Seeking Stories of Amazon Affiliates Impacted by their Major Cut In Affiliate Fees for Press Release

for those who do not know here is a link to the fee schedule

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com...1080_224596230

al

Hey kilgore,
I truly do feel for you and many others.
I know I have been down that same road where a new change comes a long and BOOM, it literally changes everything (business Life and home Life) for the worse overnight.

I have a few AMZN sites still active back in the day, but earn just chump change.

Here is the thing concerning this event: there is really NO recourse here.
AMZN is so HUGE now. Kind of like Google . And they have reached a point where affiliates are just a negligible consequence to their bottom line.

It's not like other situations where something chaotic happens and if enough affiliates bellow about it, then it could affect a company's reputation so they scurry around to rectify the situation.

This is AMZN and this issue is OVER WITH ! Period !!

That being said, I admit If I was in your situation or countless other Marketers I would feel the EXACT same way.

I totally empathize with that.

We are talking about peoples' livelihoods, their children,mortgages, car payments etc..., and years of blood sweat and tears put in to building up their AMZN businesses.

I just think it's futile to drag it out.

Like I said AMZN has already forgot about this "yesterday" and completely moved forward

I don't think there's anything to gain and time to lose in trying to make a change in commission structure a "cause" or an "anti-Amazon" story. They own the business - they have the right to set the commission structure and to change it as they see fit.

Anyone who promotes affiliate products knows commission structure can change - prices may be raised or greatly reduced, etc. I honestly can't imagine much interest from the press - or the public - but good luck if you give it a shot. What do you hope to accomplish?

I completely admit it's unlikely that any action we take is going to influence Amazon on this change. But we're not talking about a major time investment here. The way I see it, a ten minute phone call with a reporter is a small price to pay even when the odds are stacked against us, especially when our projected Amazon revenues will be declining by 50 to 65%. Moreover, I think it's important for whatever changes Amazon might make in the future that Amazon realizes that how they treat their affiliates is going to be watched by the press and the larger public.

The good news is that it looks like we've gotten at least one larger media outlet interested in the story. We're still looking for affiliates who would be willing to talk to the press -- if anyone is interested but concerned about their privacy or potential backlash from Amazon, they've indicated that they'd be willing to talk off the record.

Again, I'm not arguing that the most important thing we can be doing is shifting our strategy to adjust to the new realities, however unpleasant they are. And that's exactly what we're doing and have been doing since we first learned about their abandoning the volume commission rates two weeks ago. It's going to be painful in the short term, but we'll survive and even become stronger for having gone through this adversity. Even so, I think it's important to hold even the most powerful corporations accountable in whatever small ways we can. Just because a company can get away with something, doesn't mean it should.

What I find ironic is that many of the affiliates who now complain about amazon changing the rules have no issue with themselves dropping a writer because they found a cheaper one, a hosting company because they found a cheaper one, etc.

It's business. A good business minimizes expenses so as to increase profits.

Even little affiliates do it. The smart ones accepted that when they started and built more than one stream of income.

By the way, if you have the skill to make $x with amazon, surely you have the skills to make a similar amount with some other outfit. (Yes, I understand amazon's conversions are awesome, but you still can replace... If, as part of your business, you had a Growth Manager (yes, you can have one even if you're the only one in your business; I know you can because I know 1-person outfits have a President, have someone answering the phone, have someone taking and recording payments, someone doing marketing, etc.)

Maybe look at the news for Amazon, not affiliate related news but Amazon itself.

• Warehouse robots
• Amazon store with no/few employees
• Amazon Alexa

See a trend?

#phase-out-human-cost

Research John D. Rockefeller and the growth of the Standard Oil Company. It's like Amazon is taking a page right out of the John D. book.

kilgore, I'm surprised you are wasting any time and energy on something so obviously futile. Just a little while ago you stated it wasn't a big deal to your business.

Any focus you give this is focus taken away from what's important.

How does it go?

Change the things I can...
Accept the things I can not...
Have the wisdom to know the difference...

My two cents are spent, I have a race to watch!!

Good luck!

Brent

This episode highlights YET AGAIN the importance of building a list

Shift that list to your Shopify/Alibaba powered ALTERNATE site and make even MORE MONEY

I must say, I find it a surprising that the prevailing reaction on this thread basically is one of resignation and defeatism.

I perfectly understand that this isn't everyone's fight. If you don't make much with Amazon or can painlessly shift your business model in reaction to these changes, then, it makes sense that you might not be concerned. But not being concerned and calling people trying to actually do something whiners are two different things.

