Amazon Niche Store

Amazon

Amazon has a great affiliate program and makes it easy to take advantage of their API to create your own Amazon Niche Stores. Up until now there has not been a truly easy way to create an Amazon Niche Store. I recently had the opportunity to test out a new WordPress Plugin that allows you to create a Niche Amazon store that is really a true store. So far the only options available that we found are CRAP!!! This new WordPress Plugin allows you to have a full blown Amazon Niche Store literally within minutes. I suggest using a WordPress Hosting company to get your Wordpress site setup, and then second just simply enable the plugin. The next few steps are just configuring the plugin to have your information and the products you want the store to have. But best of all the plugin is free!

The Amazon Niche Store WordPress Plugin will be available to the public and for free to everyone.

Amazon Associates Program

Amazon’s Associate Program is perhaps one of the most popular ones for bloggers because it is pretty simple to use and has such a wide range of products in their system ranging from books, to electronics, to jewelry, to CDs and DVDs etc. It’s also great because there are many tools that can be used to integrate it into your blog including WordPress Plug ins. Some bloggers even integrate Amazon stores into their blogs (something I need to get set up).

Another beauty of the Amazon program is the variety of ways that they give you to link to their products. Even using just their basic tools on the Associates page you have the option to link to products using text links, pictures, buttons and a variety of keyword triggered techniques.

I personally use Amazon’s program quite a bit on some of my blogs and find it quite effective. While my earnings from Amazon are far less than my Adsense income it’s a nice bonus each quarter (they pay every three months). This quarter (just over half way) my total is just over $900 (USD).

Amazon’s affiliate program pays out in either gift vouchers (to be spent in the store), cheque (check) or direct deposit (if you’re in the US).

Amazon Associates Program Pros:

• massive array of products to choose from
• reliable payment system
• options for different payment types
• reasonably easy to use
• variety of linking tools
• Amazon are fairly well regarded and trusted by consumers

Amazon Associates Program Cons:

• only quarterly payments (many other programs are monthly)
• commissions can be lower than some other programs (although they have an incentive/bonus program that increases the % when you sell certain targets)
• incentive program can be a little complicated to understand
• some of their buttons and link methods are a little dated
• not great on some products internationally (ie while Amazon will send books and some products internationally some of the bigger ticket items will not be sent overseas. So if you have a non US readership you might have to also sign up for other Amazon affiliate programs (ie they also have a UK, Canadian, Japanese one etc this can get a little messy)).

I’ll share more tips to help maximise Amazon earnings later in this series – but in the mean time I’m sure others have a variety of experiences with Amazon and can shed some light on it as a program for us. Share your thoughts on the Amazon Affiliate program in comments below.