Interesting post over at Micro Persuasion on the topic of 2006 Trends to Watch Part II: Social Commerce where he makes the following prediction:
‘Watch for sites like Amazon, Froogle and Yahoo to develop turnkey stores that can be integrated into blogs. This will take affiliate programs to the next level. It’s also possible that some electronic commerce sites will partner with the major blogging platforms to make co-branded social commerce even easier.’
Wise insights there from Steve. I think many commercial blogs have vast untapped earning potential without avenues to sell products in partnerships with online retailers. I know this is one of the things I’ll be investigating further in 2006. In fact I’ve already had one online retailer make contact to talk potential collaboration.
As Steve says this will take affiliate earnings to a whole new level.
Somewhat tangential, but I notice all your posts now have a “Bookmark it a Del.ico.us” link. What does that do for you if you get a lot of people to link to it from Del.ico.us?
There have been semi-solutions out for a while, now, for building your own amazon store. I use one on my blog, although it is not directly integrated into the blog template. I’ve also decided only to use the most basic layout/approach. Most are “free” where you split the revenue with the author of the system – usually at a 90/10 ratio (90% of the time, your associates ID is used, 10% of the time, their ID is used). Some, however, you can purchase, and use only your associates ID. Personally, I like the one I use, as it provides all of the things that people like about basic Amazon shopping, without all of the frills.
(I won’t post the link to my store, since I would consider that spammish; although if you wish to see, a visit to my blog (MindFyre) and a quick search of the sidebar links will merit you a glance.)