I’ve been an Amazon associate for over a year now, listing book titles on a few of the small blogs that I manage. Over the past year I’ve made about $11 in revenue. Then something fun happened. I launched a new niche blog about metalworking and sold 11 books in 1 day! Wow! Now, those 11 books only amounted to $3.56 in associate revenue, but since that 1 day of sales accounted for about 32% of my total earnings for the entire 12 months previous, I was extactic!

Report___Jan_30_2009.JPG

Then something strange happened. The next day (yesterday to be exact) I sold another book. However, my total associate revenue dropped despite the sale of another book. I went from a total of $3.56 from selling 11 titles to a total of $2.68 after selling 12 titles. How can this be?

Report___Jan_31_2009.JPG

Yes it’s a difference of less than a dollar, but when you think about it in terms of percentages it’s a loss of 25% !!!

So, the question is, did Amazon steal 25% of my associates revenue? I don’t know, but I’ve got an inquiry into Amazon to find out. One thing’s for sure, I’m not happy.

UPDATE: Here’s a copy of the email I sent to Amazon.

Hi, I’ve noticed a discrepancy in your revenue reporting. Despite a sales increase, my earned revenue for the month of January dropped by 25%.

I’ve posted screen captures of the reports here:

http://tystips.com/archives/55/is-amazon-cheating-me-out-of-25-of-my-associates-earnings-could-amazon-be-stealing/

Please look into it and let me know why my revenue has decreased instead of increased for the month of January 2009.

Thanks!

Tyler

UPDATE (2/3/2009):

Here’s what Amazon had to say:

Greetings from the Amazon.com Associates Program.

I’m sorry for any concern regarding your referral fees.

I’ve checked your account and verified that the values that are now listed for the month of January actually show your total earnings as $4.04.

Although the initial reports have now switched over to February (so I’m not able to duplicate the same display you saw on your main reports page) I checked the date range when your reports were generated and found that the earnings for January 1 - 30 now are reported as $3.68, with 11 items shipped.

I’m having our technical team take a look at this as well, to find out why you would have been shown the $2.68 amount rather than the $3.68 at that time. It may be that either due to canceled items or delays in report updates, the values were incorrect at that time.

I’ll let you know what I find out when I hear back from our technical team. I’m sorry for the delay, and I appreciate your patience.

Thank you for choosing the Associates Program.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

UPDATE (2/9/2009):

Here’s what Amazon had to say once they’d looked into everything … again:

Hello again from the Associates Program.

I’m writing to follow up with you regarding the error you noted in the fees that were reported for your account at the end of January.

Our technical team has reported that their was a delay in aggregating data for display on Associates Central on the dates you noted the incorrect sales information.

The information now in your account, which shows the earnings of $4.04 for the month of January, is correct.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and we can assure you that timely reports on Associates Central are a top priority for us.

As always, please feel free to contact us should you have future questions or comments, and thanks for your continued interest in the Associates Program.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

UPDATE (3/9/2009)

Perhaps the funniest part of all of this - I’ve made pennies in the month since this all went down (seriously, 34 cents). I think I made Amazon mad …

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