Bernadette Daly asks Thorsten Engler a few practical questions about his experience with the programme. From his site he has links to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de; the US parent company and the UK and German subsidiaries. After reading what Thorsten has to say, you'll be able to search each of the Amazon sites from the search boxes following. Then, Martin Wright adds a few suggestions for those thinking of setting up an online store.
 Thorsten Engler, (19), is a professional software developer and also webmaster of the Wonderland Libraries [1]; a site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts, which he maintains as a hobby. Although extremely busy, Thorston agreed to answer a few questions via email. He also set me straight on the status of Amazon.de. Martin Wright follows with some advice on setting up an online bookstore. |
Amazon.com, the 4th of June, 1998, and Amazon.co.uk on the 18th of October, 1998.
From the respective main pages at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk [2][3].
Yes, but not much... My site started out as (and still is) only a hobby. I've not designed it to make money in the first place... but it's a welcome addition.
Amazon.com is much more profitable than Amazon.co.uk... and Amazon.de doesn't have an associates programme yet. I'm linking to them nevertheless.
About US$20.
About US$200. That's (a) the second, and (b) the newest cheque. I'm still waiting for my first cheque from amazon.co.uk.
Quarterly.
Amazon.com is in US dollars, and amazon.co.uk is in Sterling.
I had a revenue drop of about 40 per cent. So you could say that Christmas was pretty bad for me.
Hm... about now (late-February).
Yes, they are listed in my weekly reports.
No, sorry. I don't have site statistics yet.
It's much better to have several different and unique sites (design and contents) rather than one big site. If you have one big site with many different books, the visitor could use the search box of the Amazon main page instead.
No. I'm ordering all my books at Amazon.de. There's no shipping and handling for German customers, but they don't have an Associates Programme yet.
Nope.
Thanks, Thorsten. We'll keep in touch, and look forward to an update in a future issue. Now, perhaps we can create a little more traffic for you.
 Figure 1: The Wonderland Libraries site |
The links and search boxes to the various Amazon sites, are presented quite differently in the members' sites. Here's an example of the search boxes from Thorsten's Wonderland Libraries site:
 |
From Martin's Bookstore Design Centre, [5] he offers advice for linking your site to Amazon. The main areas addressed include: designing your site for maximum direct links, linking to both UK and US sites, converting links for both US and UK visitors, making your Amazon logos prominent and the use of search boxes.
The process of linking to Amazon is straightforward. A simple hyperlink to the relevant page on any of the Amazon sites will allow the visitor's purchase to be monitored. You can link to a specific book, the Top 100 Books, or provide a search engine link. The best way to create a successful bookstore is to link to books that are related to the content in your web site.
If the purchase is an item that you linked to, then the payment will be up to 15%, but even if they purchase an unrelated item as a result of linking from your site you can receive a 5% payment. Depending upon the purchase made, you will receive a percentage of the price of the item.
Well, no one has yet retired on earnings received from Amazon, but many people do find that the payments will cover the cost of their Internet connection and phone charges for the year. Basically, a well designed online bookstore on a popular site will generate a worthwhile revenue.
Thanks, Martin.
If you have any comments on this article, please contact the editors (exploit-editor@ukoln.ac.uk).
Bernadette Daly is an Information Officer at UKOLN and Co-editor of
Exploit Interactive and Ariadne web magazines. Bernadette recently returned to
the UK after spending many years in Canada. Before joining UKOLN, she had been
working for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Toronto on an intranet
development team for the Corporate Governance Group. She has a Master's Degree
in Library & Information Science from the University of Western Ontario
(UWO), and undergraduate degrees in Linguistics and Comparative Development Studies.
For citation purposes:
Bernadette Daly, "An Interview with an Associates Programme Member and
Webmaster of the Amaxon
Bookstore Design Centre", Exploit Interactive, issue 1, 10 April 1999
URL: <http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue1/thorsten/>
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