Last month, I received my first payment Amazon US credited into my bank account in Malaysia for about USD50 plus. That comes out to about RM210.
How long did it take for me to receive my first payment from Amazon.com
Honestly, it took a few years. I signed up as their affiliate a few years ago and was not really active. Do you know what affiliate sales Amazon paid me for? Haha, you would laugh but it is through promoting foot scrappers (to scrap of dry skin from cracked heels) and a couple of books that I really like. Maybe some acucupping tools. Then some odd things here and there. Mostly low priced items that may be less than a dollar per successful purchase. I just wanted to have the link there to benefit my readers because in one of my blogs most of them were mostly from US and the items and the items I find helpful to them is available via Amazon.
Even though the earnings were slllllooooowwww the trickle in and they were competing with clicks from my display advertising, I kept the links there because those were the products that can help my readers.
If you opt to receive payouts from Amazon via direct debit (ie they credit to your bank account directly in US), you can set the minimum payouts to be USD10.
How to open a bank account in US if you are not from US?
You can sign up directly with Payoneer . Upon successful signup, you can choose to receive payments from US and you would be allocated with a US bank account number in which you can provide from Amazon.
After I apply with Payoneer and was approved and given a US virtual bank account number, I fill in the details in my Amazon affiliate account. From there, Amazon would transfer the funds to my account when I hit the USD10 payout.
The minimum threshold before Payoneer will payout to your own specified bank account is USD50. Quite frankly, I had thought it would not be possible to hit the threshold since I am not active but well, no harm trying.
I left everything to that and seldom login into my Amazon or Payoneer account. Until I got an email from Payoneer about something that prompted me to login to the account and was surprised to see that I was close to hitting the minimum payment threshold of USD50. Erm, wow, all from putting links about foot scrappers and a few books. Not bad. So I login to my Amazon account and added a few links to some inexpensive daily essentials like toilet rolls and disinfectants which I am using.
Last month, the accumulated payouts from Amazon finally hit USD50 in my Payoneer account. I tried to withdraw the funds from Payoneer by selecting withdraw option (I had already fill up my bank account details when I open the account with Payoneer). It took about 4 days for me to receive the money in my bank account in Malaysia.
What do I think about Amazon affiliate program?
If a substantial amount of traffic from your site and YouTube channel comes from United States, and you are already mentioning about certain items, no harm in placing affiliate links to the products there. You can literally find anything under the sun being listed in Amazon. The Amazon affiliate program is definitely legit or else you would not find countless of affiliate marketers and bloggers promoting the program.
But for me, I earn better from Adsense compared to being an Amazon affiliate. Even though you need to earn a minimum of USD100 in order to hit your eligible payment threshold. This is because Adsense or display ads is mostly pay per click, that means you earn each time someone clicks on an ad, even though it is just a few cents. With time and traffic, the few cents will add up.
Still, Amazon is a good program to include as Amazon accounts for 50% of the ecommerce transactions in US. Even though you would only earn provided the visitor to your website purchase something within 24 hours after clicking on your affiliate link, I find that the conversions are better compared to other affiliate programs or networks that allow up to 30 to 90 days.
Before you intend to promote with Amazon, apply to set up your Payoneer account first. When you submit your application, your application would take a few days to be reviewed and approved. It is not immediate or automatic approval. But once approved, you would be able to receive funds from US. Not only from Amazon but other affiliate program based worldwide as Payoneer also enables you to accept payments from UK, Europe and Japan. Do ensure your mobile number is active and able to receive overseas sms/calls as you would be required to key in a 6 digit code almost each time you login or confirm some changes/updates in information.
