On October 8 of 2019, Amazon added a seventeenth regional storefront, Amazon Singapore, furthering its march towards global (retail) domination!
While this is yet another huge step forward for the Seattle-based company, what really caught our attention was their seamless launch of the Amazon Singapore Associates program at the same time as the store launch. As far as we can tell, this is the fastest rollout of an affiliate program yet (Amazon UAE was quick, but it took them a day or two, and Amazon Australia’s affiliate program launch was many weeks delayed). Amazon.sg marks the fifteenth regional, public, and independent affiliate program that Amazon supports (only the Netherlands storefront doesn’t have an affiliate program while the Associates program for Turkey is currently private).
Amazon Singapore
Amazon had initially planned to launch Amazon.sg in early 2017 (source). The reasons for the delay are unknown, but since then, Amazon AU (November 2017), Amazon Turkey (September 2018), and Amazon UAE (May 2019) have launched their local storefronts (and affiliate programs).
The Amazon Singapore storefront features a fairly robust product catalog boasting over 15 million books alongside Video Games, Consumer Electronics, Baby Products, Toys, and Home & Kitchen goods from both international and local brands.
Early reports point to Singapore being chosen as the initial launch market for expansion into Southeast Asia due to it being home to more credit card owners, more internet penetrations, and an existing system of logistical infrastructure. Amazon has had regional storefronts and affiliate programs across Asia for almost two decades. Amazon Japan (it’s third-largest marketplace) went live in November of 2000, followed by China in September 2004 (which has recently been mostly deprecated), India in June 2013, Turkey in September 2018, and Souq was converted into Amazon UAE in May 2019.
Amazon Associates for Amazon.sg
The Associates Central dashboard is presented in English and is a carbon copy of dashboards for the other Amazon affiliate programs, making it easy to navigate and use.
After a quick review of the Amazon.sg Associates programs Operating Agreement and Program Policies everything looks nearly identical to the gold standard Amazon.com Associates programs and Operating Agreement and Program Policies except for a few localized things (eg. “Amazon.sg” vs. “Amazon.com”), payment options and commission rates.
Payment options
The Amazon Singapore affiliate program only offers a single payment option, and thankfully it’s the most convenient – Direct Deposit.
Amazon Singapore pays out to local Singapore banks as well as internationally to banks in Hong Kong, United Kingdom, and the United States—which is better than UAE (local banks only), but not as good as the Amazon affiliate programs in Europe (that pays out to nearly 50 countries).
If you have a bank account in one of those countries, then the rest of the payment setup form is exactly like the forms you’ve completed for the other Amazon Associates programs.
If you do NOT have a bank in one of those four countries, you’ll need a solution like Payoneer to receive your monthly payments. No problem!
Commission rates
Amazon Singapore commission rates follow the “Fixed Fee for Specific Product Categories” format that Amazon.com adopted in March of 2017, and is not currently using the Qualified / Non-Qualified purchase format that the European Associates programs are now bound to.
As expected with the launch of a new storefront, the program is offering higher commission rates than Amazon.com in a number of categories. A quick analysis shows that Amazon.sg’s program pays more than Amazon.com in fifteen categories versus seven that payout higher on Amazon.com. See the table below. We anticipate that these rates will eventually fall like we’ve seen over time at Amazon.com.
| Product Category | Singapore | United States | Difference |
| Grocery | 10.00% | 5.00% | 5.00% |
| Toys | 7.50% | 3.00% | 4.50% |
| Video Games | 5.20% | 1 or 2% | 4.20% |
| Baby | 8.50% | 4.50% | 4.00% |
| Kitchen | 8.50% | 4.50% | 4.00% |
| Office Products | 7.50% | 4.00% | 3.50% |
| Books | 7.50% | 4.50% | 3.00% |
| Wireless | 2.20% | 0.00% | 2.20% |
| Beauty | 12.00% | 10.00% | 2.00% |
| Health & Personal Care | 5.50% | 4.50% | 1.00% |
| All Other Categories | 5.00% | 4.00% | 1.00% |
| Home | 8.50% | 8.00% | 0.50% |
| Sporting Goods | 5.00% | 4.50% | 0.50% |
| Automotive Parts & Accessories | 5.00% | 4.50% | 0.50% |
| PC | 2.60% | 2.50% | 0.10% |
| Software | 4.00% | 4.00% | 0.00% |
| Outdoor Recreation | 5.00% | 5.50% | -0.50% |
| Tools | 5.00% | 5.50% | -0.50% |
| Camera | 3.00% | 4.00% | -1.00% |
| Electronics | 2.60% | 4.00% | -1.40% |
| Home Entertainment | 2.60% | 4.00% | -1.40% |
| Pets | 5.00% | 8.00% | -3.00% |
| Home Improvement | 5.00% | 8.00% | -3.00% |
How to identify an Amazon.sg affiliate link
Affiliate links for Amazon Singapore follow the same format as Amazon Japan and Amazon Australia with the key of “tag=” followed by a string of characters that end with “-22”. For example: blenderblog-22 https://www.amazon.sg/Philips-HR2173-91-Collection-Blender/dp/B01AI1J5P6/?tag=blenderblog-22
API Support
The one oversight that keeps the Amazon.sg Associates program rollout from being flawless is this: they missed adding support for the Product Advertising API (PA API)! According to our investigations, the Amazon.sg PA API is not publicly accessible using the new v5 or deprecated v4.
Considering that the Amazon UAE endpoint took about four months we estimate that Amazon.sg support will come around mid-February 2020.
OneLink Support
Just like with many of the other new Associates programs (India, Mexico, Australia, Brazil, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates) Amazon’s link translation tool, OneLink, does not support Amazon.sg. Amazon.sg links posted to your site won’t be localized for any international traffic, and when Amazon.com (or elsewhere) links are clicked from Singapore, they won’t redirect to Amazon.sg.
Geniuslink support
So where does that leave us? Unfortunately, without PA API support for the Amazon.sg storefront, we are not able to provide our industry-leading link translation. However, as soon as that endpoint is made available we’ll add auto-affiliation support (we’ll automatically include your Associate ID to any link built with an Amazon.sg destination) and product translation (ensuring that all Singapore clicks through any Amazon link are redirected to Amazon.sg).
We can’t wait!
If you can’t wait either and already see significant traffic from Singapore, then you may want to take the power into your own hands with an “Advanced” link built in the Geniuslink dashboard. By creating a rule for Singapore traffic and manually providing a full Amazon.sg affiliate URL as the destination, you ensure that your visitors from Singapore are getting the best treatment possible and that you’re getting affiliated.
Details on how to build an Advanced link can be found in our Knowledge Base article here: Advanced Links.
Conclusion
It’s exciting to see Amazon continue to expand its international footprint and roll out new storefronts around the world. We enjoy watching them grow because it generates opportunities for content creators. The new focus on Southeast Asia is particularly interesting and bound to unlock all kinds of potential. Additionally, it’s even more exciting to see that Amazon prioritizes the quick rollout of an affiliate program to support its new regional storefront. It’s always fun to see what Amazon cooks up next! It will be interesting to witness what other parts of the world become available to affiliate marketers interested in generating revenue from recommending quality products.
Please let us know in the comments below any questions you have or any observations we may have missed.