Amazon affiliate program

I'm currently working on a site about digital cameras and plan to after the summer include some affiliate links as I'll have different camera reviews.

Looking for potential affiliate companies I of course came to think of amazon.com but have recently heard a lot of bad things about them stealing their affiliates traffic and sending them to stores so they get commisions and not the affiliates them selves.

I found a different company (http://www.tigerdirect.com) and they seem like a decent company and they have very competitive prices but their commisions are only 4%.

Now I wonder what's the smarter thing, to use amazon.com and have higher commisions but possibly loose some of my traffic or tigerdirect that doesn't steal my traffic but has lower commisions?

Amazon doesn't steal commissions.

You might also consider the Dell affiliate program.

When I send traffic to amazon.com, they profit on my traffic without compensation - that's basically what the sponsored links and in-store pick-up do at Amazon (there are also some other partnerships that are non-commissionable).

Thanks for the suggestion on Dell but they don't have as wide selection of cameras that I would like.

You get 5% or more on most purchases (personally I get 6.5%) and you get atleast 2.5% on all purchases.

I do over a hundred thousand dollars worth of sales through Amazon each quarter and I have no complaints.

So you think it would be wiser to go with amazon.com?

One thing I don't understand with Amazons tiered structure which you refer to is that I have to include amazons banners on every page of my site and I think it's pretty stupid and unnecesary.

You only need to include one "easy link" on your home page. Not every page.

It is annoying, and it is why I have more than one account at Amazon (I don't use the tiered system for every site), but if you're doing enough sales to benefit from the tiers (6.5% is around 3000 sales) then it is worth it.

Chris,

Do you sell through amazon by providing a link to them after a little review or something on a product?

Mike

I do it lots of different ways, that is one.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Chris
You get 5% or more on most purchases (personally I get 6.5%) and you get atleast 2.5% on all purchases.

I do over a hundred thousand dollars worth of sales through Amazon each quarter and I have no complaints.

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Didn't know you could make that much! That from your coupons site?

Not entirely, but mostly.

I thought amazon was a flat 10% on all purchases.

They used to be years ago.

Then they moved to 5%, 15% on direct book links when the book is between 10-30% off (rarely happens).

Then maybe in January they instituted a tiered system where you could earn between 5-8%. They keep changing the tiers each quarter.

I'd take me a page or so to explain the payment structure this quarter -- they've made it real complicated. You can earn up to around 6.5% if you sell 5000 items, and Kitchen or Hardware items bring in a flat 8%. Additionally there is a $10 per sale cap on commission (which sucks if you sell alot of high end items).