How To Create An Amazon Store For Your Website

Create Tracking IDs, Stores, Categories, Sub-Categories And Products

In this section I am going to show you how to create an Amazon Store (Online Shop) whereby products are categorized. This means you can create many individual, mini, stores for each product category. Anyone can create an amazon store, with relative ease, but you have to research your products (see the previous section) and put in the time to promote your amazon store.

Many people complain that amazon stores do not work, probably because they do not promote their amazon store enough and/or do not pick the right products for it. To avoid disaster you need to promote your amazon store, as a separate promotion from your website, and have related products inside it that people are interested in and willing to buy. People usually buy products from an online store because they trust its website owner(s) and their recommendations - They expect them to have researched, and even bought, a product before recommending it to their visitors.

To get started you first need to go to the Amazon Associates website and SIGN IN. If you are not an amazon associate (affiliate) yet simply click on the JOIN NOW FOR FREE button to get a FREE Account, subject to Amazon accepting your application of course.

Fig 1.0  SIGN IN or JOIN NOW FOR FREE to continue

Once you are signed in click on the ASTORE Tab (window) and from there click on the ADD AN ASTORE button (Fig 1.2). This will allow you to create store number 1, of 100.

Fig 1.1  Click on the ASTORE Tab (window) to continue




Fig 1.2  Click on the ADD AN ASTORE button to continue

Before creating a store you first need to create a unique Tracking ID for it by clicking on the ADD A NEW TRACKING ID link. A Tracking ID is basically a store code and identifier that, behind the scenes, allows Amazon to track what product links have been clicked on, what products have been purchased and so on. The end result of this tracking is a detailed report which is made available to you via the REPORTS Tab.

Fig 1.3  Click on the ADD A NEW TRACKING ID link to continue

By default the username you chose for yourself when signing up for an amazon associates account is the name given to your default tracking id, which may or may not have a store created for it - It is up to you to create one. My default tracking id is yoingco. Furthermore, each and every tracking id has a country code attached to it (21 if you are in the UK) which can be ignored mentally even though it is physically attached to the tracking id (i.e. yoingco-21).

The reason for adding a new tracking id to your first store is because, ideally, you want to reserve your default tracking id (i.e. yoingco-21) for general amazon account purposes; without having a store associated with it.

Fig 1.4  Click on the SEARCH button to see if this tracking id is available

In the above example I have chosen the tracking id websiteproducts for my first store. The tracking id needs to be searched for, by clicking on the SEARCH button, to make sure it is an available/usable tracking id; which in this case it is. It will then be known as websiteproducts-21.

Once a tracking id has been found as available/usable click on the CONTINUE button (Fig 1.5 below) in order to create a store for that tracking id, and more precisely to begin creating product pages for the store itself (Fig 1.6). Later on you can change the store's colour scheme and so on.

Fig 1.5  Click on the CONTINUE button to set up a new store




Fig 1.6  Click on the ADD CATEGORY PAGE button to create a new category (product) page

A category page is simply a category that has a products page associated with it. The category title shows up on your store as a link (category link). When that category link is clicked on its associated products page is displayed. As well as category pages you can also create sub-category pages (more on this later).

In this example store, with a tracking id of websiteproducts, I could create two category pages for it called Books and Softwares - Inside the Books category page I could have a selection of website books for sale and in the Softwares category page I could have a selection of website builder softwares for sale. Here is an example to show you what I mean.

After clicking on the ADD CATEGORY PAGE button (above), which creates a default category page called New Category (1), click on the ADD PRODUCTS button (below) to begin adding actual products to the category page called New Category (1). You can rename the category page (category title) later.

Fig 1.7  Click on the ADD PRODUCTS button to begin adding products to this New Category (1) page

When the add products page first appears (below) its SEARCH panel is empty. So begin searching for products, for this New Category (1) page, by choosing a category from the CATEGORY drop-down menu (i.e. Software) and then type into the SEARCH edit box what kind of products you are looking for before clicking on the GO button. In this example I am looking for Website Builder softwares.

After clicking on the GO (search) button the amazon search engine tries to find products relating to your search query, which it displays on the right of the window. This can be a hit and miss affair if your search query is too generic, so try and be more specific with your search queries. In this instance 17 products relating to Website Builder software were found, with the first 10 products displayed on the first results page. You need to click on the NEXT link to see the other results.

Fig 1.8  Click on a product's ADD button to add it to this New Category (1) page

Once a product has been found it is your job to investigate it, by clicking on its link, in order to recommend it to your visitors; and more precisely to add it to your category page by clicking on its ADD button (Fig 1.8 above). And remember to read the product customer reviews, via that link, in order to improve the quality of your product range. Sounds obvious but laziness to read product reviews is the major difference between a successful store and a failed store.

Fig 1.9  Continue to ADD, or REMOVE, products if need be.....




Fig 1.10  .....and then click on the BACK TO CATEGORY PAGES button.

In Fig 1.9 above I have already added two Website Builder products, but in total added three products (Fig 1.11 below). When you have finished adding, and even removing, products click on the BACK TO CATEGORY PAGES button (Fig 1.10 above) to continue.

When you arrive back on the Category Page window (below) rename the category page (category title) to a name that represents the products in this category. So in this example I am renaming New Category (1) to Website Builders. As you can see, I have 3 Products in this category. I could add more by clicking on the ADD PRODUCTS button again but for this example I am going to click on the SAVE CHANGES button instead to save the changes I have just made to the category title.

