I haven’t posted for awhile because I have been busy working on things that bring online income.
As my regular readers already know, I’m not a big fan of Blogging as a method for generating income as an online business.
In my opinion:
- Blogging takes too much time
- Blogging is the Magazine/Newspaper model which asks repeat traffic to Buy
- Blogging audience is not the much-desired Highly Targeted Buyer
Adding a Blog to an Online Store is a great idea, but this is the reverse of how many people are doing it.
Not every Blogger is in it for the purpose of making money, of course, as there are a great many who truly love the writing and interaction within the Comments.
Amazon Affiliate Income
I am an Amazon Affiliate, and I have used a variety of methods to make money as such.
After experimenting with several Plugins for WordPress, I decided on the WP-ZonBuilder. It’s a great Plugin, although it does have its limitations.
My problem is not with the Plugin, although I’m not sure if that is true. Since using the Plugin, my Amazon account has been closed twice!
Keep Your Affiliate Account Separate
Here is the mistake I may have made when setting up my account. Like most people, I already had a personal Buying account. And when setting up the Affiliate, Amazon wants your existing account info. So what ended up happening was that my Personal Buying Account become Co-mingled with my Business Affiliate Account.
The reason Amazon gave for closing my account was that someone accessed my account to download Digital Content. But this mysterious Hacker didn’t access my Credit Card info. And I have received no record, email, or acknowledgment from Amazon through normal channels that anything was actually purchased to my account.
A bit suspicious, if you ask me…
I lost my Income for the Quarter
Once my account was closed, I had no access at all.
Even though my new store sold about $4,500 in merchandise within a 6 week period, it appears I will not be paid, and thus far, I have found no way to contact anyone who can discuss the problem with me.
Obviously, I’ve become fairly apprehensive about continuing as an Amazon Affiliate.
Amazon Does Not Have Real Customer Service
Here is a MAJOR problem with Amazon. If you want to return a book, Amazon Customer service is superb. It’s simple, easy, and it’s pretty much “no questions asked.”
On the other hand, if you have any other problem:
- Amazon has NO Phone Number listed on their website
- Amazon has NO Online Chat listed on their website
- Amazon Customer Service is in India
- Amazon Customer Service “representatives” cannot help you with any problem that is not in their “Book”
This information is there somewhere on the Amazon website, but it’s not anywhere on their Menu. I guess it’s really on a Need to Know basis, and customers don’t really need to know 
But a little searching on Google brought me to the information I needed.
Here are the Amazon Customer Service Phone Numbers
I had to do some digging, but here are the Amazon Customer Service venues they refuse to place on their own website.
Why is that? Amazon is a HUGE company, yet they make it almost impossible to contact them in any serious manner.
- Phone toll-free in the US and Canada: 1(800) 201-7575
- Phone from outside the US and Canada: (206) 346-2992 or (206)-266-2992
- Phone from Canada: (877) 586-3230
- Phone from UK: +44 208 636 9451 or FreePhone 0800 279 6620 -OR- +44.208.636.9200
Online Chat Customer Service is Often Better
I hate to have to say it this way, but from my own experience, Customer Service Chat seems to employ a slightly higher level of personnel. Maybe they assume a higher level of customer.
But as a general rule, regardless of the company, I have had better success using online Chat for Customer Service than I have doing things by phone. Maybe it was simply the “luck of the draw” 
Try this to Chat online. It does take longer, BUT, you may get better service.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html?ie=UTF8&type=email&skip=true
I May Quit
I have set up a new account—which required several days to be officially approved, and will give this another month.
If at month’s end Amazon closes this new account, I will drop all my Amazon Affiliate sites for good.
Customer Service is Vital
This serves as a valuable lesson about running your own business. Not having adequate Customer can easily destroy the Trust Factor that is necessary for you to sustain your Customer Base and get repeat business.
Amazon makes it near impossible to get Help in any area beyond a simple product Return.
