There have been rumors flying around that amazon may reinstate the California affiliates, but nothing is certain, until it happens. It happened! Amazon just reinstated California affiliates on Monday, Oct 3, 2011, since leaving them on July 30th, 2011 all of sudden, check my previous post here about it: Amazon Alternative and Solutions. Here what I found on my email today!
As you may have heard, California Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation repealing the law that had forced us to terminate our California Associates. We are pleased to invite all California Associates whose accounts were closed due to the prior legislation to re-enroll in the Associates Program.
If you haven’t already re-enrolled, please click here:
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com…ment/main.html
When asked to sign in, please use the same email address and password that were previously associated with your Associates account. To make your return to the Program as seamless as possible, when you re-enroll, your account settings (login, Associates ID, payment information, etc.) will be the same as they were previously. Traffic you referred while your account was closed won’t be eligible for advertising fees.
Amazon have made it easier for ex affiliates to rejoin. Many are happy and others are cautious to see what and how long this will stay, as Amazon has dropped affiliates at drop of hat, and now they might be losing large revenue they have negotiated.
At the end of July, Amazon dropped a bomb on California affiliates by dropping them over evening due to tax laws. Many of the California affiliates who have worked hard sending traffic and sales to amazon, did not even get day to remove their links.
Amazon have done this in other states such as Illinois and a few other States, but what makes difference case with California is that California (speculated?) over 25K affiliates who were sending bunch of sales to amazon, which amazon lost. The move certainly made many loyal affiliate very angry, as one blogger wrote that he had Amazon links going over 10 years in his site. Some are pure Internet marketers, some were stay at home moms making little money on side, they all lost income and hope. Some who had special amazon niche sites created, some had bought special amazon plugins, coaching and ebooks to help them, investing, time and money to make Amazon rich.
And you know what was the worst part? Amazon Kindle has physical presence in North California, so Amazon would have to pay taxes (as Subsidiary being locally present here!) but they still chose to ax the hard working affiliates. Many lost their large income, many lost some. Another important part is, that Amazon reinstated account will open with zero amount (as in new account), as if you had links and those made sales, you lost it. It was free for Amazon, they are not going to pay for it.
I know people tried to open up LLC or Corporations in other Amazon friendly states to keep the accounts and links going. I certainly did not do that, as my income from Amazon was little to make a huge changes and spend money. Some of my blog friends, turned in to vigilink and skimlink for retaining Amazon links (at 25% commission to them).
My Take: While I am happy that Amazon has reinstated the affiliates back, I know they have done it as they were losing large chunk of income due to California affiliates, it is purely business profit decision for them. I am going to use Amazon with caution and with other links from CJ or Linkshare Vendors such as walmart, target, best buy, barns and noble, borders and so on, just to be on safe side.
I would suggested a few tips to make sure your online business’s sake:
1. Do not put your all eggs in one basket. Be cautious.
2. Use Amazon with other back up vendors (give choice to your reader where to buy from such as amazon, target or walmart, wherever it is cheaper)
3. I wish all affiliates in other states, get Amazon back, but meanwhile, use vigilink and skimlinks.
4. Create your own products to make money.
5. Open up service to make money online and offline. No can take that away from you.
Good luck.