Interesting post in the TechCrunch Forums this morning about Zlio, a startup that lets people create their own shops and sell goods from Amazon and other ecommerce services. Jeremie Berrebi, the CEO of Zlio, emailed users to let them know that Amazon will no longer allow them to promote Amazon products on Zlio shops.
It also seems that Amazon stopped paying affiliate fees on sales a week ago. This is a highly unusual move since Amazon generally wants all the affiliates it can get. Chances are that one of two things happened – either Amazon is getting into this business directly, or Zlio was involved in some sort of fraud. We’ll see what Amazon has to say about this.
Update: We haven’t heard from Amazon, but Zlio looks to be in direct competition with aStore, a new service from Amazon. See Centernetwork’s coverage here from late last year. Zlio actually launched the same day as aStore. That still isn’t a good explanation as to why Amazon has shut them off, however.
Alexaholic 2.0
–Zaid
Amazon has never allowed affiliates to build shops and pass a cut of affiliate revenue to someone else. They want the affiliates directly, and won’t allow middle men.
I don’t know why Zlio is surprised by this. It’s right in the terms and conditions they signed to open up an affiliate account.
It’s official – Amazon sucks. The whole shitstorm over Alexaholic really made them look bad; now they look even worse.
Jeff Bezos seems like a good guy – either he isn’t paying attention to what his management is doing, or he really isn’t as good as everyone thinks.
My take is that Amazon is taking over the same niche Zlio is.. that is!
Here is an example of my previous post:
http://astore.a.../themorbidme-20
Amazon is in beta with own storefronts !
Amazon has had those storefronts for probably a year or more.
Agree with Adam, it’s never been OK to split those. Big surprise.
Amazon still has far and away the best affiliate terms and web services. So if you don’t like them go enjoy 1000 queries a day on Yahoo or something, or build something with Google just before they stop providing the service altogether.
@Kewtr: Amazon launched aStore on Aug 30 of last year: http://kalsey.c...e_for_everyone/
Michael wrote:
> This is a highly unusual move since Amazon generally wants
> all the affiliates it can get.
Actually, it’s not that surprising considering what Amazon has done in the past. Google “Friday 13th Hits Top Amazon Affiliates” and you’ll see an article about what happened to some Amazon affiliates last fall. It seems like there are some types of affiliates that Amazon doesn’t really want in the Associates program.
“And we was banished from Woolworth’s … Was we banished from all the branches, or only that one?”
Well, I thins it is one of the following:
-Amazon invests resources in the partnership with Zlio. If the revenues from Zlio don’t meet Amazon’s expectations, it is normal for Amazon to give up.
-Amazon plans to compete Zlio and improve their aStore which for now is far behind Zlio’s functionality in lots of areas, but can catch up quickly
-Zlio indeed were involved in some sort of fraud.
Hope such a blow doesn’t kill Zlio. It would be a blow too for its user who invested a lot of hours and effort in it
Hey, just to be clear about something, Amazon has the same terms for at least 5 yrs regarding sharing of affiliate monies. It’s the #1 biggest issue on Fatwallet.
We, Zlio shop-owners, do not need Amazon US.
Any other bookseller will be fine… So long Bezos…
Should rename to a-hole store.
> Google “Friday 13th Hits Top Amazon Affiliates” and you’ll see
> an article about what happened to some Amazon affiliates last fall.
I have summed up the store over here:
http://probarga...ke-deals-sites/
@Allen
Could you elaborate on Amazon and Fatwallet?
I also wonder where Endless.com stands in relation to all of this.
It sounds like profit sharing is the cause of the ban. Mashable has the story:
http://mashable...21/amazon-zlio/
Well all you Zlio fans can hate me because I’m the one who emailed the Amazon associate program to find out why they were able to use incentive marketing with Amazon sales and I was not. No sour grapes here because I was hoping that the deal Zlio had made with Amazon was something we could also implement with our site. As was written in the post above, Amazon does not allow you to give anyone a cut of your commission.
Oh well it was bound to happen sooner or later…
“Chances are that one of two things happened – either Amazon is getting into this business directly, or Zlio was involved in some sort of fraud.”
“Chances are”??? Seems to me it’s totally inappropriate as a reporter to mention the possibility of fraud here with not an iota of evidence that’s the case.
Makes me worried about replying on any Amazon services. What happens if you have all your data on Amazon S3, and the product that you offer one day competes with them — will they shut you off from all their services and therefore loose all your data?
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This is just sad, as Amazon is more than just a book seller. Hopefully one day Zlio & Amazon affiliate management will see each others worth to one another and the common good their programs make to all affiliate sellers/members.
This is a great fee free home business opportunity for the masses with a global reach. Fee Free Money making from home has taken a newer direction. See for yourself @ http://www.zlio...signup?r=217397 Now offering pay per click!
Amazon should reconsider partnering with Zlio and the global Zlio affiliate sellers.