I'm jumping on the bandwagon!

[incka]

I'm going to start an AWS store!

I'm starting designing it today!

My main reason of making it is to get another site which I can add to my second line of sites. I'm going to have a line of entertainment sites, and a line of non-entertainment sites.

Not telling you what it is until it's done (apart from Mike, because he told me what he is doing with AWS).

So I'll be joining the following members and more:

Chris
Mike
Chromate
Shawn Weeks
GCT13
MarkB

So good luck to us all!

[Mike]

As soon as I saw the title I knew what this was about:)

Good luck with it.

[MarkB]

Good luck! And be patient for sales :)

[incka]

I will...

I'm having problems finding a good domain for it... I'll consult Mike on my choices soon...

[MarkB]

Try nameboy.com

[flyingpylon]

Before long, having an AWS store will be like having an e-mail address. It will be interesting to see where AWS goes in the future. Hopefully they'll get some of the annoying bugs worked out in v4.

[incka]

OK, this is annoying... I can't find any good domains...

Can you lot help?

The subject of the site is jewelry, especially fine jewelry.

[GCT13]

incka, LOOK-AT-THAT-ROCK.COM is still available :)
Originally posted by flyingpylon
Before long, having an AWS store will be like having an e-mail address.I wonder what % of Amazon's revenue is driven by Associates? Perhaps AWS will push traffic to Amazon in such that numbers that soon the majority of Amazon's sales will be driven thru Associates/AWS.

[michael_gersitz]

Yeah, I knew exactly what this post was about.

[lo0ol]

I'll soon be joining you all. (Hopefully) :D

[s2kinteg916]

yeah there are plenty of them out there...

[incka]

Originally posted by flyingpylon
Before long, having an AWS store will be like having an e-mail address.

If it will be like an email address (I've got hundreds) there will be hundreds of AWS stores in my sig! :eek:





I don't really like look-at-that-rock.com... I want something with jewelry in the domain...

[MarkB]

Did you try nameboy.com?

[Mike]

I don't think there will be that many out there, it's just a lot of people on here doing it.

[Chris]

Any income from an AWS site will be temporary at best too. Technically its duplicate content, which SEs hate.

[Best.Flash]

Originally posted by GCT13
I wonder what % of Amazon's revenue is driven by Associates?


Hi Dan

They use to publish this on the Associates reports snap shot page. Your Conversion - Average Conversion.

If i remember right the AWS conversion average was running around 20 - 25% compared with 2-5% for Individual Item (ASIN).


cheers,

Charlie Abbott

[Best.Flash]

Originally posted by Chris
Any income from an AWS site will be temporary at best too. Technically its duplicate content, which SEs hate.

IMO only way to keep a stand-alone AWS site sustainable is to import the feed directly to MySQL etc. and output slightly altered content from there - you get no down time with this method either ;)

Is anyone trying for a Yahoo express submit with their AWS site?

[GCT13]

Originally posted by Best.Flash
They use to publish this on the Associates reports snap shot page. Your Conversion - Average Conversion...I meant out of Amazon.com's total revenue, what percentage is driven by Associates?

[DaveM]

I heard awhile ago that it was a small number

[incka]

OK, still haven't thought of a domain...

Before I start adding the feeds, anyone want to comment on the design:

http://www.nichetimbers.co.uk/jewelrystore/

Edit: Thanks to Michael Gersitz's JFONTS site, where I got the title font, Allegro.

[Chris]

Are you sure there is an AWS feed for jewelry? I know for some of Amazon's newer stores there isn't.

[incka]

How do you check?

[Best.Flash]

Incka run a search on amazon.com .co.uk ect. - if you find a jewelry section use the number after browse in the address window eg. browse/-/283155/ to target that feed for your site :)

[incka]

I've got no idea what your talking about because I've only just downloaded the kit...

[incka]

This is the URL i'm getting... Which part of it do I use?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/ref=gw_br_sg/002-6696904-5241601?node=3367581

[GCT13]

I think jewelry is okay for AWS. Ran a search in the AWS forum and there appears to be a number of people running jewelry stores.

(Sounds like there is an issue that substantial number of jewelry products aren't available through AWS yet because they are third-party items.)

[GCT13]

Originally posted by incka
This is the URL i'm getting... Which part of it do I use?The numeric part after "node="

[Best.Flash]

The short anser is yes they do provide a AWS feed for jewelry.

[Best.Flash]

Third-party items can be a pain in the *** as the AWS data's usually limited and not up to date.

