How to beat Amazon at it's own Game?

The short answer is that you add value. You make it so that your customer gets something out of going to you that they wouldn't get out of going to Amazon directly. How you do that is up to you and depends on your own business, your own skills, your own talents, your own resources and of course the needs and wants of your customers. There's no single easy way to do it.

As you mentioned, a lot of people suggest that you write reviews. But my problem with this approach isn't that you have to buy the product. It's that Amazon already has tons and tons of reviews on it -- reviews that may well be better than anything you'll write. Which basically means you have the same problem you started with: Why should someone read your reviews when they could just read the reviews on Amazon?

One example that I love to talk about is GoodReads (Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia). If you're not familiar with that site, it's basically a social network for book lovers. People talk about books, recommend books, and share books with both friends and strangers. And while it's different now, they started off monetizing primarily through the Amazon affiliate program. So any time you saw a book you might like there was the button for you to purchase on Amazon. Sure, you could go directly to Amazon to buy all your books, but without GoodReads, you probably never would have found them to begin with. That's the value add. And that's why people keep going back to GoodReads over and over and over again.

Obviously you're probably not going to create the next GoodReads, but there are countless other approaches. GoodReads was founded by a bunch of book-loving techies, so they used their talents to create a software system that solved people's desire to connect with each other and discuss the books that the read. Others do add value with reviews that are far better than those in Amazon already (though as I said, I think that's a tough model to succeed with). One of the ways my own business adds value is through curation: we know our customers and the products well promote extremely well, and so we're able to find and recommend products that most casual users would never find, and we've also developed a taxonomy that speaks to our customers in a way that Amazon's own taxomomy doesn't. Moreover, we used our own technical knowledge to build an information system that's intuitive, easy to use and very accurate.

These are just three examples. You'll need to create your own model based on your own skills, talents, resources and preferences. But whatever you do, the idea is the same: Add value beyond what Amazon's already doing. Create a reason for people to come back to you. And that's true for any business, not just affiliate businesses.

Simple.

It's called added value, and it's something that anyone can do. In addition to the product that is purchased through your link, capture the buyer's email address and provide additional value to the sale that is only possible by purchasing through your link.

Provide added value in the form of relevant additional information or products that will enhance, explain, add to, or offer additional utility to what the prospect is purchasing. Make your added value targeted and relevant to the purchased product.

Of course, the sky is limit with what you can come up with to add value. Depending on what the product it, It could be anything like:

• an explanation of how to use a product
• where to purchase supplies or accessories at a discount
• tips on maintenance and service or how to make the product last longer
• examples of getting better results from the product
• a video tutorial of an expert using the product or caring for it
• cautions, safeguards, warnings, potential dangers
• really anything that makes for a better user experience

Yes, of course, this is a little extra work. But chances are good that all the information you need to create extra value is already online. Just put it in your own words and organize it to become your product.


For a few hours of work, you could add enough value to make purchasing through your link a "no brainer" that increases your sales dramatically.


Think like an entrepreneur. Don't say it can't be done for my products . . . because definitely it can be done for any product!


Steve

Do SEO and rank for the keywords. For example, if that person is buying for Apple TV. You must rank above Amazon page for that keyword. "Buy AppleTv"

Yep. Promote something that Amazon doesn't sell and isn't being "reviewed" by 69 Gazillion others.

To me, it's painfully obvious.

Try making your URLS - what i mean by this is use a URL shortening service.

Summarize all the pros and cons from the product reviews on Amazon, but in your own words.

This will save visitors the time of having to sift through hundreds of reviews.

That is definitely adding value above and beyond what Amazon does.

Ryan Deiss talks about a time when he and Perry Belcher tried to come up with a strategy to beat Amazon at its own game.

After a lot of attempts and testing, they came to this conclusion: How to beat Amazon at its own game? You can't.

They quit wasting their time and resources and moved on.

Listen, there are plenty of "review" sites ranking in top 10 for major keywords. I don't know what everyone is talking about. Review sites are NOT dead. In fact, there are plenty of review sites that are too 5,000 sites on niche products. Study them!

Make sure your linking is organized, your on and off page SEO is not spammy and natural, and most importantly - build value. That means, improve your engagement. Build a resource, not a website.