Where I'm from, "whining" is when you constantly complain something but never actually do anything about it. In the parlance of IM, what I'm doing is "taking action". Perhaps I'm not taking "MASSIVE ACTION" -- as I've repeatedly admitted, getting Amazon to change is a long shot at best and I've got more important things to do than running a full-fledged campaign against them -- but then again, I'm also not complaining a lot either. What I have done/am doing is this:

1. I posted the limited information I knew about the upcoming changes when I first learned about them. To me, the tone of that thread was concerned, but informative. If you call that whining, I think we speak a different language.
2. Once I learned what the exact changes were going to be, I fired off a firm but respectful email to my contacts within the Amazon affiliate program. Obviously, you can't read the content of the message, but if you believe that any note expressing dissatisfaction amounts to whining, then again, I think we speak a different language.
3. I reached out to a small group of reporters who I felt might be interested in learning about these developments. I wrote a factual, though obviously one-sided account of the changes and what I believed their impacts likely to be. If you feel that telling your side of the story to the press is whining, then again, I think we speak a different language.
4. I posted here seeking stories of people who might be willing to speak to the press about their own experiences. You can read my post above, but to my (obviously biased), it does not constitute whining.
5. I contacted a few people through the WF and other channels in order to help recruit more stories once we had a bite from a reporter. Again, if this is whining we speak a different language.

What are my expectations for all of what I did? As I've said over and over again, not much. But that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

In statistics there's a concept called expected value (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value). In short, it's the mean (average) value you get when running an experiment over and over and over again. For instance, if you played the lottery and the odds of winning were 1 in 10 and the prize was $20, the expected value of buying a ticket would be $2 (1 / 10 * 20). Is it worth buying a ticket? Well, if the ticket costs less than $2, yes it is. If the ticket costs more than $2, no it isn't.

The same sort of calculation applies here. If I do nothing, my revenue loss will almost certainly be in the six figures. So the prize (for me anyway) is fairly large. We can all agree that the chance for success is low. But the cost of my lottery ticket? A couple of posts, a few messages here and there and a ten minute phone call. Basically I'm giving up the time equivalent of one evening watching TV.

Moreover, to me it's a matter of principle. Affiliates have been instrumental in Amazon's success. Now they're basically giving them all a huge pay cut -- and with only five days notice! Does Amazon have the right to do this? Of course, they can do what they want. It's in the contract, and if they didn't I wouldn't be talking to reporters, I'd be speaking to my lawyer right now.

But just because a company, organization or government can do something legally, doesn't mean it's right. And of course, if it's Amazon's right to make these changes, it's also my right to speak out about them.

I find it ironic that I've basically been accused of screwing over my own workers and my own contractors. Obviously the person who wrote that has no knowledge at all of my business, my staff or my contractors. We always, always, always pay a living wage for services. We don't outsource to developing countries. We don't unilaterally change contracts or agreements. And I've certainly never, ever cut anyone's pay by 50% with just five days notice. In fact, while I'm certainly concerned about the effect of this change on my own income, a large part of the reason I'm so nervous and upset is because I'm worried about my staff. I don't want to have to lay off anyone. I don't want to reduce hours. And I'd love to continue the tradition we established of giving Christmas bonuses. Given time, I have no doubt that my business will be able to successfully pivot and continue to profit and grow -- but especially given the extremely short notice, it's going to be challenging to maintain staff hours at the same rate. And they have families too!

But beyond the specific issue of Amazon changing its commission rates, the defeatism here is disappointing. This sort of attitude is certainly not limited to the WF, but I guess I (incorrectly) assumed that if there was anywhere where people would be proactive and tough, it would be in a forum of entrepreneurs.

Is this how you run your businesses?

When something doesn't go the way you want do you just roll over without even trying, even when the price of trying is literally forgoing three hours of television?

When a competitor emerges, do you just pivot your businesses so that you no longer have to compete?

If you have a great idea, a great plan and the skills and talent to pull it off, but some large company dominates the market, do you not try at all or do get your hands dirty and figure out how to carve a piece of the market for yourself?

In your personal lives, if you're assessed an unfair fee by your credit card provider or your cable company do you just pay it?

If the government wanted to use its legal right of eminent domain to tear your house down to build a highway that you felt was unnecessary or could easily be diverted without tearing yours or anyone else's house down would you just start packing your things?

Listen, I know that changing things is hard, sometimes seemingly impossible. And I know that we all have limited time and resources. We can't afford to spend large amounts of time on quixotic quests. But we also can't afford to just roll over. The most surefire way to lose is to not try at all.

What I did with regards to Amazon's changes is essentially taking a page out of the lean startup movement. You try something quickly, you evaluate the results and then you move on from there. I'll know very soon whether my limited efforts have any legs to them. In the admittedly unlikely chance that they do, I'll be ready to plan out and implement the next step. If they don't, all I've lost was a couple of hours. Fail fast. But the important thing isn't that I win this battle. It's that I tried.

