Amazon's Next Battleground is Your Local Community

The New York Post put out an article claiming that Amazon controls 44% of online sales. This is up from 38% in 2016.

Amazon is currently in the process of rolling out a nationwide distribution network and its own local delivery services.

I predict that this change will completely change the face both online and local marketing.

The change is forcing online marketers to examine their distribution channels and local merchants are suddenly in direct competition with the Internet jaugernaut.

Personally, I think this change will be good. It will force marketers and business leaders to start thinking about their local communities.

I should introduce myself. I created a thing called Community Color specifically so that I can follow the interaction between local communities and the internet at large.

The public site is a basic directory. However, I have been examining distribution chains and the over all effect of the Internet on communities.

Things have actually been bleak in the last few decades. Marketers have developed a tunnel vision where they see nothing but the internet. The local business communities have been falling apart.

Once vibrant towns are now simply rows of empty store fronts.

A huge number of malls have failed as well. There is a online community of "retail archeologists" who troll through failed malls photographing all the empty stalls.

Amazon is going to continue to dominate internet sales. I contend that the best hope of independent merchants hoping to survive the next wave of Amazon dominance is for merchants to step back from their computer screens and look at the towns in which they live.

Interestingly , the only company I see that understands the threat Amazon local poses is Walmart. Walmart realizes that the real competition in the market is about distribution. They have started putting up little convenient pick up stations that let people order online and pick up locally.

As Amazon and Walmart turn their focus to their nationwide distribution channels, other merchants need to follow suit. Hopefully, this new focus on penetrating local markets will help curb the decline taking place in too many local communities.

An example of organic affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a mechanism that individuals can use to fund their web site.

During the Obama Administration, the FTC set out to destroy the affiliate marketing by requiring that web designers put a huge yellow block next to all affiliate link telling people not to click on the link.

The FTC's assumption is that affiliate marketing is just about money.

Guess what?

It isn't.

Affiliation is about relations between web sites.

There is a fun free site called ArtWanted.com. This site lets amateur artists share their work in a supportive environment. You can upload your creation and you will receive supportive comments along with advice from other artists.

ArtWanted has an affiliate program.

This is a free site. The chance of getting paid is next to nothing.

I joined the program and got the affiliate id so that the creators of the site can track inbound traffic. I've sent Artwanted about 50,000 hits. I like that I can log in and see that traffic. I really do not expect to receive compensation for the effort.

The FTC requires that I put a huge warning when I link to the program because their is a very remote possibility that I might make money.

But that's not what I am doing in this case. I simply wanted to track clicks. Here is the FTC Warning:

Another Day Wasted on FTC Compliance

The FTC is one of those evil deep state entities that you hear about on right wing news stations.

During the Obama Administration, the FTC set out to destroy the affiliate industry by requiring that web sites put a huge warning next to all affiliate links warning the public that the link is an affiliate link.

The FTC warning is supposed to be bold and preferably has a yellow background. It is supposed to be positioned before the link occurs.

I am breaking the law. I put the FTC warning in the middle of the page. To limit the size of the FTC block, I use as font that is a step smaller than the main font.

I showed a page with my FTC warning.

Predictably, the person did not want to click on the link. This is predictable. There is a huge FTC warning telling the person not to click on the link.

The user typed the name of the business into the address bar. This brought up the google search page. The person then clicked on the Google ad for the merchant.

Because I am required to put an ugly FTC warning on my page, the traffic that I am generating is being credited to Google.

So, what I did yesterday is I updated the code for my FTC warning to include the direct URL for the merchant.

This way if a reader is horrified by the possibly that I might possibly benefit from a web page that I created, then they can click on the direct link. This will cut my site out of the commission chain.

This change took a full day to implement as I had to make sure I had the correct URL for the 400 affiliates that I currently list. It took all day to check 400 urls.

Here is the current FTC warning design. A site called Artwanted has an affiliate program. This is my affiliate link www.ArtWanted.com/?RID=10452 . The RID is a unique identifier for me. My FTC Warning has a link with out the id.

If you are a progressive and are incensed at the possibility that I might receive a financial return for creating a web page; you can indignantly click on the tag free link in the FTC warning. How cool is that?

FTC Requirement

I've been reworking the FTC disclosures for affiliate links on my web sites. This has me feeling extremely depressed.

The FTC disclaimer is a contrivance of the Obama Administration. The FTC Warning is supposed to be a big bold design element that goes at the top of any page with an affiliate link. The purpose of the FTC disclaimer discourage readers from reading the page or clicking link. The FTC site says the disclaimer must be in bold type with a yellow background to make it stand out.

The fact that my government requires crap like this makes me sick. The FTC treats small merchants and independent web designers like criminals for trying to figure out ways to make independent web design profitable.

Personally, I think that the affiliate paradigm has the potential to be the most honest form of advertising. This can be proven by looking at numbers.

In 2009 there were tens of thousands of merchants offering a variety of products. One could find millions of things to sell in this market. People authentically engaged in this market look for the best bargains from the most reliable partners.

In contrast lets look at an employee of a firm or an advertiser hired directly by a merchant. A person who is dependent on a single source is actually more likely to lie for that source.

Don't you see the math? A person who is choosing between thousands of products from hundreds of sources is more likely to be honest when writing reviews than people who are hired directly to write ad copy for a single product.

There is a great deal of dishonesty in the affiliate world. This dishonesty takes place a systemic level. For example, AdWare companies make programs which switch affiliate ids. SEO companies work to manipulate search engine results. Some affiliate networks engage in underhanded practices.

The FTC requirements only affect the people who are engaged in above board affiliate marketing. The FTC regulations are treating the honest people in the industry like crooks while letting those engaged in systematic manipulation of the market run rampant with no checks.

Anyway, since I am engaged in white hat marketing, I've been trying to follow the stupid FTC guidelines even though the guidelines dramatically undermine my business.

So, the FTC guidelines say that I am supposed to put a huge FTC Warning on any page with an affiliate link. The code for my site would place an FTC warning in plain text. The problem with this design is that it has me repeating the same words on every page. To keep from repeating the same content, I decided to put the warning in an iframe. The problem with an iframe is that the iframe tag does scale correctly in all web browser. Below is my FTC warning in an iframe.

I decided to break the rules. I am making the text of the warning one step smaller than the main page.

The disclaimer warns people that the page has dangerous affiliate links that they should avoid using. It also tells them how to visit the site without triggering an affiliate id.

A lot of people think that using a search engine engine instead of a link is safe. This just means that Google is credited with any sales while small sites get cut out.

When I first first placed the FTC warning on my site, I saw an immediate 40% drop in income and I lost a huge portion of my web traffic because people felt that any web site bearing such a stern warning must be evil.

The progressives I know would agree with FTC. Progressive hold that any attempt to fund web development through ecommerce is an act of evil. That I saw a forty percent drop in sales because of the FTC requirements just proves that I was misleading the public by making a web site with affiliate ads.