takes work and a lot of research. Some people do great, and some not so well. There are months that I have made only $10 off of Amazon. Some associates get discourage when this happens.
Look, this is not a get rich or a work at home opportunity. It is not meant for that. It is only good for supplemental income. Nothing more. If you expect $1000 monthly pay checks, you are going to be disappointed. Especially if you are new and you are just starting out. It took me all most a year to figure out what and how to make a sell on Amazon. Lucky for me I did this as a hobby and it paid off in the end.
So, if you still want to try Amazon, and you have some questions about earnings and how it works, then keep reading.
As you can see to the left, an image of my current earnings as of April 26 2009. Earnings run from the 1st of the month to the last day of the month. On any sell you make, say a toy, a dvd, or other type of item you will make 4% off of that sell. So lets say you sell a $400 TV set. Your earnings from that one sell is $16.
One, where you can earn 4% on items, no matter how many you sell.
The second option, the one I recommend, the Performance Fee Structure. The Performance plan allows you to earn higher referral fees as you increase the number of shipped items generated through your links. You earn a referral rate from 4% to 15% on items shipped by Amazon or third-party sellers.
To receive a payment you must have $10 in your account. May differ from country to country, see your Amazon account for more details.
Again it may vary from country to country. Users within the US can choose to be paid by, Check, Direct Deposit, or Amazon Gift Card. I would highly recommend Direct Deposit. If you don't have a checking account. You can sign up for prepaid debit/checking account here at Account Now
Amazon has its draw backs. For instance, they do not offer commissions on referring others to their program. So by doing all of this I get nothing out of referring you to them. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Google can be a pain, if all you do is have a page of Amazon banners on your site. Do not expect to be treated kindly by Google if that is your plan. I don't want to scare you, but I can not stress this enough. Include some content on your web pages, something from you and not copied and pasted from other sites.
With that said, I hope I have given some of you a general idea of what Amazon is all about, and how to go about becoming a Amazon Associate. Feel free to leave a comment or contact me if you have any other questions. I am a USA Amazon Associate, so I will be able to help those more than other Amazon Affiliate sites from other countries. Amazon pretty much has the same kind of model throughout their company. So I should be able to help most. If I have left anything out feel free to contact me and ask, so I can update the info here.