There has recently been discussion in the Amazon forums about whether or not Amazon might eliminate it's affiliate program, (called Amazon Associates). Several people speculate that a merchant who relies too much on affiliate sales might have a goal to shift more of their income to other sources. Unofficial estimates in the last year peg Amazon's affiliate revenue at 40% of their overall sales. Amazon has been expanding recently, and doing more real world marketing such as Amazon Sunday Newspaper Insert From March 2004.
One person thought that Amazon was the inventor of online affiliate marketing. I replied to them:
But Amway was practically the inventor of real world Affiliates decades ago. They're still around, although not under their original name anymore in the U.S. and Canada. Now they have morphed into something called Quixtar, an online HBA retailer....
Of course such opportunities in the real world are roundly, and sometimes wrongly, criticized as "pyramid schemes". The only thing that makes the eworld different is typically it's free to become an affiliate.
Of course for those of us who've been switched to the [other Amazon program], we're required by our "sponsors" to make all our own purchases from Amazon. Regular meetings help keep us convinced and excited that it's a good thing to have a garage full of unused Amazon items we've ordered to meet our monthly minimums.... BTW, is anyone else planning on going to the annual Amazon convention? And where can request a duplicate of the monthly Amazonway business builder cassette from last month, my cat pulled the tape out of the cassette before I had a chance to listen to it?
- Garnet
