Setting up an Amazon store for your hyperlocal blog
In this time of 'hyperlocal business models' and 'how the heck do we fund this journalism business', I think I might have found a way to earn a few extra pennies. An Amazon Affiliate store.
It's fairly basic. We create a store, on Amazon, with Preston-related products in them, and embed this on our site on a 'Shop' page. People buy stuff, and we get a percentage.
I was searching on Amazon for something over Christmas and it got me thinking, how many books or products are there related to Preston? As casual search found a few. So I got a piece of paper out and brainstormed everything I thought I might be able to find on Amazon related to Preston (celebs, sports, history, DVDs, films that were shot in and around Preston etc).
I explored the Amazon Affiliate store and signed up. It was relatively easy to use but a bit clunky as the easiest way to find products is to record their ISBN/Amazon ID number, and enter these one at a time.
So, we've now got a shop where we don't need to worry about receiving orders, sending out stock, worrying about delivery times. But, what we can do is drive traffic to the store by whenever we do a story about Freddie Flintoff, embedding the relevant products from our Blog Preston store in the article.
It's not going to make us mega-bucks, the percentage isn't massive from Amazon (about 5% of every product), but it is a new revenue stream and can help bring in some cash. I guess the next step would be to go towards what the Lichfield Blog has done and create products based around the local area e.g. VivaLichVegas t-shirts.
For all hyperlocal and niche blogs having an Amazon store is a simple and easy way to make some money, but let's just hope it doesn't snow again or we definitely won't be making any percentages! I'll report back in a few months and let you know if it's worked or not.
What do you think? Onto a winner or a non-starter? Have you made an Amazon store? How is it going? Let me know in the comments below