Adam Schwartz from CouponSurfer.com shared an interesting article with me about Amazon.com, and their apparent plans to become an affiliate themselves.
Amazon.com Inc. is testing a new paid advertising program that will drive shoppers away from products on its own Web site.
On some Amazon product detail pages, competing or complementary items and their prices now appear in a list of text-link ads under headings such as ”Available at these other websites.”
When shoppers click, the advertiser’s site opens in a new window.
And Amazon makes money for sending the user along — sometimes more than if it had held onto the shopper.
More details at nytimes.com.
As an Amazon affiliate, this sort of leak would be troubling to me, unless there is some way they would be compensating affiliates in these instances.
If it just becomes a matter of tough luck to the affiliates, I have plenty of options for my affiliate traffic, and I’ll shift it elsewhere.
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f it just becomes a matter of tough luck to the affiliates, I have plenty of options for my affiliate traffic, and I’ll shift it elsewhere.
And there is also another idea behind it that could increase the customer loyalty and also get them more customers.
It’s similar to the model of Progressive.com, the car insurance who offers next to their own quote also quotes for the same thing from their biggest competitors.
They know that they cannot get everyone for the best price, but they can get many. A shopper who knows that he will learn about a better deal somewhere else, will feel much more comfortable to go to amazon directly than go and shop around.
This makes sense from a long term business point of view and should also benefit affiliates, not immediately, but in the long run.
I see this more like the Shopzilla Affiliate Program than Google AdWords.
I don’t think this makes Amazon an affiliate any more than paid search makes Google an affiliate. This is Amazon offering paid search.
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