Christian Westman[2011-08-12] email from associates@amazon.co.uk
Your Amazon.co.uk Associates Application
Greetings from the Amazon Associates Program.
While reviewing your account, we noticed your site states a portion of a customers order will be donated to charity. Please note, Associates may donate their earnings to a charity, but may not announce to their visitors that a portion or all the proceeds will go to a particular charity. Associates are not allowed to offer incentives to visitors to purchase through their links by stating a certain amount will be donated, rebated, etc.
Under the Associates Program, Associates may choose to recommend either individual products or our entire service to their visitors in exchange for a small percentage of the resulting sales. The goal is to introduce our services to new customers this way, helping them find us through sites that offer value-added editorial assistance or which provide trusted advice in choosing e-commerce sites.
Given the relatively slim retail margins on our products and our strong discount pricing, the advertising fees we offer to our Associates can only be sustained by meeting new customers through our Associates. These customers may return to us in the future for items unrelated to the topics served by the Associate web site, and this future business helps to offset the advertising fees we pay. This is why we dont allow Associates to offer incentives we want to keep the program viable for the long-term.
When an Associate re-directs these fees to the customer or offers an incentive to shop through their links, it changes the entire relationship in ways we did not intend. Under the rebate model customers actually have a disincentive to return and shop with us directly, undermining the expectation of repeat business that is necessary to fund the program.
In order to keep the Associates Program viable for the long-term, weve concluded that we cannot continue our Association with incentive-oriented sites. You application has therefore been rejected.
We hope youre able to make other arrangements for your visitors and thank you again for considering Amazon.co.uk for your needs.