There are so many battles to fight, many with very long odds. But just because the chances are slim, doesn't mean we don't try at all. You may not want the cost of your efforts (in time, money or whatever) to exceed the expected value (statistically speaking) of your efforts, but that's very different than not doing anything at all. Write a letter, call your representatives, talk to your neighbors, contact the press. If through these small, low-risk, low-cost efforts you start to gain momentum, maybe you continue. If not, maybe you just move on. But you'll never change anything if you just roll over every time you get screwed.

I don't care what your politics are, democracy dies when we let it die. It dies when we rely on others to fight for us. It dies when we look at politicians as saviors. It dies when we start to believe that we the people can't make a difference, that government is too big, that corporations are too rich and too powerful. We may lose 999 out of 1000 battles, but if we fight smart and fail fast, that single success can make all the failures worth it. That's what entrepreneurs do every day. We try. We fail. We learn. Then sometimes, we succeed.

And for the naysayers out there let me just add this. If somehow we do beat the odds here, this would not be the first time that my small business has taken on a multi-billion dollar company and won. Will this be the second? Probably not. But you never know until you try.

Hi kilgore,

I've always been impressed with your contributions to this forum so I wanted to contribute to your thread since I have a website that earns income from Amazon affiliate commissions.

I took my 2016 earnings report and tried to apply the new fee schedule to see what my income would have been if those rates were in place all of last year.

A few notes first:

• About 14% of my earnings were from non-US Amazon affiliate programs which are not impacted by this change
• About half of the categories in my 2016 earnings report do not exactly match the category names in the new fee schedule table so I had to make a few guesses
• My site only generates enough orders to reach the 7.5% tier most months
• My primary niche is responsible for 80% of my earnings and it will be earning 7.0% under the new system, not much different than what it made in 2016 (7.2%)

It looks like I will be relatively unscathed by this change, at least in the short term. Instead of earning $22k in 2016, I would have earned $20.5k using the new fee schedule, a reduction of about 7%.

If my site continues to grow I will be more and more impacted since I would have reached higher earnings tiers under the old system but now I will not. I imagine some smaller affiliate sites may actually see their income increase under the new rates if their primary niche category makes a higher fixed rate than the previous variable rate they could achieve.

This fee schedule change should encourage new affiliate marketers to enter into the higher earning categories where they will earn more than they would have just starting out under the old system. In fact, if I were to analyze my 2014 and 2015 earnings I wouldn't be surprised to see that I would have earned more under the new system than what I actually earned.

I'm curious to see if Amazon will change the rate that is charged on returned items. I notice all of my returns are charged at 4%, even if I earned 7.5% on the purchase. If the amount I pay on returned items increases to match what I earn then I could lose another 5% of my earnings.

I've always known that this income could dry up in an instant so I'm feeling fortunate that I dodged the bullet this time and I do feel sympathy for those who will be more severely impacted.

I'd agree with that - which is why I was interested to read articles and posts and emails by other Amazon affiliates such as Erica Stone (Sojourn) and Jennifer Ledbetter (PotPieGirl) and some high earning affiliates who have commented on blogs.

Their response has been 'disappointed but optimistic' - they have detailed new methods they will use - how they will refocus and regroup if they lost income...no one said "wow, this is great" as clearly it isn't great for larger volume Amazon affiliates.

However, they aren't treating it as a battle with Amazon but as a challenge to overcome with their sites and blogs. They are making plans to add new income sources, to refocus on new categories at Amazon, etc. They are focusing on what they OWN -their own sites and blogs. That, to me, is a good response for an entrepreneur. Accepting change is not defeatist - sometimes it is a realistic and practical choice.

Though I don't agree with your approach - I do wish you well with it and hope you get some traction in the media.

What about me, I guess I will have to try harder.

Frank, do you offer coaching on this

al

The reason why this is potentially so damaging is that amazon has decreased commissions on products that people are more likely to buy online such as electronics, and increased them on products they are less likely to buy online, like housewares and apparel.

And how to you review apparel? It's a difficult thing to do.

Not trying to be negative and poo-poo all over this idea, but I think there is one big thing you are forgetting about.

The majority of Amazon consumers, and that's who Amazon really cares about, have no idea what an affiliate is. Even if you do manage to generate some bad press for Amazon, most people that see it will have no idea wtf is being talked about.

I think that is the biggest challenge you face. Complete and total indifference.

Most people will think of just this:

1) Does this negatively affect the prices I'm going to pay at Amazon in the future?
2) Will this negatively impact my ability to place orders at Amazon?
3) Does this impact my shipping from Amazon?

The answer to all 3 is no, so I don't care.