Im loading a topic now where a good 2/3rds of the data's either missing or isn't shipping :rolleyes: - good job there's over 1000 items.

[MattM]

Well, it says on Amazon that the Jewelry & Watches is in beta. Don't know if that has any effect on AWS or not.

[r2d2]

Originally posted by Chris
Any income from an AWS site will be temporary at best too. Technically its duplicate content, which SEs hate.

I was worried about this, and on my AWS site I'm not planning on using too much content from Amazon.

Interested in why it would be temporary though. If its due to SEs penalizing for duplicate content, why wouldnt the drop in sales already be happening? Or would it be as more and more sites are popping up?

[flyingpylon]

Originally posted by MattM
Well, it says on Amazon that the Jewelry & Watches is in beta. Don't know if that has any effect on AWS or not.

And when you combine that with the fact that AWS is barely beyond beta itself (some would argue that it's not) then you've really got issues.

There are always posts on the AWS developers board from people having trouble with jewelry/watches, sporting goods, apparel, and some others. They kinda sorta work, but you've got to create some big workarounds.

[Chris]

Originally posted by r2d2
I was worried about this, and on my AWS site I'm not planning on using too much content from Amazon.

Interested in why it would be temporary though. If its due to SEs penalizing for duplicate content, why wouldnt the drop in sales already be happening? Or would it be as more and more sites are popping up?

It is a sophistication issue. SEs are not sophisticated enough to automatically deduce these things yet.

[incka]

They can be, but it would require way to much processor power.

[Mike]

I doubt that, for a company like google it doesn't matter that much about processing power. They can afford it.

[incka]

Come on, how hard would it be to set up an application that finds is its amazon content... But think of the extra processing power to compare things...

[Mike]

To compare two sites would be hard imho, as how would google know what to penalize? It could penalize amazon, thinking that they have duplicated it.

[Chris]

Basically they'd need to program something for this particular issue (Amazon AWS). Its not something they have the inclination to do yet (write algorithm add-ons for specific instances of spam).

[Mike]

How long do you think until they do something about it then Chris?

[GCT13]

Originally posted by Chris
Its not something they have the inclination to do yet (write algorithm add-ons for specific instances of spam). Why would they consider AWS sites spam?

[incka]

I don't think they will...

[flyingpylon]

The thing to be concerned about is the fact that with tons of duplicate content out there, people searching for items will get tons of essentially identical AWS results. Many people are just putting up generic cookie-cutter AWS stores that attempt to sell everything to everyone (Amazon clones). It will be tough to rise to the top of that list.

That's why, for better or worse, I chose to focus my AWS store on something I'm interested in and I'm attempting to optimize it for things people might search for. Maybe it will work out, maybe not. I guess we'll see.

[pas]

Me neither. AWS sites aren't spam per se.

[pas]

True, it's any additional unique content which will make your site rise above the rest.

[pas]

Is there an easy way to tell if a feed exists for an Amazon store?

Newer stores don't have feeds? Any idea why? Haven't gotten around to the feed yet, phasing out feeds, ...?

[GCT13]

Originally posted by pas
Is there an easy way to tell if a feed exists for an Amazon store?Play around with Amazon's XML Scratch Pad. Once you get the hang of it, you can test various product categories to see if they return valid AWS results.

[Mike]

I've just launched my AWS site. Sure the design isn't the best, but it's the content people are after.

I may make it so the user adds the item to their shopping cart through my site later, doesn't look that hard after looking in the manual.

Link is in my sig.

[GCT13]

Why don't you post it in the Reviews section.

[r2d2]

Originally posted by Mike
I've just launched my AWS site. Sure the design isn't the best, but it's the content people are after.

Nice! Only suggestion I would make is that the picture you use as the background for the main content part on the right needs to be "watermarked" a bit more. Its too dominant, and distracts me from reading.

Also, looking at your code, its quite messy, is it still in development? You dont have a doctype, and have <html> and <head> tags inside ur <body> tag...

[MattM]

Great job Mike! :)

Only suggestion I would make is you might want to continue the blue background of the menu down below it or put an image below the menu all the way to the footer as I feel like I'm always having to look to the right of the page.

Now if only I can finish my AWS site soon! :)

[Mike]

Thanks for the good words and suggestions, I'll see if I've got time to change a few things today.

I'll post it in the review section, so delete my post if you want Chris:)

[bongie]

im apologizing now for my stupid questions but for someone who was computer illiterate just a year ago... what's AWS?

[incka]

Amazon Web Services.

You can have parts of amazon on your website and make money off sales in it.