Welcome to the Amazon E-Commerce Overlook

There are plenty of affiliate programs out there, and some would say too many. They add to internet spam, and generally only make the rich richer while the poor are scammed. Here you can read more about why the owner of Design Approach decided to create several Amazon.com affiliate sites, and about his experiences while doing so.

The Subject Site: HomeWare Web

Why Amazon?

I have been following Amazon for quite some time now, and its sister site, Excite.com, both founded by Jeff Bezos in the late 90s. It was the start of the dot boom, and I was excited about the prospects of Amazon, even if I had no money to invest. Being a budding web designer, I was closely following their business model, and I couldn't believe some of the deals they had to offer

Well, things have moderated some since then, and Amazon is making a steady profit. They've had plenty of customers for quite some time, although there was a period where one would wonder if they could gain traction or not.

But why join an e-commerce affiliate program at this late stage in the game, instead of getting in sooner?

It has to do with the discovery of a web service called the Amazon E-Comnmerce Service (AES). I discovered by signing up and reading through the spec that I had all of the skills necessary to build an Amazon.com store from scratch. It requires some scripting knowledge (typically PHP, but can also be ASP.NET or whatever you choose), some persistence, the ability to get on top of a steep learning curve, and a lot of patience.

Add to that the potential for making more money each month than I was making in web design, while doing a lot less work, and I decided to go for it.