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Topic: Shoplinc vs. Amazon aStore (Read 16035 times)
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feedbuzzard
Guru
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Posts: 12
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About the same time Chitika offered me a Shoplinc page, Amazon introduced their aStore beta. I don't know about all of you but I would much rather earn 4-7% (or more) on a sale than thity-odd cents for a click.
I appreciate Chitika doing the whole page layout and everything but I just can't bring myself to send users to a shoplinc when the aStore is just as easy.
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feedbuzzard
Guru
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Posts: 12
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I guess what I'm saying is, if I am going to direct a user to a shoplinc page with my branding on it (ie: shoplinc.mydomain.com) then I expect more than a CPC in return.
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tflight
Guru
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Posts: 50
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Of course the difference is that if someone clicks on the shoplinc link and goes to the merchant's store, but doesn't buy anything you still get paid. Amazon will only pay you if a sale is made.
I used to have a fully integrated Amazon store within my site. Users could go so far as to even add products to their Amazon shopping cart from within my site. (Rather than just being sent to the product page where they could then add it to the cart if they wanted.)
Sure, getting a 7% commission was great. However when Amazon changed their pay structure to no longer pay bonuses for direct links, etc I now only make 4% per sale. And even though they could directly add products to their cart from my site the percentage of clicks where I made no money whatsoever was very high.
I started to track how many times people added products to their cart as a "click". Then I totaled the amount of commission I made from the sales and figured out an "effective CPC". With Amazon paying only 4% commission my "effective CPC" was actually less than what I typically make per click with Chitika, AdSense, etc.
Of course each site will have different results. I know some people (Rich, where are you?) that make more money with Amazon with websites that aim at similar products.
For me there was another factor in the decision to use shoplinc over Amazon and that is one of ethics. I'm not suggesting that using Amazon is unethical, however there is something inherently different about having a page about a product and displaying a list of places and prices where you can purchase the product rather than making a commission from a single source.
This is better for my site visitors too. It is better for me to say to my visitors "here are 15 stores who offer the product and their current price for your to compare" rather than "go buy it from Amazon". The shoplinc approach is just a better service for my visitors.
There are some types of sites (like sites that provide product reviews) where visitors might think you are being more objective if you are just displaying ads versus earning a commission from the sale of that product. Ultimately I realized I need to be more black and white and not promote a particular merchant.
Again, I'm not saying that using Amazon is unethical; rather some types of sites might need to take a more objective stance and not promote specific merchants. Not all sites will have the same situation as me though. Plus I still make more per click from Shoplinc. 
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problogger
Guru
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Posts: 11
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I agree with tflight - i think they are different and will each suit different sites. Some of my sites do extrememly well with shoplinc because they are sites where people are more into 'researching' than buying. If I sent them to an aStore they might explore a bit but a small percentage of them would actually buy where as if I sent them to a shoplinc they'd dig around, compare prices and in the process click a few paying links. I make much more from shoplinc than I do from Amazon (and I drive a lot of traffic to both).
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feedbuzzard
Guru
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Posts: 12
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I'll certainly have another look at this-
Good exchange of info!
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ahearn
Newbie
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Posts: 3
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I have a couple of Amazon stores (gps.buyerreports.org and flashlight.buyerreports.org) that are not eStore but another vendor product. However, I'm very curious about ShopLinc and would be interested in hearing about the experiences of others with it.
I'm currently making money with the sites but am always looking for ways to improve on it. I, too, get a lot of people putting items in the shopping cart but never actually buying but I'm not sure the number of these would pay enough on a per-click basis to offset the revenue I currently get on sales.
So, let's hear some more experiences.
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