Yesterday, Amazon Associates announced the official release of its already successful aStore product which allows any web site or blog to easily create a custom store with suggested products for its viewers. In addition, Amazon has also announced a significant jump in commission for those associates who take advantage of aStore to generate product sales between November 14, 2006 and the end of the year: additional 4% in commissions (up to $500 per Associate ID), which represents 100% commission bonus for those associates in the lowest compensation tier. This bonus was also announced for those associates using Amazon Omakase links which will be subject of my future post.
aStore, which has been in beta since August 2006 has proven very popular, with thousands of associates adopting it within just a couple of weeks of its beta release. The following is the snippet of coverage in various blogs that aStore has received:
Amazon Releases an Early Update to aStore by Gene Kavner (my previous post about aStore)
What is Amazon aStore? by Dave Taylor
Amazon's aStore Creates Affiliate Storefronts by Shawn Collins
Amazon’s Everywhere Strategy by Mitch Ratcliffe / ZDNet
Criticker Shop - With Amazon aStore! by Random Good Stuff
New Features
Amazon has not only officially released its aStore out of beta but it has also followed through on a number of promised updates to aStore.
After releasing several updates in October 2006, this release carries the following new changes:
1. Creation of multiple stores per each associates id.
This was one of the most-requested features by the Amazon affiliates. The beta version of aStore only allowed a single store, which prevented creation of multiple stores if an affiliate had multiple web sites or wanted to put multiple store with different set of featured products on various pages of the same site. One could get around the problem by requesting multiple Associates accounts by that strategy would not allow you to combine your sold products to jump in the next commission tier.
The way multiple stores is accomplished is via Amazon Associates tracking ID’s. You can create new tracking id while creating a new aStore or request a larger number of tracking id’s at a time by simply emailing Amazon Associates at associates@amazon.com. You will then be able to see how well your stores are doing on Amazon Associates Central by simply selecting the various tracking id’s you’ve created.
A maximum of 100 aStore tracking id’s are supported for each associates account, so each associate may create up to 100 aStores for each of their Associate ID’s.
One feature that would be nice to have is an ability to make a duplicate copy of any store under a separate tracking id. This would easily allow you to track purchases from the store based on various campaigns you may be running. Affiliates who would bid on different PPC inventory could bring customers to their aStore directly and then measure ROI generated by each advertising campaign separately. Right now this is not possible without a very complicated process of recreating the same aStore for each tracking id multiple times.
2. Display up to 54 products in each category
During the aStore beta, you could only have 9 featured products. It was a limitation to anyone wishing to offer more products in their aStore. Overall, it’s a good change but I’m somewhat on the fence about it. Your customers will still see only 9 products displayed on the front page and will need to click a small “Next” arrow on the bottom. I wish Amazon would also give its affiliates a way to specify total number of items to show on the front page, so if someone wanted to show 24 products right there in the front, they could. Hope Amazon takes it as a suggestion for the next release of aStore.
3. Create multiple custom categories containing products from multiple Amazon categories
This is a great addition! Amazon gives you full flexibility to create as many new categories AND sub-categories as you wish, and add products to the category based 3 options:
a) Add individual products one at a time from any Amazon product line,
b) Add products by Amazon product line filtered by any keywords you specify, or
c) Products from any Listmania list.
This is a great improvement over a limited facility in beta.
There are several other feature giving you additional flexibility with how products are displayed within various category and subcategory pages.
4% Commission Bonus
In addition, Amazon has also all but doubled the amount of commission most of you can earn from your aStore. You will receive an additional 4% on the fees you receive (up to $500 per associate) for using aStore. This means that if you are in the 4% commission tier, your fees double. Even if you are in the highest tier at 8.5%, you will still receive close to 50% in additional fees up to the $500 bonus limit. Nice bonus for the biggest shopping quarter of the year.
To try aStore, you must be an Amazon Associate. It is very easy to join, simply go to Amazon Associates Central and follow a very simple process. Then build your own aStore in as little as 5 minutes.
Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, 2005-2006.
Join Amazon Associates Today -- it's Easy and FREE!
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