That’s no way to run a business. And it’s infuriating to finally be able to talk to a real person, only to find that they can only help you with problems that are contained within their “playbook.” A huge company like Amazon may be able to get away with that, but such practices can easily devastate a small business.
Enough about me. Now it’s Your turn.
- Have you had any Customer Service problems with Amazon as an Affiliate?
- Do You have an information that can be helpful to other Amazon Affiliates?
Be sure to leave a Comment in the Box below.
Hi Rick,
Well that’s an unfortunate experience! I don’t know how you’ve set up your new account again but I would recommend a separate business account for it. It’s a pain having multiple accounts but it will make things easier especially during tax time.
Thanks for all the info. I’ve actually considered buying that plugin and creating an Amazon eccommerce site… of course, as soon as I have the time.
Anyway, good luck. I hope this time around everything works out.
All the best!
Michele Welch recently posted..Are You Ready To Become The Purple Cow
Yes, Michele, I did set up a new account totally separate from a “purchase” account.
The plugin (as I assume all of them do) uses the publicly available Amazon API, which Amazon gives to programmers for the purpose of creating things like plugins.
Therefore, I can’t automatically assume the plugin is at fault.
Thank you for stopping by, and for your words of encouragement
I am an Amazon Affiliate and I haven’t had any problems with them. However, you are right about trying to get in touch with them. They have no address, no phone, no info…I detest that and will from now on pay closer attention to those matters. Thanks for addressing them in this article. I have had interaction with them on the Kindle and the service was excellent, they called me and cleared everything up quickly.
I will be paying closer attention to their customer relationship as that can make or break our businesses. Thank again, I will be following you.
Emily Bernstein recently posted..If Your a Blogger- You Deserve The Best!
Hi Emily, welcome to the site
I agree, my experience with their customer service, once I actually reached them, was pleasant, and the people did try to be helpful.
But it seems they are that classic Phone Bank based in India, as profiled by 60 Minutes a while back.
Customer Service is expensive, and Amazon profit margins are probably pretty tight. But I would still expect Affiliates to be able to get Help when it’s really needed.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Rixk
Thanks for that information, especially how we can contact them if we have a problem! Makes me a bit nervous as I was planning to have some Amazon niche sites. Will now have a rethink and read some of the fine print before embarking on more empire building
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia@lavender oils recently posted..The Clue’s in the Lavender Brew
I’m a bit nervous too, especially considering how many states in America are passing laws to require Sales Tax based on Affiliate sales.
Considering the low profit that comes from these sales, I’m thinking about walking away from Amazon altogether. If my state gets taxed, Amazon will abandon me anyway.
$4,500 is retail sales only brought me $160 in pre-income tax profit—which I will not even see because Amazon closed my account, and will not pay me.
The lesson here may be that it does not pay (literally) to try to make money the easy way.
I’m looking at Drop Shippers, and a really good downloadable online store.
As always, thank you so much for your comment.
I would have gone with dropshippers years ago, even researched and thought I was going to be going that way….alas doesn’t work for us in Oz!!! No dropshippers here
In America you have a lot more choices than we do over here, to make money with so many different services. Looked into heaps of different ways to do online marketing and so many different things would have US & Canada only on them!
Hope you find what you are looking for Rick. Sorry to hear Amazon hasn’t worked out for you.
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia@lavender oils recently posted..The Clue’s in the Lavender Brew
The problem I have personally found with Drop Shipping is that, by the time you add Drop Ship Fees, Shipping, and not so great wholesale prices, Drop Ship may not make you any money. Too many others who stock large quantities can offer better prices.
From what I have heard from those who are successful at Drop Ship income, this Game requires a lot of work in finding the Window between Source and Niche to find a profitable fit.
If was easy, everyone would be doing it.
I have had some good and bad experiences with dropshippers, the bad were neither too small profit nor they were so slow for shipment which caused lot of complaints from customers. If you want to look for good companies for dropship, I would recommend worldwidebrands.com, I get some good companies to work with here but you may need to pay for membership.
