Amazon web services

Is it really useful?

[fourchette]

Hi there,

I have a site about... widgets, and I want to sell related books from my content pages.

I am thinking of putting direct links to the books and to the amazon category pages straight from my content pages.

This way if a person clicks on my "books on widgets" link they will be sent directly to the related amazon page.

The other option would be to create a "store' inside my site, where I would list the books related to the category that the person clicked on.

If I do the store option, when a user clicks on "books on widgets" link, instead of going straight to amazon.com they would land on my special book store with amazon feeds in the results.

Isin't that just an extra step that is not really useful? If the person browses my store and chooses a book and then clicks, what's the difference?

He's browsing the book titles on my page instead of browsing the books on the amazon site... would that really create an advantage for me?

I'm confused about the advantages of building a store front from amazon feeds
Please help!

[wildbest]

Web Services as a business concept can make wonders, but Amazon ECS is a different story. The problem there is your customers have to checkout from your store using their Amazon shopping cart or/and Amazon account! Of course, next time quite naturally they go directly to Amazon.com... So, you do all the SEO, marketing and PPC advertising stuff, but at the end you have a negligible % of returning customers... To have a successful ecommerce site, however, you have to keep a ratio of at least 2:3 between returning and new customers. Otherwise, you are just burning your money for somebody else!

[dmorison]

I would research the best selling books on Widgets and promote them directly with hard coded affiliate links. You could even "big 'em up" on your site for added impact.

This has the added benefit of persistance - a regular visitor to your website may remember seeing the link to a particular book and conciously return to your website at a later date when they want to buy it.

Web services are more appropriate (and great) for a scenario in which less is known; such as complementing the results for a site search for example.

[edited by: dmorison at 8:02 pm (utc) on Feb. 26, 2006]

[fourchette]

wildbest,

Could you give me some more advice about how webservices could do wonders?

And another thing, I was talking about promoting amazon.com books on my site using their feed, and not my own books...

So basically I'm wondering wy I should create a custom storefront with their data instead of sending them directly to the amazon.com store...

[wildbest]

This is what I am saying - there is no need to create a custom storefront for Amazon products, unless you like to play with new toys and technologies for the sake of playing...

[edited by: eljefe3 at 1:31 am (utc) on Feb. 28, 2006]

[fourchette]

wildbest...
So basically you agree that if I will only repeat what is already there on amazon.com, I should just link directly to them and not waste the time to build up a store inside my site?

I guess what I'll do is organize the content manually and insert the best books for every content page manually with a little original description and a hardlink to amazon aff program...

Thanks for the advice!

If you have any other suggestions or advice about this project, feel free to let me know!

Fourchette

[wildbest]

Yes, I think dmorison gave you a good advice. Initially I thought you are asking about Amazon ECS - [amazon.com...] - and apologize for my broad comment. Whatever you decide, wish you success.

[fourchette]

sorry to insist about this topic but:

What's the use of using amazon data feeds to build a store with their products on your site when you can just hard link to the best products yourself ( and write an original description)

I know incredibill mentionned something somewhere about how good it is to make a custom storefront with the amazon feeds, but my question is,, why?

What are the advantages over making a litte research and hard link to the best sellers?

Fourchette

[Scruffy]

I am in the same boat as the OP.

I tried the simple route first. I put a 'Further reading' text link on my page and pointed it to an Amazon search page on the topic.
Result - lots of clicks, no sales.
Big downside to this method is that if the visitor doesn't buy immediately from the Amazon page, or even goes to add more items to his basket, you don't get credit for the sale.

So then I wrote up a review on each book, linked directly to the product with an image ad.

Result? Nada. no clicks. no sales.

[fourchette]

humm scruffy...

I guess the traffic that goes to your pages are not so interested in buying books... ;)

[Scruffy]

That's my conclusion too.
Trouble is, mine is an information site, I get a lot of email telling me how useful... etc.

Maybe I should reduce the content ;-)

[fourchette]

humm lol hehe

Yeah... Or maybe you should try to SEO on specific queries from people searching for books...

Like, try to rank on "books on widgets" and whem they arrive on your page they see a selection of the best books...

Also you can have a little section on your site when you publish all those reviews you made, and link to it from all the pages with a link 'our site's library'... The people that will click on it will be interested...

[Iguana]

I have an info site and people do buy from Amazon (less than 1% conversion rate but I have made $900 dollars in a quarter once). You do get credit for orders placed during the session caused by your click through - I shall be getting a small amount for a sale of Pepper Spray that someone bought after clicking on one of my music links.

