Amazon Boosts MP3 Sales Through Referrals

In a sign that it's serious about gaining substantial marketshare for its new AmazonMP3 online music store, Amazon.com last week sent an email to its associates network of referral websites offering up to 20% commissions on MP3 sales. Standard Amazon.com commissions run from 4%-7% or so of the purchase price of product sales referred by associate websites, so this is a pretty major boost in bonuses. The program runs only through the end of 2007, but with bonuses like that, I'd expect to start seeing a lot of links to AmazonMP3 download pages. In 2008, the bonuses will still be a higher-than-normal 10%. With a widespread army of promoters like this, I'd say that AmazonMP3 really may begin to challenge iTunes' dominance in the online music sales market.