Flipkart Vs Amazon India Affiliate Program – Which is Better?

Let’s discuss in detail about the Flipkart and Amazon affiliate programs and which is the right fit for your blog. Also, we will explore which program can help you make more money.

I have been using Flipkart and Amazon affiliate programs since 2014, and they have drastically changed over time.

Before 2017, there was a lot of potentials to make money that has reduced in recent years for some of the niches like technology. 

Back then, there were other options such as the Snapdeal affiliate program and even Paytm or Infibeam affiliate programs. All of these are closed now.

Flipkart and Amazon are the two largest affiliate programs available to Indian content creators.

Both the programs are still running, but the commissions are vastly reduced. There are certain categories like Furniture, Books, Grocery where there is still an 8-10% commission.

The major sellers like Electronics, large appliances, and smartphones have seen a decline in commission rates over the years.

How to Join the Programs?

You can visit the links below to Apply for Amazon or Flipkart Affiliate program.

The company will verify your application and check your website before giving approval.

It can take a couple of days to get approved so don’t worry if you don’t get an instant reply. 

Link to Join Amazon Affiliate Program

Link to Join Flipkart Affiliate Program

Due to Covid-19 both the companies have paused the affiliate programs in April and till the 15th of May they have not started the programs. This is causing a huge loss to the website owners who were solely dependent on affiliate marketing.

Also, Flipkart is not signing up new affiliates for some months. We are not sure how serious they are about the program expansion.

Commission structure for Flipkart Affiliate marketing

• Grocery – 11% for new customers and 3% for existing customers.
• Books, Sports, and Home and Furniture – Currently Zero Percent, prior to lockdown it was 8 to 10%.
• Electronic devices – 4%
• Large Appliances – Flat Rs 1500
• Air Conditioners – Rs. 3000
• Mobile Phones – 0% for top-selling (Tecno, Realme, Xiaomi) , Flat Rs. 1000 on iPhone and some other premium phones, and 2% on most of the mobiles.

Commission structure for Amazon India Affiliate Marketing

• Apparels and Clothes, Shoes – 9%
• Toys and Baby Products – 9%
• Books – 8%
• Health and Beauty Products – 8%
• Large Appliances – 5%
• Mobiles – 1%, Some phones at 1% and others at 0%.
• Kindle, Amazon Devices, and Firestick – 10%

In Feb 2021 – Amazon.in (Amazon India) has reduced the commission on all mobiles from 2.5% to 1% and this is a drastic cut for many YouTubers and Tech Blogs that will be severely affected by this move.

Which Program Offers More Commission – Flipkart Vs Amazon?

As you can see from the above data that the commission structure is different for both the companies and they keep changing it on a month to month basis. 

Different product categories have different commission structures. Flipkart has capped payout on several products by offering a flat fee that limits the earning of affiliates. 

On the other hand, Amazon has no such restrictions.

Amazon has a better commission structure in comparison to Flipkart.

Several top-selling phones and products (TVs) don’t earn any commission. 

Especially for low margin Chinese brands like Realme and Xiaomi there are no commissions on most products. 

Reports and Tracking

Both Flipkart and Amazon offer detailed reports. You will be able to track the number of clicks, products ordered and commissions on a daily basis.

You can optimize your website and content based on what is working for you and market those products more that offer good returns.

The reports are more accurate from Amazon.

At times I find Flipkart showing some invalid clicks and the tracking is incorrect. This may or may not impact the earning but reports are delayed at times.

Another significant issue is the click tracking and conversions. Flipkart is not tracking clicks or sales accurately as per our experience. On one day, the dashboard will show 3 hits, and the next day 30 hits. Also, some of the runs are incorrect, as we have not linked to those products.

Our Experience With Flipkart Affiliate Program

Also, I asked GeekyRanjit who is popular Tech YouTuber and has several years of experience with affiliate marketing. Here is what he said about the Flipkart affiliate program.

Link to Tweet.

For us, the conversions are Zero for many months now, and we have not got any commission from the company since 2019 despite sending traffic.

Also, they have never answered any questions that we have emailed them or sent on Twitter.

Personally, I will say it is not worth spending your time or effort on the Flipkart affiliate program. On the other hand, the Amazon affiliate program is also not blemish-free.

I have observed that the high-value purchase conversions are minuscule on Amazon.in. It is hard to say the reason for this but we get tons of orders for products that are cheap and we have not even linked to but the actual high-value products that we market are seldom shown in affiliate reports.   

This a bit dicey and hard to prove but if you have tons of links and massive traffic to Amazon, you will eventually know what is happening. This may not be the case in other countries.

Experience may be different for other affiliates but we have had several problems with the program after 2018.

