An online affiliate store is a low entry bar ways to get started with your online business as it doesn’t require much upfront investment.

Additionally, you don’t have to think about inventory, stocking, managing orders, sourcing products, or shipping products, etc.

So how does an affiliate store work?

An affiliate store is a business where you promote other websites’ products on your own website. In the case of Amazon.com – your store promotes products listed for sale on Amazon’s website. 

Essentially, you send traffic to Amazon.com via affiliate links you’ve added to the products on your website.

Visitors are redirected to Amazon to finish the purchase, and if it’s completed – you earn a commission on the sale.

We’re using Amazon as an example in this article because you have millions of products to choose from, and it’s the best place to start.

As you can see, you can start this business with very little initial investment because you don’t require shipping, distribution or logistics inventory or even customer service.

You facilitate the sale, and earn a commission.

The store where you redirect your website visitors is responsible for sending the product to your customer and providing support, in our case, this would be Amazon. .

Creating an Amazon.com affiliate store with WordPress

Let’s see what you need to start your Amazon affiliate store:

• A domain name
• A WordPress website
• An Ecommerce plugin

You can use any WordPress Ecommerce plugin, but we recommend using WooCommerce as it’s free and it’s one of the most popular Ecommerce plugins on the market.

We’ll use WooCommerce as an example in this article as well.

Let’s start!

Install and activate WooCommerce

Log in to your WordPress Dashboard, head to Plugins > Add New, fill in WooCommerce  in the top-right search field and click Install Now:

Once installed, click Activate to activate the plugin:

WooCommerce will then start the setup wizard to set up your address, payment options, location, currency, etc.

Since we want to set up an affiliate store, we don’t need to go through that, so just click Skip setup store details at the bottom of the wizard:

Next, choose if you want to share non-sensitive data with WooCommerce to exit the setup wizard:

Don’t worry about skipping the setup wizard, as you can always configure each option if needed in the plugin options at a later time.

Create an Amazon affiliate account

Now that we have our website set up, we need to sign up for an Amazon Affiliate account to add products with our affiliate ID. 

Head to Amazon Affiliates website, and click Sign in at the top of the page:

You can then sign in with your existing Amazon account or create a new account:

Once logged in, you’ll need to answer some questions about your website, and fill in your payee information, etc.

There are 4 easy steps you need to complete (follow the on-screen instructions), and once you submit the information – Amazon will verify your data and approve your account:

Perfect! Now we’re ready to add Amazon products to our store.

Adding Amazon products to WooCommerce

We believe that WooCommerce is the best Amazon affiliate store plugin for WordPress, as it allows you to integrate affiliate products into your store seamlessly.

Let’s add a product to our store!

Head to your WordPress dashboard > Products > Add New, and fill in the title and description of your product:

Next, under the Product data meta box, select External/Affiliate product in the drop-down menu:

This is where we need to insert the product affiliate URL. Head to your Amazon Associates account dashboard, search for the product:

Once you’ve found the correct product, click the Get link button:

Paste the URL you’ve copied in the Product URL field in the Product data meta box:

Note: Leave the Regular price and Sale price fields empty and don’t insert the cost as Amazon’s affiliate program policies forbid you to enter price information manually.

This allows the visitor to check the price for the product on Amazon.com directly.

Next, scroll down and fill in the product’s short description, which will appear on the store’s front page, search results, and product category pages:

On the right-hand side, you can set a product image and add images to the product gallery:

Go ahead and click Publish to publish your product to the store!

You can then view your product in your store:

Repeat the same steps and add all the relevant products to your online store.

Customize your store

If you’re using the default WordPress theme – it comes with limited WooCommerce support. We recommend choosing a WooCommerce-ready theme that goes well with your niche and the products you’re offering.

If you want to start with free themes, you can find some in the WordPress Theme Directory:

In this article, we used the Storefront theme, which is a theme developed by the creators of WooCommerce, and it’s entirely free:

There are also tons of WooCommerce plugins that extend the functionality of your store and offer different features.

Tips and tricks

Now that your Amazon store is set up, you need to think about growing your business as much as possible. We recommend starting with SEO and optimizing your WordPress website for search engines.

Here’s also a detailed guide on how to submit your website to search engines.

Once your website is optimized, you should track your statistics and metrics to ensure your business grows.

Lastly, here are some instructions on how to increase sales on your Ecommerce website using  WooCommerce Popups.

Being an Amazon Affiliate website requires you follow certain rules, here are just a few: 

• You can’t and shouldn’t use content from Amazon product pages, and it’s strictly forbidden to copy the information and images. As an alternative, we recommend checking the product manufacturer’s website and getting the description, photos, reviews, and so on from there.
• Make sure to disclose your affiliate partnership. US laws require everyone to announce that they earn a commission when their visitors buy products from their websites.
• It is allowed to add products from other affiliate networks and diversify your income.
• The Amazon Affiliate Program is available to everyone in the world, not just the US.

Sometimes rules are modified or changed completely, it’s best to always keep track of them directly on Amazon’s website.

Final words

As you can see, creating an Amazon Affiliate Store is very easy, and it doesn’t require much money to start.

It’s one of the best ways to start an online business nowadays, and we recommend learning more about it if you’ve considered running an online store.