The vast majority of people know the Amazon website. They are definitely one of the best known online webstores on the planet. They may even be one of the most famous retailers full stop. But what comes to mind when you think about Amazon? Books, CDs, DVDs, consumer electronics and gadgets. I suppose these days the Amazon Kindle reader might be the first thing a lot of people associate with Amazon.
In fact Amazon offer an incredible range of items at their online retail outlet. You can buy all sorts of things for your home, hoovers, pots and pans, bed linen, tools, toys and games. You can download music and video without having to wait for a CD or DVD in the post. You can even do your grocery shopping on Amazon.
Which is all very interesting of course – but what are the implications for you? If you’re interested in making money as an affiliate then the enormous range on offer at the Amazon store offers a tremendous opportunity for you. There will surely be something to interest to your potential customers – all you need to do is get them to go to the Amazon website by way of one of your affiliate links and let Amazon do the all the sales work for you.
Amazon, of course, is rather good at getting people to buy stuff online. It’s how they built their online empire – and they are very good at it. Over and above all the extremely efficient sales ploys that they have tested and perfected over years – the free shipping, the suggested complimentary items that would go well with your chosen goods, the e-mails when there’s a special offer – they enjoy a high level of both brand recognition and trust amongst the buying public. Combine the high trust levels for the Amazon brand with similar brand recognition and trust of the products on offer – Sony, Microsoft, Apple for example – and it will be easy for you to attain a high sales conversion rate.
The Amazon affiliate program – known as the Amazon Associate scheme – is one of the oldest in existence. That’s a sure sign that they’ve got something right and that the scheme is a good one, both for the company and the affiliates who promote it. There’s no cost to join so there’s no risk for you. You will require your own website – but that can be just a free blog if you like. Amazon will want to approve your blog or website. This is quite a simple procedure. Basically as long as you don’t have any hate, racist or “adult” theme to your site, and as long as you don’t use the word Amazon in your url, Amazon will probably approve your site. If there is some minor problem don’t worry – you can reapply as often as you like using a different blog or site.
The sign up process is free, simple and fast. You could be marketing items from the truly enormous Amazon portfolio in a matter of minutes. So rather han spending all your time promoting e-books that very few people want, you could be selling real stuff to real people and making real money.