Amazon Affiliates rates are to be slashed for the businesses that drive traffic to the marketplace. Many commission rates in Amazon’s affiliate program, known as Amazon Associates are to be slashed from as much as 10% to 3% and in the case of Groceries from 5% to 1%.
This will seriously impact the income as Amazon Affiliates rates will be what Amazon partners have based their entire business models on for many years. Some will have built sites to attract traffic and from there redirected traffic to Amazon. Others will have sites which in themselves rely on buying Google Adwords to attract large amounts of traffic which they can then redirect to Amazon for a commission. All these businesses will have to radically rethink their business models as, depending on the category they sell in, their Amazon Affiliates rates and the commissions that they earn are about diminish by anything up to 80%.
The new Amazon Affiliate rates will apply as of the 21st of April 2020.
New Amazon Affiliates rates (from 21st April 2020)
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|---|---|
| Furniture, Home, Home Improvement, Lawn & Garden, Pets Products, Pantry | 3.00% |
| Headphones, Beauty, Musical Instruments, Business & Industrial Supplies | 3.00% |
| Outdoors, Tools | 3.00% |
| Grocery | 1.00% |
| Sports | 3.00% |
| Baby Products | 3.00% |
| Health & Personal Care | 1.00% |
| Amazon Fresh | 1.00% |
Old Amazon Affiliates rates (up to 20th April 2020)
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|
|---|---|
| Luxury Beauty, Amazon Coins | 10.00% |
| Furniture, Home, Home Improvement, Lawn & Garden, Pets Products, Pantry | 8.00% |
| Headphones, Beauty, Musical Instruments, Business & Industrial Supplies | 6.00% |
| Outdoors, Tools | 5.50% |
| Digital Music, Grocery, Physical Music, Handmade, Digital Videos | 5.00% |
| Physical Books, Health & Personal Care, Sports, Kitchen, Automotive, Baby Products | 4.50% |
| Amazon Fire Tablet Devices, Amazon Kindle Devices, Amazon Fashion Women’s, Men’s & Kids Private Label, Apparel, Amazon Cloud Cam Devices, Fire TV Edition Smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV Devices, Amazon Echo Devices, Ring Devices, Watches, Jewelry, Luggage, Shoes, and Handbags & Accessories | 4.00% |
| Amazon Fresh, Toys | 3.00% |
| PC, PC Components, DVD & Blu-Ray | 2.50% |
| Televisions, Digital Video Games | 2.00% |
| Physical Video Games & Video Game Consoles | 1.00% |
| Gift Cards; Wireless Service Plans; Alcoholic Beverages; Digital Kindle Products purchased as a subscription; Food prepared and delivered from a restaurant; Amazon Appstore, Prime Now, Amazon Pay Places, or Prime Wardrobe Purchases | 0.00% |
| All Other Categories | 4.00% |
One Response
I’m guessing, given the current pressure on Amazon logistics, that there’s no appetite to drive even greater problems through the affiliate program. Much of this affiliate income is paid on items that are non-essential and Amazon are becoming increasingly sensitive about risks to both their own staff and the staff of their business partners.
Rates may be raised once Covid19 is under control, but affiliates must also recognise that, as Amazon becomes ever dominant in the market place, paid commission programs become gradually superfluous and reducing rates now, under cover of the current situation, could be a permanent move.