Site Stripe Tool At Amazon.com

Right now I'm marketing my Associate-O-Matic stores full tilt, trying to capitalize on the online shopping before Christmas. I'm tweaking on a daily basis, changing categories, focusing on keywords, etc and adding links to my blogs where I normally wouldn't bother. If you haven't been to the new Amazon.com Affiliate Dashboard recently then it's time you go back and check it out. Amazon has spent a lot of time updating the usability and tools to use to help make affiliates more successful and one new tool stuck out at me more than the others.

Amazon.com now offers a Site Stripe tool that embeds itself at the top of your browser while you are on Amazon.com. This 'Stripe' allows you to automatically generate an affiliate link for any page you are currently visiting and more.

List of Features for Amazon Site Stripe Tool

• Generate link for page viewed.
• View earnings.
• Visit discussion board.
• Add items to your aStore.

It's made a world of difference in time saved when viewing the Amazon website and looking to generate some quick links to throw in a blog. If you haven't had time to check it out yet, go now, you may be wasting your time with other methods.

Affiliate Store Builder Scripts

I'll admit, there are a lot of automatic website building scripts available, but personally I am only familiar with a few quality ones, so that's what I'll be discussing and comparing. The two scripts I'll be briefly covering are AOM for Amazon affiliates and BANS for EPN affiliates. While both do similar things they are extremely different in setup and functionality, and yes these scripts cost money.

Associate-O-Matic - $99 (or Free lite version where you share revenues)

This script saved my ass last holiday by providing me with a quick and easy way to throw up a store that looked like I actually kept the inventory. I'm throughly convinced that by giving the impression to visitors that I was keeping the inventory and allowing them to add items to a cart got me the majority of my sales and commissions. Keep in mind I was very clear that when they checked out they would be forwarded to Amazon, but I think putting it off till the last minute netted me some repeat business.

Associate-O-Matic's simple, yet powerful, browser-based control panel lets you customize everything from categories, colors, fonts, custom boxes, custom pages and much, much more. Below are a few screen shots of what you can find in the Admin panel of AOM and what customization can be done or achieved.





Build A Niche Store (BANS) - $97

This is simply a beautiful script to behold and if used properly can simply rake in the cash and pay for itself in a week, even on a brand new domain. The eBay affiliate store script BANS creates an SEO friendly site, built on eBay RSS feeds and categories. But in addition to adding tons of products to a store, you can easily add individual content per page and create you own content pages through the admin panel.

Setting up one of the eBay BANS affiliate stores is super simple, but maximizing it's potential can be very challenging. If all you want is a cookie cutter look a like site, a niche store can be completed in probably 15 minutes. However, if you want to create a unique site, with quality content and products, then get comfortable because building quality BANS sites is addicting.






Now, there is no way I would recommend a product on my own affiliate blog, without using the product thoroughly first. Both scripts have been put through the paces as far as I' concerned and both paid themselves off quickly and made me substantial scrilla.

I'm happy to answer any behind the scenes questions you may have on either one of my AOM Review or BANS review.

Why Affiliates Complain About Amazon

I see it on a daily basis, affiliates complaining about Amazon.com's affiliate program. The majority of Amazon.com affiliate complaints are that they have very low payouts, but really they are above others in the same categories. While your affiliate commission for an electronics product may only be 4% that's still 1% higher than the leading electronics e-merchant on the net, NewEgg. NewEgg.com offers only 3% commissions on their entire inventory of electronics, except for cell phone plans, in which they can offer up to $25 per contract.

So, lets say you stay away from electronics on Amazon and focus on marketing other products, well then you should be earning a minimum of 6% on all sales. Furthermore this percentage will fluctuate fast, depending on how many orders you get your percentage of commission can jump up to 6.5%-8%. What's great about Amazon's commission tier is that dollars don't play a part, they simply go by the amount of items sold. That means you will increase your commission percentage if you sell 50 couches or 50 pens.

How To Get Around Low Percentage Electronic Commissions

There is an affiliate trick that I use with Amazon to maximize my commissions when dealing with electronic items. I try to focus on those sold by 3rd party members of Amazon, instead of Amazon.com's inventory. All sales through 3rd party sellers on Amazon will result in your tier commission, meaning it's possible to sell electronics and earn only as low as 6%.

Using the method above I was able to earn a staggering 8% on all the Nintendo Wii's I sold. I was able to earn that high percentage on an electronic item because Amazon did not have them in stock, all went through 3rd parties and because I was able to push more than 600 per month.

So, next time you see someone complaining about Amazon.com's affiliate program, remember the real bread winners in affiliate marketing aren't the loud ones on the forums.