Amazon Afiiliates, Your Opinion Please?

Firstly, as far as Amazon goes, you don't have to "sell" the exact product you're promoting to make a commission. When you send traffic there, you can and will receive commissions on the items in your vistor's next order - so long as it's placed within the 24-hour cookie-window, of course.

Secondly, I believe there is an upper-limit to the amount of commission you can receive from any single referred sale. Which sort of reduces the incentive to promote products of a high-value (if you think it might be tough), if the commissions from such sales would far exceed that limit.

I don't necessarily think it's harder to sell higher-priced products any more than it is low-priced products ... after all, people have an idea of what they want/need, and you're not going to be selling anything to anyone who has no need or desire for it in the first place. That said, it could indeed be harder to secure that sale through your affiliate link, at Amazon.

The logic for that, to my mind, is as follows:

If a customer is looking to buy a product within (whatever they consider to be) their low to mid price range, they will often opt to purchase it (regardless of slight price differences between competing retailers) from the place they're more used to purchasing from. For many, that's Amazon. It's little hassle for them there: they have an account already; they've stored their payment details; they've shopped there before, they trust them; they've probably had a good experience with them. As soon as they've landed at Amazon, and the price looks decent - BAM: order secured. Simple.

In contrast, those looking to purchase highly-priced products will understandably - in many cases - want to shop around a little more to secure the best deal. There can be bigger variations in the prices offered by retailers, on higher-value products. And people are generally more hesitant and slower when it comes to sinking large sums of cash online (or indeed on purchases at all).

So one of two things may happen:

They'll go to Amazon, look at the price, but still be hesitant to buy before they've "double checked", and are happy they're getting the best deal, or have mustered up the courage to open up their purse-strings and put down the money. By then, your cookie may have long expired, and won't be reimplanted if/when they go directly to Amazon to buy.

Alternatively, they'll make an exception and buy from a more "specialised" retailer, and you won't make any sales - at least not of that item.

How many people do you know who will order most stuff online, but always head to their local Comet to buy a new TV, or to a Jessops to buy their new DSLR? (I'm in the UK ... Comet = electrical retailer / Jessops = specialised camera retailer).

So although a sale is inevitable with higher-priced products (if the customer is pre-interested in buying such a product, of course), the likelihood of you successfully being the one to refer that sale and subsequently bank your commissions is somewhat lowered.

Hope this makes sense.

I don't know if you agree with that logic / theory at all, but it's something to think about.

(And I can't really talk from experience so much, as the top price of any product I promote is under about $1000).

Direstraits... I think you just nailed it down!
Great post

It's better to promote higher priced items because they're already looking to buy if they're going through your link to Amazon.

higher price is better, altho there are volume bonuses if you sell over a certain quantity, so a combination of both can be good...

Make a lot of sense! Thanks for that great explanation direstraits