Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money online. Throughout the years, its popularity has gone up and down, but it continues to prove to be a stable way to make money online. The best part about affiliate marketing is that you can be an affiliate for nearly any company, from Shopify to Amazon to Uber to FabFitFun.

Becoming an Amazon affiliate was one of the biggest turning points in my career that eventually led to the success that I have today.

Back in 2013, when I was just starting out in my ecommerce journey, I suddenly quit my job to become a full-time entrepreneur. Before quitting, I was selling products on Amazon – sunscreen, to be exact. I was constantly selling out of inventory using my makeshift Word document email list since we were being “budget-conscious” and didn’t want to pay for an email provider.

I saw how to sell Amazon products and knew I wanted to do more of that, but for myself. Since back in the old days it wasn’t as easy to find products to sell compared to today, I decided to become an Amazon Affiliate.

What is an Amazon Affiliate?

An Amazon Affiliate is a person who makes sales commission from Amazon products. For example, you might add Amazon affiliate links – a link with your specific reference number to track that you drove traffic to Amazon’s website – on your blog or your own online store that direct traffic to Amazon.

Everyone’s journey with the Amazon affiliates program will be different.

Some will skyrocket into six-figure success and others, like me, will develop skills that can be applied to other models. Being an Amazon affiliate can be a great way to start your ecommerce career, but you may find that you’ll eventually need to transition to a more profitable and sustainable model to help you succeed as an ecommerce entrepreneur.