What To Do About the Recent Amazon Affiliate Commission Changes

Have you been affected by the recent Amazon affiliate commission changes as a blogger or influencer? Read this for some practical encouragement & advice!

Those of you who are Amazon affiliates probably know that Amazon released some pretty significant changes to their commission structure last week.

For a lot of people, this was really devastating news — especially if Amazon is one of your primary sources of income.

I have personally experienced this in the past with Amazon, and I want to offer some hope and encouragement!

My Past Experience With Major Commission Decreases

Not only did I get my commissions cut last week, but years ago Amazon did a major cut to my commissions.

Back in the glory days of Amazon, if you sold a certain amount of items, you could make 8-8.5% flat rate across the board. It was amazing and we were riding the wave of Amazon being our primary affiliate income source.

…until Amazon told me I was selling too many items at a low profit margin, and they decided to lower my commission rate to .8% — yes, less than 1% — on all items across the board.

This was a HUGE change for us. Overnight, we experienced thousands of dollars in lost revenue every day.

And while I have some strong feelings on Amazon lowering affiliates’ rates last week, I’m not here to speak negatively about Amazon.

Rather, I want to share with you how what I learned years ago from that experience benefited our business in a really positive way.

Because having our Amazon rates drastically cut years ago pushed me outside my comfort zone, challenged me to think outside the box, and forced me to get creative with our income streams and sources.

It taught me a really important lesson about blogging income — that I can’t put all of my eggs in one basket and having multiple streams of income is SO important.

How to Respond to Recent Amazon Affiliate Commission Changes

So in response to the recent Amazon commission decreases, here’s my encouragement to you…

1. Don’t freak out.

If you get angry and go take down all your Amazon affiliate links, that’s not really going to do anything to help you or result in anything productive.

2. Look for new affiliates to promote.

Instead, I want to challenge you to get creative! There are tons of other affiliate programs besides Amazon. (If you’re just starting out, you can even sign up for sites that pay you for referrals!)

When Amazon changed our commissions years ago, it pushed us to diversify and seek out new affiliate programs to sign up for.

We found companies that did SO well with our audience — even better than Amazon — and paid a lot higher commission!

We never would have found those new affiliate income sources, had we not been challenged in this way.

3. Produce your own products.

Guess what? When you create your own products, nobody else can control how much you charge or how much you make from it!

Creating your own course, coaching program, eBook, or product is a great way to diversify and bring in a more secure income. Nobody can take it away from you!

4. Use this as motivation to get creative.

Instead of being negative and thinking your entire business has sunk, ask yourself what you can do.

What can you try, learn, change, or experiment with? What can you do differently? Ask yourself those questions!

Maybe it won’t work the first time, but if you keep challenging yourself to be creative, to think outside the box, and to experiment with new things…you’re eventually going to hit on some things that are probably going to work way better than Amazon ever did!

Our income is SO much stronger now as a result of Amazon bumping down our commissions years ago.

I’m here to tell you that you will survive, it will be okay, and that this might end up being one of the best things to ever happen to your business!

Need More Affiliate Marketing Help?

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