Rose recently posted..10 Questions to Ask Why Social Media Not Working for You
I had another website that was based on Drop Shipping, and I ran into the same problem.
By the time you consider shipping, drop ship fees, competition, there isn’t any real profit.
I have been looking at World Wide Brands, as I have been familiar with them for some time.
Going the Drop Ship route takes a lot of time in order to find the “right” supplier, product, etc. LOL, pretty much like what it takes to sell without Drop Ship
Thank you for sharing your experience and insight, Rose
Whoa.
For such a huge and successful company like Amazon, having such sub-par customer service is astounding. Usually such reputable companies care about their customers and making sure everything is working well.
Thank you for sharing those numbers with us! I’m an affiliate with them as well (not that I’ve actually *tried* to sell anything through them), but it’s better to know now than be surprised later.
Delena
Delena Silverfox recently posted..Go Mobile Coupon Codes
I agree. If they were not so big, I wouldn’t even deal with them at all.
Most small companies have better Customer Service.
But again, their business is retail, and the most common requirement is Returns, which they DO make very easy.
But the first time I tried to contact them “in person” was a real eye-opener. I spent hours trying to find a way to talk to a real person.
Hey Rick
I am currently having the same experience with Amazon. I woke up yesterday morning to the message – ACCOUNT CLOSED
No reason given, nothing!!!
I sent a message to customer service via the help form, I haven’t heard anything.
The crazy thing is I also use the WP_zonbuilder plugin and I also suspect it could be a factor.
I also have both a buying account and an associate account with the same details.
SO our cases are very similar
What do you advise I do now
OJ
Between what you say here, and Alex a few comments below, it probably isn’t the plugin.
Even though I opened a new account, closing my first one seems to have messed up my Google standings somewhat, too.
I plan to close my account and abandon the Amazon thing altogether.
Thanks for sharing your experience, OJ.
Hi Rick,
Amazon allow you to advertise, then when you get enough sales, there are seem to be plenty reasons to shut you down. Please take a look on API License Agreement here Possible that because of “cache” setting on your affiliate site as state on (n) section, or maybe you need to add disclaimer as (q) section. Don’t know, just try to figure out. lol
Rose recently posted..10 Questions to Ask Why Social Media Not Working for You
From my personal experience of being Amazon affiliate member I can say that despite the fact that Amazon provides small percentages of sales, but Amazon products are highly popular and actively bought by people. So, if your site is popular and topic related to good Amazon products you will manage to generate a lot of sales and earn good money in such a way. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t pay for newly registered members like eBay. Anyway, Amazon has a great affiliate program.
Terje Sannarnes recently posted..8 Reasons To Invest In Silver for an Entrepreneur
Yes, Terje, the profit margins are small, so it takes a lot of sales to make it all worthwhile.
In that respect, Amazon seems a lot like Drop Shipping, profit wise, but with less work since you don’t really have to receive and forward orders.
But Amazon has lost all appeal for me at this time, especially considering how they drop all Affiliates in any state that requires Amazon Sales Tax reporting.
Thank you for stopping by my blog
I hear about this waaaay too often to be honest.
A few of the courses I have done where I have sat in on webinars with high profile Amazon income earners they talk about losing tens of thousands because Amazon just ‘Shut their account one day’
They were not phased (they claim) because of the number of income channels they have, but it definitely is something to keep in mind.
I have personally never had a problem with them. The only issue I had was not realising that I had to change the payment type to paypal and my first month of making a decent amount resulting in about $500 worth of a gift card LOL!
WP Zon Builder works fine for me, but then I had an associates account before I had a customer account so who knows?
Alex recently posted..Drilling My Way to Page 1 Results! Article Marketing Challenge Day 30
Thank you for that info, Alex,
That convinced me to dump the Amazon model altogether.
There is no way anyone can build a business with a company so capricious.
No Explanation, No Recourse. No Customer Service.
Forget it.