Web services only becomes really useful when you have a database driven site and want to use reviews/track listings in your content. A direct link from your page is best in your case I think

[Scruffy]

You do get credit for orders placed during the session caused by your click through

I must have misread the TOS...

One thing though, the ROI is so poor that I would rather not 'leak' visitors who mght click on something more valuable (to me!)
I know the Amazon link opens in a new window but I don't like spawning windows like that - I hate popups myself.

[Iguana]

I don't use the default Amazon link so I'm in control of my windows and I don't create a new one when a user clicks.

I sometimes doubt the returns on my links. My example of $900 was from 15 months ago. After that my conversion rate plummetted - I've never figured out why.

[Beagle]

One thing I don't think anyone has mentioned is that you get a bonus if you set up a link to a specific item and someone clicks on it and actually buys that item. You get credit for anything they buy during that session (I've had some strange ones pop up, too), but a bonus for the direct link buy.

Iguana - I had one month that was higher than usual. For some reason I don't think I want to know, someone bought four expensive women's watches, all exactly alike (yes, through a direct link). I've kept hoping for a replay of the generosity, guilty conscience, whatever... but it hasn't happened. My main products are books and DVDs, which take a lot of sales to add up to as much as those watches brought in.

[Iguana]

Hi Beagle

My fall from grace with Amazon is more than just a few high value products. Most of the time I was sending 1000 clicks to Amazon.com daily and selling avg of 10 items a day. I didn't have a 0 sales day for about 5 months.

My sales have decreased by about 80%

[Beagle]

Iguana -- Geez :(

Since you said it was your conversion that plummeted, I assume your traffic has stayed about the same? What about the number of clicks?

[fourchette]

Hey guys,

I'm starting to insert those amazon links to my pages now...

I'd like to come back to the suggestion made above to choose the best selling items and to link to those directly...

Is it better to link them directly with the direct link tool which will show a little image and the price, or to build the link yourself and putting the image also yourself beside the link?

I guess it's (a little) more work to do it all by yourself, but isin,t that the only way to BIG it up a little?

Thanks

[Iguana]

I think it's best to build the link yourself and manually add the image. The other thing is to use /ref=nosim in the link - it takes the visitor direct to the product page rather than the 'you may be interested in these' page.

[fourchette]

Iguana,

Thanks for he answer..

Another thing, I guess it's ok to hotlink the images from amazon?

And is it better to still include the amazon logo or to make it as simple as possible?

Thanks so much

[Iguana]

Yes, Amazon are happy with hotlinking from their affiliates. If you don't like the "30% off" part of the image then you can change that by modifying the filename.

I think a mention of Amazon is good because people trust them - so either a logo or just the word Amazon underneath.

[fourchette]

err... me again ;)

I was having this debate with my partner about amazon and book selling, I'd like to have your opinion on it...

The idea is to sell books through our site, which would be possible because we have very specific "niche" type traffic looking for info about the subject...

My idea is to make a link on the top of evey article that reads like : Find related books on this subject...

Up to that point we agree...

Where we disagree is where should that link points to.

He says: let's point directly to a relevant amazon.com page directly.

I say: Let's point the link to a page where we show 'selected' books with images and (maybe) a little unique description... Then when someone is interested in a book, he clicks on the book image and then gets to the right amazon page.

He says that this technique is useless because if people are willing to buy a book, they will be happy to be straight to amazon, where they can shop for a book. He also thinks that the extra step taken (two clicks to get to amazon instead of 1) will lower the overall number of clicks we send to amazon (thus reducing the sales)...

What do you think?

[hunderdown]

fourchette, why not do some testing? I tend to think that if you create a list of carefully selected recommended books, AND write unique copy (a must), then sales from that page will be greater than if you linked to an equivalent page at Amazon. I only use links to keyword-generated pages at Amazon when I can't take the time to create my own recommendations.

But your visitors may react differently. Create five pages of recommended books, and run them for a period of them. Then replace them with Amazon links. See what does better, and whether the extra effort to create your own pages is worth it.

[fourchette]

yeah hunderdown... that's what i'll do...

Thanks!

[Iguana]

There are all sorts of options with Amazon. You could select one book and not include the ref=nosim - that leads people to a page with "you might also be interested in". Also you can check out whether there is a "browse node" for your niche and if there is then you can put an "Amazon recommends" advert up that will show anumber of the most popular books in that subject.

For my sites, general recommendations have never worked well but I found if I just get the user to go to Amazon then they may buy that flamethrower they always wanted even if they don't buy the product they first looked at. Try a few different methods and see how they go.