Add New Amazon Store ID?

Why do I want to add a new Amazon store ID?   I just created a new website, and I want to track Amazon sales for that site separately from this site.   In the link-creator, there are two drop downs – store ID and tracking ID.   I successfully figured out how to add a tracking ID.

But when I googled “Add New Store ID Amazon” and its variations, I got nothing.   Well, no helpful answer in the top ten of 89 billion results.    I am a good googler.   So why can’t I figure out how to add a new Amazon store ID?   If you’re Amazon Associate savvy, jump ahead  for the answer.

(Hey real quick: this post is really just a gift to the internet.   My apologies to regular Half the Clothes readers who might be super confused right now.)

What is an Amazon Store ID?.

Quick lesson on a popular income source in the website-owning world: recommending stuff to buy.   If people buy thanks to your recommendation, you get a cut of what they spent.   (It doesn’t cost them anything more. The big corporations just say “thanks!” by sharing a tiny slice of their profits.   1In fact, Amazon recently decreased these profit sharing commissions.   They called it “simplifying.”   I guess as in: “We simply see no reason to share as much of our profits with the little guys who bring us business anymore.”   But I digress. )   Yes, this opens the door to people shouting “____expensive product____ is the best thing ever!   You should totally buy it!” …all while holding their fingers tightly crossed behind their backs.

You see the little drop-down for Amazon Store ID and want to add a new one for your new website? Well guess what...

Liar Liar Pants on Fire!   Look at you in your fancy suit that you paid for with lies told to the internet.   Naughty, naughty!   photo: pixabay

Case in point: TrustedHousesitters.   As I explained here, this mediocre house sitting platform is super popular simply because they have the best affiliate program. (An affiliate program is a thing you have to sign up to in order to get paid for successfully recommending something.)   For the record, I do participate in affiliate programs for things I actually think are worth spending your precious, hard-earned cash on.   It’s how I can afford to pay for this website to exist and how I keep groceries in the fridge and coffee in my cup as I sit here pounding my keyboard into the wee hours of the night writing things like this very article you’re reading that will never make me a penny.

(Here’s more on my product recommendation/affiliate stance.)

Right.   So.   Amazon has an affiliate program  they call “Amazon Associates.”   And each “associate” has an Amazon Store ID..

How to Add a New Store ID for the Amazon Associates Program?

It wasn’t until I finally refined my googling to, “store id amazon more than one website,” that I got my answer to how to add a new Amazon Store ID.

The answer?

You can’t!

Why?   Well first let’s revisit why I wanted to add a new Amazon store ID in the first place.   It’s probably similar to the reason you, dear Googler, want to add a new Amazon store ID.

I’m starting a new website!   I’ll link to it later when it has more than half a post on my disbelief about… well, it’s a secret for now.   But in my first post, I talk about how I made my discovery while listening to a podcast while laying on a foam roller… a device I think everyone should own and use.   Or at least all computer-phone-steeringwheel-users.

So of course I’m going to link to an example of the product on Amazon, just in case you want to take my extremely passive advice.   But then I realized my Amazon identifiers – my Amazon Store ID and my Tracking ID – are clearly related to this site.

It's this screen that sent me on a wild goose chase to add a new Amazon store ID

See?   Store ID and Tracking ID.   Might as well change both to match my new website, right?   Well adding the new Tracking ID was easy!   Click on your email when logged in as an associate and click “manage tracking IDs.”   Type the text you want, click create, done!     Adding a new Amazon Store ID?   Nope.   Not easy to figure out.

But they both show up as drop-downs, so off I went to figure out how to add my new site to my Amazon account by creating a new tracking ID and a new Amazon Store ID.   As mentioned in the last caption, the tracking ID was a piece of cake.   The new Amazon store ID?   Never going to happen.

Why You Can’t Add a New Amazon Store ID

Apparently (says all the forums) people are only allowed to have one Amazon store ID unless they submit a super special request and get super special approval.   Even then, rather than easily matching Store and Tracking ID with whatever website I’m working on, I’d have to regularly re-login to Amazon based on which store I wanted to generate an ID from.   What a pain-in-the-neck!

Add to that a pain in the… back?   Shoulders?   Allegedly you have to represent very separate business interested to Amazon, complete with separate tax IDs, bank accounts, and the like.