I’m fortunate, I suppose, in that I haven’t invested a lot of time, money, and effort in this. I would be really upset if I spent a year or more building an Amazon business, only to have it pulled out from under me for who-knows-what reason.
Business, from top to bottom, is built on Trust. Amazon does nothing to build or maintain Trust.
“Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me.”
Or as The Who so adroitly exclaimed, “I won’t get fooled again.”
As always, thanks for adding something important to the discussion
Rick,
I wonder if there is a way to split off my personal account from my associate account.
I appreciate your work gathering the phone numbers and the chat link. I just may take the time to see if I can split my accounts or shut down my associate account and open one up on its own.
It is always good to hear from you.
Sheila recently posted..2 WordPress Plugins That Draw The Click
Hi Sheila,
All you need to do to create a separate account is to use a different email address.
Thanks for stopping by
Wow Rick! Sorry to hear about your experience. I really appreciate your sharing this with us. I have so much to learn on this subject. I will definitely bookmark this post for future reference.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Treat Your Blog Posts Like Website Home Pages
There was a lot of hair-pulling to find that information. Then even more until a finally accepted my fate.
I will probably order products from Amazon again, but I won’t touch their Affiliate program.
Thanks for coming by, Sherryl
Hi Rick
Two weeks ago, i had my Amazon associates account shut down with no prior warning or emails.
I found your blog while searching for answers.
I’ve sent them a couple of emails and heard nothing back from them. I’ve also tried the chat box and was told they don’t deal with associates on the chat. But he did say he would resend my email to the right department. One week later, still nothing.
I’m going to try the phone numbers you kindly supply now.
I’m not ready to give up on Amazon just yet as i was just starting to make some good money from them. So if i don’t get a resolution to this i will just start a new account and hope that placing new links on old websites will not ban me again.
Just for your information, i use WPZon on a couple of sites, but i wouldn’t have thought that’d be an issue. Perhaps i am wrong!
Damian
Hi Damian,
I appreciate the idea of wanting to continue trying to make money with Amazon. My thought is that if they cancel me once, they can do it again at any time. I’m not willing to invest anymore time, effort, or money when it could all fall apart at any moment.
I’m not sure that the problem is the WPZon plugin, but it does work a little differently than others in that it populates the Description and such. That’s what brought the thought to mind that it may be a feature that set off alarms at Amazon. Just a guess though…
Thanks for your input
Hi Rick:
Tonight, I was needing some information and I thought about you. When I came here, I read the post and decided to read it. I did read the post and comments.
First, I am sorry that you had to go through this. But as far as I know every company is doing the same. Pay pal closes your account, just like that, Click bank does the same. click bank pays your first commissions so late, some times after six months.
I am really very disappointed with all this.
You have done a great service to all of us by providing their phone numbers, you are a great guy.
Make it great for yourself, Be smart for yourself
Fran A
P.s. I am sending you an email for my question
Fran Aslam the Onlinewriter recently posted..SEO and Hot Trends of 2011
Well, Amazon is no different than those giant companies which many a time run down the interests of its smaller affiliates. In my case, things were fine only until they were. Once things started getting haywire, everything seemed to fall of hand and nothing really helped. Ultimately, I quit!
Adam Gardner recently posted..Updating your Outdated Furniture
Being an amazon affiliate can be an amazing as well as alluring way to earn money, but once things start going haywire, amazon is just another corporate giant and you ought not expect much of a customer service.
Joshua recently posted..Plumbing Practice Test
I guess there are some drawbacks to every good thing, Amazon being no exception. What’s worst is that they can afford to act this way, they know they’re leaders and most of the people will get over the disadvantages if they want to earn money.
Antonia recently posted..Using Connection Hooks in Hypnosis
Amazon Company is very massive. Millions of people are subscribing it. What I am trying to say here is that this information is very useful. People should read this for their own sake. You will never know, you might encounter problems regarding this matter. At least, you have now an idea.
