7 alternative ways to make money from Amazon in Kenya

Winner Ajibola

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60% of the sales on Amazon stores are from small and medium-scale businesses. In 2019, more than 15,000 businesses surpassed $1M in sales, and the figure is still rising today.

However, selling products directly from your storefront can be quite tasking, especially if you live in Kenya or other neighboring African countries. Fortunately, since Amazon is a giant eCommerce brand, it means that there are other ways for people to earn an income on this platform.

So in this post, we will be sharing Seven alternative options to make money from Amazon in Kenya without opening your own store.

1. Publish Your Books on KDP

If you’re an author who has either physical or digital books, hosting them on Amazon is a great way to earn a passive income. This is because, in addition to the money you make from sales, you also get royalties.

You don’t need to hire a publisher to publish your own books on Amazon. Thanks to Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon KDP), you can self-publish your books to the Kindle store. Plus, publishing your books on Amazon is completely free.

So when anyone purchases this book, you can get up to 70% of the sales along with other benefits. However, this is dependent on the price and other factors.

To publish your books on Amazon Kindle Publishing, simply

  • Create a KDP account for free
  • Enter the title and major language your book will be in
  • Type in details about your book like author information, genre, categories, publishing date, and the likes
  • Upload your manuscript and book cover
  • Choose your royalties and pricing
  • Preview and publish

2. Join the Amazon Affiliate Program

The Amazon Affiliate program is a popular way to earn money from Amazon. As an affiliate, once you promote Amazon products on your website or social media, you earn a commission on each sale.

The way it works is that you create unique product links. Whenever someone purchases a product on Amazon using this unique link, you get a commission.

You can choose from millions of products to promote, and the commission rates vary depending on the category of the product. Interestingly, there are additional bounties you can earn. These are mostly when a user subscribes to an Amazon service like Prime or Kindle.

Affiliates on Amazon can earn anywhere from $100 to $10,000 depending on how much traffic and purchases they get with their links.

To become an Amazon affiliate, simply follow the steps below;

  • Visit the Amazon associates website and signup for an affiliate account
  • After entering details about your website, get a unique ID
  • Create affiliate links for products you want to recommend
  • Place these links strategically across your website, blog posts, or social media
  • Once there’s a sale, you get a commission, and you can track this from your account
  • Be sure to use Grey as your Amazon payment method to avoid payment issues in the long run

3. Sell via Amazon FBA

If you really want to start selling on Amazon without worrying about shipping, customer care, returns, and packaging, then the Amazon FBA in Kenya is a great option to explore.

Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is a program that allows sellers to store their products in Amazon's warehouses. Amazon takes care of shipping, customer service, and handling returns.

It’s quite similar to dropshipping in the sense that you buy wholesale products from websites like Alibaba and then ship your inventory there. The only difference is that Amazon charges fees for the delivery and management while you get the profit after deductibles.

  • Start by finding a product or niche that you’d love to resell.
  • Calculate all costs based on Amazon’s business model and understand your potential profit margin before launching
  • Set up a solid marketing strategy for your products
  • Sign up on Amazon FBA
  • Purchase in bulk from popular Asian wholesale markets
  • Choose to ship the products yourself using FBM or the default shipping partner for FBA
  • Start selling your products at scale

4. Find Gigs on Amazon Mechanical Turk

Are you familiar with Upwork and Fivver? Then this is just the Amazon version of it. The Amazon Mechanical Turk in Kenya is a marketplace where individuals and businesses can collaborate on completing micro-tasks.

So as a worker on MTurk, you get small tasks from businesses and complete them virtually for a fee. Some of these tasks could be data validation, data collection surveys, content moderation, and so much more.

The pay for each of these tasks varies based on duration and workload. However, you can earn a lot when you complete multiple projects. Unfortunately, since you can only work on one task at once, there’s only so much you might be able to take on.

To get started, simply create a worker’s account for free here. Then similar to job sites, find and accept tasks that are best suited to your skill.

5. Offer Your Services on AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform that provides several services like storage, databases, and analytics. While many people are familiar with the service itself, not a lot of people know that it’s a marketplace where they can sell their services.

So if you have skills in cloud computing, you can become a consulting partner or independent contractor. With this, you can then use AWS to provide services to businesses that need them for a contracted amount. Some of the services you can offer include data migration, server management, app development, and so much more.

Once you register on the AWS Marketplace, create a new service listing on your management portal. Here, you can customize pricing, the payment schedule, contract duration, and contract terms for your customer. Oftentimes, these come in the form of private offers.

Since you’ll need a US-based account to be able to receive payments for your services, we recommend setting up a Grey USD account if you haven’t yet.

You can learn more about the requirements for using the AWS marketplace here.

6. Join the Amazon Influencer Program

If you have a significant amount of followers on your social media, you should consider joining the Amazon influencer program in Kenya. Amazon influencers promote products on social media for a commission. While it’s quite similar to Amazon associates, the commissions and requirements are quite different. For one, you have to be a content creator.

Once you’re approved to join the program, you get a unique URL and your own Amazon page where you can show off the products you recommend to your followers. The trick here is to create your own storefront on Amazon so users can find these items easily. So once they purchase anything on your Amazon storefront, you get a commission.

7. Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising is a platform that allows businesses to advertise their products on Amazon. If you have skills in digital marketing, you can use Amazon Advertising in Kenya to provide services to businesses and earn money.

You can offer services like PPC advertising, product listing optimization, and sponsored product management on Amazon. Simply become a partner and get listed in the partner network. Learn more about how it works here.

Wrapping Up

Amazon provides several ways for people to earn money from it. From offering your services, recommending products, and even actually selling goods, there are opportunities for everyone. However, the most essential step in making sure that you actually receive the money you’ve earned is by getting a functional foreign account from Grey. Sign up for free.

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