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Dear XXX,

At the end of the year Amazon.com will be changing the pay structure that it has in place with you today to one in which we pay you referral fees only on items that we send to you (and result in a sale on our website) on a regular basis.

To incorporate these new payment changes, we have attached an amendment to the existing Associates Operating agreement that you have in place with Amazon.com today. To migrate to the new pay structure, please print out, sign, and fax the amended agreement [fax #: (206) 266-1352] by close of business on Thursday, December 28. Alternatively, if you prefer to not continue as an Amazon Associate, there is no action required on your part because our existing agreement will be terminated as of Friday, December 29. Please note that if you choose to discontinue with the Associates program, you will still be paid standard referral fees up through December 31 of 2006.

Amazon.com values our business relationship and we certainly hope that you choose to continue as a member of the Amazon Associates program. We recognize that transitioning to a new business model may have its challenges, which is why we are open to your feedback on this new payment structure moving forward.

Thank you for your time,

Amazon.com Associates team

They did this last quarter to Couponers. See this thread:

http://forums.prosperotechnologies.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=am-associhelp&msg=16587.1&ctx=128

The Associates Team explained it like this in the thread I linked to above:

The changes referenced in the posts above will only affect Associates within the Deal & Coupon category, which can be defined as a category of Web site dedicated to finding the best deals or price discounts across the Internet (and brick-n-mortar stores as well) and/or websites that provide coupons to different retail stores, online or offline. If your business is not related to the Deal & Coupon category, or you only occasionally promote deals, coupons, or discounts in the context of the topic of your Web site, you will not be affected by these changes.

-The Associates Team

That is the part I am trying to understand. I think they will only allow us to promote items with no consumer promotions no discounts where it will take a hell lot of an effort to make a single sell. This is one thing. The other thing is they won't allow us to see the reports until the quarter is over meaning once every three months? It is really stupid, isn't it. Does anyone have any insight on these?

We had over $200K in commissions with Amazon last year but I really don't see this as a big deal. There is no way we will continue with Amazon under these conditions but we will replace them with somebody else and move on. Maybe the conversion won't be as good but this is life ...

Matt