Adrian recently posted..DIY Chicken Shed Plans
I recently got into becoming a amazon affiliate, thanks for the tip! I made a review site, so I hope to get good amount of traffic, great blog post! DO let me know if you find another great site with great profits.
Oh I never been there yet as an amazon affiliate, but I am planning to be there soon. This thoughts and tips of yours would be very helpful to me whenever I get started on this business.
Thanks again!
coin counters
http://www.betterbusinesselectronics.com/Coin-Counters-c26/
Bad luck with Amazon Rick, I would never have thought such a well regarded company had this level of non-service to their affiliates. It certainly makes me think twice about having a business relationship with them. Thanks for the heads up.
John
Leamington Spa, England
John McNally recently posted..Contact with Aliens by 2031
I have (had) been an Amazon affiliate for over a year. About one year ago I started using WPZonbuilder. One week ago I logged into find the “Account Closed” message. I have attempted to contact support via the webform, but haven’t heard back. Amazon sucks!
On another note, WPZonbuilder has very good click tracking statistics that show the user-agent and IP. About 6 months ago Amazon started reporting a fraction of the clicks that WPZonbluilder idid. When I contacted them about this they gave a canned response about they track clicks and not impressions – LAME! At that same time my conversions went down to less than 0.5%. That was with 4 Amazon sites in diverse niches.
Bubba recently posted..California Auto Insurance Minimum Liability Requirements
Hello Rick,
You kinda bumped me out with this article, I was thinking in becoming an Amazon affiliate in the near future. So the only Customer Service available is the online chat and the telephone numbers? What about an e-mail address, I’ve found that sometimes just sending a simple explanation e-mail is way better then phone calls in resolving problems online.
I agree with Bubba, I have picked up some ideas here,
thank you for sharing…
charlotte recently posted..Natural Ways Of Improving Your Fertility
I’m with you on this one, blogging is a waste of time if you’re not actually selling something. You can do some CPA, sell an ebook or something, anything as long as you’re not working for free.
Amazon does indeed look like it could be a good alternative to these methods.
hello rick, thanks for sharing those idea.. we have learned.. I never have been in Amazon and as an amazon affiliate, I like to be there soon. you have a great ideas..
hannamay recently posted..How To Conceive Quickly
I partly agree with you, as blogging seems to take more time. No other way is easy to make money online, its hard work and focus. Amazon is simply another way of making money online.
Thanks for sharing this post! I’ve learn some tips.
sarah recently posted..Facebook Should Not Be A Victim Of The Riots
Its disappointing to hear this man…Amazon should have listened to you and then made a decision about closing your account.
Steve Cattell recently posted..Tips on Getting a Girlfriend
Interesting to read your problems with Amazon. I’ve had it for over a year, and yet to make my minimum amount of money to be able to claim for, so have managed to avoid such problems so far!
Richard recently posted..Artificial Grass
At the very top, affiliate marketers can make millions while others make much less.
In many ways, affiliate marketing success depends on what and how much you know and what you do.
My first affiliate income was about two years ago on a Jay Abraham product I had put on my website and not really thought much about. Then I woke up one morning (literally and figuratively) when I received an email confirming that I save had been made and I had earned about $198.
I don’t know about you but for me, to get that sort of money before I had done any kind of work, made it a very good day.
These days I earn four figures every month, some months better than others. My best time was an hour on a big Internet marketing product launch when I earned about $5,000 in an hour.
But I still get excited when I receive those emails, “you have made a sale and earned…”
Amazon Customer service is horrible, they only want to sell you stuff. I bought an item that was guaranteed to be deliverd by Christmas. 3 weeks after Christmas it still had nto arrived. I contacted them adn told them I didn’t want it… but 2 days later it arrived and they refused to take it back. That was after several emails finally getting anyone to contact me at all.
The only time I buy from them is when I can not find it anywher else.
Sorry for the crap spelling but I’m on an old PC using IE 7 and your site is not displaying properly on that version of the browser.
Mike recently posted..Emergency Food for Storage