I guess one way would be to try to outrank them on keywords
Or as others stated, figure out how to add value, what will your visitors get from you that they wouldn't get from going direct

Hmm... I can see i stirred up a bit of controversy, about "beating amazon at it's own game". I didn't intend controversy, i simply wanted feedback and guidance, which i'm getting. Thanks!

My goal as an affiliate is to catch the traffic onto my website, and send them to Amazon, so i get credit for the sale. So it's only "Kind-of-like" beating Amazon, but it still works.

When i started my website, i tried to emulate the shopping sites I saw - lot's of products, descriptions, etc. I bought EasyAzon and FreshStoreBuilder , which also led me down that path. Now I know it's the wrong path.

It seems now the correct path is to focus on just a few items, and "SEO the Hell" out of them, and then send the traffic to Amazon. My concern is the risk of becoming a 2 or 3 product website.

On the more innovative side, the thread has given me a lot of ideas for marketing. For example, on one of the major dance websites I posted a thread of "what do you want for Christmas". It's legitimate and interesting to read. AND it gives me clues about what products to go after on my affiliate site.

So I've climbed back onto the learning curve and will be riding it again for a while... then back to the implementing phase.

Thanks, and Merry Christmas
Mark C
phoenix

Pre-sell... optin + free gift, send to Amazon with your affiliate link.

at one point those affiliates that are making over $100k/yr probably
asked that exact same question, but they are doing it.

Last year I had around 20 affiliate sites, and at one point I was making
around $500/mo, until all my sites crashed, and that was because
the store seller designed her sites to fail, and they did...I heard Xenia
was making over $100k/yr seller her sites; Her design was pretty
damn good, and that is what sucked you in, why? because you never
seen affiliate sites designed as good as hers, but her sites had a
serious flaw, and I would not be surprised if every person that bought
stores from her ended up failing, her system had a flaw, simple as that.

If you can not setup your own, then you need to find trusted sellers
that sell amazon/adsense stores, and develop them, and do not try
to husstle google, it will take time, maybe long time, as there are
no get rich schemes, you are competing with lots of other affiliates too.
a lot of affiliates can not even beat each other out because you guys
continue to repeat the same old cheap repeats over and over, then fail.

all 20 of my sites fail pretty much at the same time, and they all failed
because the stores were just pumping dup content into the stores, and
the script would not allow me to add/edit/change or delete content, and it
does not take a IQ10 to realize at that point what was going to happen.
Xenia or whatever name was did not listen to what I told her, and i
did tell her if she did not change her system, then it will not work.

I just found out recently that she had since closed her business.
I have no idea why she gave up that income, unless amazon
caught up to her tricks, maybe they banned her and she could
not continue, and had no reason to sell stores anymore...

Her plan was simple.

1: Build a good looking site.
2. assign her affiliate ID (before the store sold)
3. blow some power links at the store.
4. she often made decent money before the store sold.
5. once sold, then she would transfer over to the buyer
6. Buyer puts up the stores, and the they made money
for about 6 months or so, then they all dropped dead.

You can make money as an affiliate.
It is not easy, and can be a long process, at
least until your site is well established....You may even spend
a small fortunate on just one site, however, when the site
does start paying back, then it will get easier, then again,
with google lurking around, nothing is guaranteed to succeed....

If you bought one of those $95 amazon sites, then I am
sure the guy thanked you for paying his bills; because I do not
think those cheap amazon sites will do you any good. I have
seen some of those cheap sites, and they do look cheap, even
if you have content on the site, over-all the site is low quality,
and low quality will result in high bounce rates any day of the week.

and to be honest with you; affiliates are not going to tell you how much
they are making, and all you hear is the bad stuff how affiliates fail...
If I did not lose all my sites; I would have never said a damn thing...

Sorry for all my spelling mistakes...
I am cold, and I am tired...
tired of failing like others are....

Whatever the hell you do; please do not run and setup 20
stores because you are in a rush. All you are doing is repeating
one mistake from one store to the next. You need to setup just one
store, and work that b%$# until you learn every and little thing
you can, and once you see something working, then may you
are ready for the next store. Do this is not a short term process
where you can just do 1-2 things then sit back and think that
google is going to take care of you for the rest of your life.
Sorry, it simply just does not work that way in todays market...
today, everything is much harder to accomplish then it
was lets say 5-8 years ago when it was a bit easier...