Fig 1.11  Rename the category page (title), called New Category (1), and then click on SAVE CHANGES




Fig 1.12  The category page (title) has been changed - Click on CONTINUE to proceed

If you want to add another Category Page to your store simply follow the above procedure again (click on the ADD CATEGORY PAGE button again). So to clarify; I could add another category page, initially called New Category (1), by clicking on the ADD CATEGORY PAGE button (Fig 1.6 above). From there I would ADD PRODUCTS to it (Fig 1.7 above), rename the category page (title) to Books or Website Books for example (Fig 1.11 above) and then CONTINUE (Fig 1.12 above).

After clicking on the CONTINUE button the next thing to do, only if you want to, is to give your store a colour scheme. This simply involves changing the colour of a store component such as the Page Background colour, the Header colour, the Text colour and so on. Although the colours are initially in the Hex-Decimal format you can use the COLOUR drop-down menu next to each colour component to pick a colour using the colour selector. You can also use the THEME drop-down menu to select a predefined colour scheme.

Fig 1.13  Change the store colours, if need be, using your own colours or predefined colours

With the colour editing out of the way you then need to give your store a name. This is the name used in the store's header (logo area) and will be used regardless of category title. Meaning, even if you have three categories called Books, Softwares and Accessories for example their category pages will all use this store name as their title. In this example I have used the store name Website Creation Products, which the category pages represent.

So to clarify; I have a tracking id called websiteproducts-21. It now has a store associated with it called Website Creation Products that has one category page called Website Builders. When that Website Builders category page, or any other category page, is clicked on and displayed its header (logo area) will display the store name's title of Website Creation Products (as sampled in Fig 1.13 above).

Fig 1.14  Give your store a name and then click on the CONTINUE button to proceed

Now that you have your side of the store set up with products and categories, the last thing to do is to decide what widgets (add-ons/extras) you want to display on all of your category pages for the benefit of you and/or your visitors.

Although you can choose to display a Similar Items (Products) widget, an Accessories widget, a Customer Reviews widget etc on your category (product) pages and/or main store page you might not want to display Customer Reviews for example, for whatever reason(s), on category (product) pages. In this example I have used the default settings only but you should take the time to look at these widgets in more detail (read about them and try them out). When you have decided what widgets you want to use click on the FINISH & GET LINK button.

Fig 1.15  Decide which widgets you want displaying on your category (product) pages and/or main page

Clicking on the FINISH & GET LINK button will give you the link to your amazon store (aStore). In this example I have chosen to use the default Simple Link option to retrieve my store's link but you can choose another option if you wish. The other two options are for Frames and Programmers basically, so stick with the default Simple Link. If you want to view your store click on the VIEW STORE button or use the Simple Link in your web browser.

Fig 1.16  View your store by clicking on VIEW STORE or by pasting the Simple Link into a web browser




Fig 1.17  A basic aStore with 1 category page (Website Builders) consisting of 3 products

Going back to the naming of stores and categories and so on. The above store is called Website Creation Products. It consists of one category page (otherwise known as one category) called Website Builders that in turn consists of one product page with three products on it.

If you click on an item (product) you will see the widgets mentioned above, in particular the Customer Reviews widget - Scroll down the page to see the customer reviews.

Fig 1.18  Scroll down the page to see the Customer Reviews

In this final example I have created more categories pages and a couple of sub-category pages. They were all created as above. The only difference when creating another category page or sub-category page is that you must have a main category page selected before clicking on the ADD CATEGORY PAGE button. So to create the Website Books category page, and the Accessories category page, for example I had to select the YOUR ASTORE SETTINGS category page first.

The YOUR ASTORE SETTINGS category page is technically the main/root settings category page even though it is not really an "in-use" category page. It is more of a heading or placeholder if anything. Anyway! To make sure those category pages were created as category pages instead of sub-category pages I had to have YOUR ASTORE SETTINGS selected first.

To create the sub-category pages called Computer Equipment and Marketing Books I had to make sure that the main category page called Accessories was selected first before clicking on the ADD CATEGORY PAGE button.

Fig 1.19  The Accessories category page (link) displays the products of its two sub-category pages

Finally! If you want to edit your store at any time simply click on the ASTORE Tab, after logging in for example, and then click on the EDIT button. If you do not want to create a similar store from scratch you can simply DUPLICATE this store, make changes to it and then resave it under a different tracking id. A word of warning about tracking ids though; they cannot be deleted, so once you have created one it is there forever! Therefore, make sure you use good reusable names.

Fig 1.20  Click on the EDIT button, at any time, to edit your store

The above is how you create a standard amazon store (aStore). Do not think aStores have to be bland though because you would be wrong. They can have their CSS Code tweaked and have a logo attached to their header (logo area) for example; it's just that I cannot cover everything in this section, or indeed in this website, because there are too many settings and so on to explain. It would take a book to explain in detail.

Saying this; If you read the official Amazon Help sections, write a good Sales Letter that promotes your aStore (and the benefits it offers your visitors) and choose five star recommended products your aStore should be a winner. Remember though, this all has to be backed up with a strong, well visited, website or blog. Plenty of traffic and a good sales pitch in other words.