9 Comments on Amazon.com vs. States – associates lose

Tim Linden on Mon, 29th Jun 2009 1:51 pm


Yep – I got my notice today that I’m no longer an affiliate. Jokes on them though because I haven’t made any money from it. What I really worry about is who will follow their lead..
.-= Tim Linden´s last blog ..Where Did You All Go? =-.

John Dilbeck on Mon, 29th Jun 2009 2:05 pm


Good afternoon, Tim.

Welcome to our discussions.

I agree with you. I’m worried about who else will drop all their affiliates on a state-by-state basis. This could have even more serious repercussions.

Act on your dream!

JD

Deneil Merritt on Mon, 29th Jun 2009 6:47 pm


Wow, people are really moving out of NC just to keep doing business with amazon?
.-= Deneil Merritt´s last blog ..Flashback Monday – Good News, Great News, & Killer Whale Arms? =-.

John Dilbeck on Mon, 29th Jun 2009 8:51 pm


Good evening, Deneil.

I don’t know what he has decided, if anything, but @Rich Owings said earlier today that he was meeting with his attorney to discuss corporate dissolution and moving out of NC.

I suspect, but don’t know for sure, that he’s not the only one. Some people earn pretty big money from Amazon – or at least they did.

Act on your dream!

JD

Mitch on Mon, 29th Jun 2009 10:02 pm


Hi John,

Though I never was an affiliate of Amazon, you know how I feel about affiliates dropping people because they live in certain states. That’s been happening to me since last year, and I’m just glad that not all of my affiliates have dropped me.

I really don’t blame Amazon on this one, though. The states have gotten greedy since the financial crisis hit. I expect to see more things coming as time goes by, especially if things don’t get any better.
.-= Mitch´s last blog ..Social Media, SEO And Your Business in 90 Minutes =-.

Deneil Merritt on Mon, 29th Jun 2009 10:23 pm


Thanks for answering my question. Yeah, I didn’t think about those people that make that much money that moving is the best option.
.-= Deneil Merritt´s last blog ..Flashback Monday – Good News, Great News, & Killer Whale Arms? =-.

bigknd on Thu, 2nd Jul 2009 2:16 am


Yes not looking good, not hit us yet in the UK but were not usually far behind you guys.
.-= bigknd´s last blog ..Spreading the Free People Search Word =-.

John Dilbeck on Sun, 5th Jul 2009 1:38 pm


These new and proposed tax laws will have many unintended side effects that will affect both affiliates and merchants.

For merchants, it will mean greatly-more-complicated accounting and tracking, plus collecting and paying sales taxes to states in which they actually have no physical nexus. This is probably unconstitutional.

(I am not a lawyer and don’t want to be one. Do not take this as legal advice or anything other than a rant by a disgruntled small business owner.)

As I’ve said, even though I live in NC, none of my websites are hosted on servers located in NC, so do I really have a physical-presence in the state when it comes to affiliate marketing?

That aside, is a commission-only marketing rep in a state really a nexus? What’s the difference between paying me a commission and placing a classified ad in a newspaper printed and distributed in NC? Will a paid ad eventually be considered a nexus and will the states try to collect sales tax as a result?

This is going to get messy.

The only thing that will resolve this issue will be when the Supreme Court issues a ruling or the US legislature passes laws that affect all the states and not just a few of them.

After all, this concerns interstate commerce and should fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government, not the individual states.

Still, I hold Amazon.com responsible for what they did. No matter what happens in the future, they’ve lost me as an affiliate and a customer.

It just galls me at this point whenever I think that I have thousands of links sending them potential customers and it’s going to take weeks to find and remove all of them.

It looks like I’ll probably be getting out of the affiliate marketing business this year.

Sigh.

Act on your dream!

JD

My Top Five Affiliate Marketing Sellers | I'm Just Sharing on Mon, 22nd Aug 2011 3:12 pm


[...] they’d probably all be going to Amazon looking for deals, at least until they started dropping affiliates all over the place. Now, I don’t make lots of money from each sale of a book, but I make more [...]

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