Why?   I’m guessing sellers and associates must have the same root in the Amazon databases?   So if I personally sell, let’s say, gummy bear anatomy puzzles  or  retro handsets for cell phones that I make in my garage and offer on Amazon 2for the record, I have nothing to do with said puzzles, I am acting as a seller.   And if I tell you about gummy bear anatomy puzzles and you buy one, I’m acting as an “associate” (affiliate).   But we all have a store ID, regardless of whether or not we actually run a store on Amazon or tell people which things to buy from other people’s stores?

Not sure on that last part.   But if it’s true, then here’s the rub.   If I don’t want my neighbor who stood around in my garage “chatting” and is now making and selling his own gummy bear anatomy puzzles  and retro handsets for cell phones on Amazon to be able to compete with me… I could just make a whole bunch of Amazon accounts selling my puzzles and hopefully drown him out.   His gummy bears and handsets will never see the light of day!   Take that!

So.. it seems like we associates are being punished by a crappy structure at Amazon.   I can’t see any reason why it should matter if we have a zillion store IDs and a zillion websites. Thanks for depriving me of perfectly-tidy-tracking, Amazon.   I like it as much as I like your commission structure being “simplified.”   And you’re welcome for all the travel products I help you sell!

Happy Amazon-ing, Y’all!  ♣

References

References
↑1 In fact, Amazon recently decreased these profit sharing commissions.   They called it “simplifying.”   I guess as in: “We simply see no reason to share as much of our profits with the little guys who bring us business anymore.”   But I digress.
↑2 for the record, I have nothing to do with said puzzles

When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Eat Ice Cream

It’s been almost two years since I gave up my “real” job. And in eight more weeks, a whole year will have passed since I last swapped my time for money in New Zealand.   I’m not gonna lie. It’s really fulfilling to be following my dream, and my ‘classes’ out here in the school-of-the-world are even more rewarding and educational than I’d hoped.

What my friends and family seem to think I usually do with my time…

Affording a small period of ‘freedom’ or ‘early retirement’ has been a lifelong dream of mine. I’d always hoped for at least a year and in the spirit of ‘dreaming big’ secretly coveted even more time. Could I make it two years? Three? FIVE?!

But it’s not all roses.

Development: A Demi God

A monk’s living quarters

Wanting more seems to be a human condition. Especially below a certain standard of living. Clearly we could all stand to learn something from wise, old sages (are there young sages?) who live a simple life in basic conditions. Perhaps those few enlightened individuals cause us to romanticize basic conditions, even when they’re experienced by those whose goals are more common – making a living, providing for a family, getting an education.

I don’t begrudge anyone the benefits of development. I understand why,

Observed: Attempted Vehicular Manslaughter and Hand Washing with Bleach

 The final chapter!   More quirks and quips that don’t quite make a story…

  • To the untrained eye, it would appear that “tricycle” drivers are constantly trying to run me over. Really, this is their bizarre way of trying to get some business. They steer slowly closer and closer as they putt toward me, until I physically have to step aside so as not to get hit (at which time they usually roll to a stop). All of this is in hope that I will suddenly go, “Oh! Hey! A tricycle! You know, I didn’t realize this before, but I really want a ride. Excuse me, sir. Could you give me a ride, please? Oh, and actually I prefer to be overcharged, if you wouldn’t mind.”

How Slow Can You Go?: Just When You Thought Things Couldn’t Get Worse

Examples of Filipino inefficiency are endless. I almost just laugh out loud when I’m riding a jeepney and it stops four or five times in a stretch of 100 yards. Sometimes, we will literally have gone 20 feet, before another person who couldn’t be bothered to walk that far shouts “Para!” (Stop!).

 And here’s what it was like to buy headphones at a shopping mall:

Fake Eyelashes, Short-Stacks: Filipino Facts

I’m long overdue! Quirks and quips that don’t quite make a story:

  • Stamps are “cheap as” here! 120 pesos to send 8 international postcards? That’s about $3. Take THAT, New Zealand! Now I just need to find the time to compose some more.

  • I don’t have 6.6 pounds (3 kilos) worth of clothing. That’s the magic number: the minimum accepted at laundry joints.

(After) The Perfect Storm

Is it wise to travel by sea in the wake of a tropical typhoon? No, it is not. Circumstances beat intuition, however, and I found myself an unintentional victim of our unscrupulous Mother Nature.