Widgets and Banners

 Both Flipkart and Amazon offer banners and widgets that you can embed on your website by just pasting a few lines of codes. 

However, these may not offer higher conversion rates as the banners are not specific and target a broader audience.

Instead, it is better to create your own banners to market the specific products or offers that you think will lead to higher conversions. 

How are payments Done by Flipkart and Amazon to Affiliate Marketers? 

To receive payments, you will have to provide your bank details such as account number, name, and IFSC code to get the payments.

If you don’t have a bank account you can use the account details of a friend or a family member. Also, you can change the account details whenever you wish.

Also, you need to submit the Pancard details, so the taxation is done at the source. 

However, you can file a refund for the tax deducted by Flipkart or Amazon at the time of filing the income tax return. 

The payment is done by these companies every month in the first 10 days.

How Much Can You Earn from Flipkart and Amazon Affiliate Marketing?

Flipkart has put a capping on the maximum commission that you can earn in a month based on your previous earnings and traffic. They can change the limit from time to time and even for some months, they can set it to zero. 

On the other hand, there is no limit to the commission that you can earn from Amazon affiliates. 

You can earn a few 1000s to a couple of lakhs per month from the commission. 

However, it is not easy and you need to have a really high volume website to drive traffic to high payout products to achieve this. 

Are Affiliates making money from Flipkart and Amazon Affiliate Programs?

It is one of the most asked questions on Quora and other forums.

There are blogs and websites that are making money from these channels. However, from my personal experience, the commissions have reduced drastically in the last couple of years. 

My earnings have dropped by 70% in the last few years due to reduced commissions and restrictions on payouts.

The major reason is the growth of Chinese companies that offer no payouts to affiliate marketers and take away a major chunk of sales.

Online buyers are price conscious and deal hunters who flock to brands like Xiaomi and Realme that don’t give any commission to poor bloggers.

The potential for earning is low from affiliate marketing in technology niche currently as there are bigger media houses and companies that drive a lot of traffic to these sites and small bloggers are left out. 

If you are into books, software services or even large appliances chances are there to earn a good amount of money.

Can You Use Both Amazon and Flipkart Affiliate programs on Your Website?

Yes, you can. There is no restriction that you need to stick to just one. In fact, you can use AdSense along with affiliate marketing to augment earning from your blog.  

Is it Easy to Earn Commission from Flipkart or Amazon Affiliate Programs?

The short answer is – No. It will take a lot of effort to create quality content that you can rank in Google.

When visitors use your links to buy products, only then you will earn a commission. 

Also, the conversion rates are very low and only a fraction of visitors (less than 2%) that click your affiliate link will actually buy a product. 

I don’t want to discourage you but it’s not an easy job as it used to be.  

Here are some tips that I have learned over the years that you should try to boost your affiliate earnings from Amazon or Flipkart.

How to improve earnings from Flipkart and Amazon Affiliates?

10 tips that will increase your affiliate earnings significantly: 

1. Promote high commission products and write detailed articles about these.
2. Stay away from marginal commission brands – they are not worth it.
3. Look for opportunities to increase traffic to articles that have high margin products and are less competitive to rank.
4.  Increase the relevancy of your affiliate links by linking to products that consumers will buy after reading the content. 
5. Market products that have high volume and higher commissions.
6. Try to sell products that can give you a large revenue from a single sale rather than focusing on low commission products.
7. Use the sidebar on your website for marketing top-selling products. 
8. Reduce Adsense Ads and have 1-2 custom affiliate banners in each article. 
9. Look for high margin products that are not covered extensively by main media outlets. 
10. Write about products that will pay you commission – don’t worry about having high or low web traffic. 

Concluding Thoughts: Flipkart and Amazon Affiliate Programs

These are excellent to earn additional income from your blog or website or even your Youtube Channel. 

Since there are no other options as most other affiliate programs are already closed these are a must-try for bloggers. 

Considering that Indian content creators have very limited choices to make money the large companies may be exploiting the situation.

We have seen several orders are removed at a later date that otherwise would have helped creators earn a lot more commission.

There is no transparency about canceled orders and why certain orders were removed from final commisions paid to the creators.

Also, the commissions are now paid on the product value – GST which creates a nearly 20% dent in the earnings. Earlier Amazon and Flipkart used to pay commission on the sale value of the product.

There are affiliate aggregators like Admitad, and Cuelinks, etc. but the conversions are even worse in those cases. 

Showing one offer to all visitors is not going to convert well. The only way for higher conversions is to work on the relevancy of the marketed products. 

So, this article may be an eye-opener for some readers who are otherwise told that affiliate marketing is easy money. No, it’s not. 

Keep Working! Stay Positive and Create Awesome Content!

Share your thoughts, experience, or queries in the comments below. 

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