First of all, you don't really compete with Amazon per se. It's not black and white and it's not Amazon or you.

You have a website, you rank it, you catch the eye of the reader (this comes down to testing) in your titles. OK, you'll rank below Amazon for the big keywords but you'll get the traffic, I know it first hand.

Here are a few things that worked for me:

• you might not want to hear it, but I actually buy most of the products. I don't buy 50 blenders (just an example, not my real niche) but I filter the ones that look like they could be the best and get those. I send them out to authorities in the field to test and review. You get pictures, videos, in-depth reviews.
• A more in intricate and detailed rating system. An average Amazon reviewer will say a few general sentences. Make it your mission that to provide something different (eg. leave the blender running for an hour, try how it works on different food consistencies...)
• Be the Seth Godin's "purple cow" that goes above and beyond. Here's a good example - just today I contacted some Indian guys that make machines for testing just the kind of products I review. Of course, these machines are ridiculously expensive but that's just a goal for me right now. Imagine that you scientifically test something that other just offer opinions on. The first money the site makes goes to getting those machines. It's the road to an authority website, which is my mission.

A confession: You're probably thinking, "f off, I don't have the money for that".

Let me make it a bit easier by confessing that I started out with a website with simple reviews. I also confess to making claims that were not always true (like buying and testing each product). I did buy some but not all of them.

I made it by just getting the rankings. Got some nice dough out of that and what I'm doing right now is far more serious and honest. So, with my Amazon business it was basically "fake it 'till you make it"...

I might receive some "friendly fire" for what I said here but it's the truth and it's what I wish somebody had told me a year ago.

This is a very interesting thread. There something I am surprised no one else has mentioned. Let's say you create an authority site around your niche, use a mailing list for back end sales; then are you not eroding Amazon's value preposition to you as an affiliate?

If you are able to make arrangements with the manufacturer to fulfill orders then why not cut Amazon out of the the picture entirely?

If you are will established you could poach your competitor affiliates from Amazon and make them your affiliates by offering them a better deal?

A great solution around this is 'Price Comparison'

Test changing the site into a site that compares many online stores including amazon and ebay, etc.

You either do it better than Amazon, or do it differently.

It's going to be incredibly difficult to do it better than Amazon when it comes to reviews.

However you can do it different.

E.g. There's a DVD review website that shows screen quality of the DVDs. This is something that Amazon reviewers won't be bothered to add to their reviews, but is something that's useful to DVD collectors.

Add value to your site, it may help people save their time for choose products.

You can not win them with keyword: product + reviews. You can go for other relate keywords as best ....., or product 1 vs product 2. You can find some keyword ideas at thewirecutter.com

I read once to use the reviews on Amazon, but you need to rewrite them a little or you might run into trouble. I thought after reading that, that if you say this is what some are saying about the product, and then show a few reviews. If you want to go the review route.

In all the years I have had affiliate account, I have made $3.xx from it. And not have lost access to it. So I am no expert at all. Just wanted to relay something I read about this subject on e time.

I started this Amazon thread, and have been following it through. I've received excellent advice, and hope it continues. The varied viewpoints have given me many choices (almost too many) in how to proceed. Some of the things I've learned include:

* by popular vote, my website sucks. I need to fix that
* I need to add value to my website. I thought I had, but apparently not. I'll work on it...

What i know for sure is this. "You can't steer a parked car". You can get in, turn the wheel, shift the gears, operate the levers, and listen to the radio. But unless it's MOVING, it won't CHANGE DIRECTION.

So my goal is to use all of your advice, to get things moving. Once it's moving, i can revisit this thread and change directions to what looks best at the time.

Keep it up, this has been a valuable thread for all of us. Thanks again, and Happy New Year

Mark C.
Phoenix, Arizona, USA

The best part is that you can use the amazon 24 hour cookie. It isnt necessary that they buy your product, they may buy any, but you get commissions from it.

Most of the websites I have landed on had some really good lists of best books in a specific field and most of the links to those books, not all, were pointing to the Amazon book as affiliates. I am sure that if your article ranks well in Google you would get a few buys through your affiliate links.