A new website for the Amazon Australia Affiliate Program came online some time in early . At the time of publication, the site only returns a blank responses.
Update (): The Amazon Australia Affiliate Program was temporarily live and open for registration this month. The website has since gone offline again.
Update (): The website is now live and accepting partner sign-ups.
Amazon Australia has only sold digital goods and Amazon branded electronics like the Kindle and Fire TV sticks. Amazon Australia has been a minimalist light version of the full “everything store” experience until now. However, since , there have been reports about Amazon building out logistic centers and distribution capacity in Australia.
Amazon hasn’t yet publicly announced anything regarding expanding into Australia, but rumors and speculation exploded in response to a leaked Amazon email that were sent to select Amazon Marketplace Sellers. The email hinted about a soft-launch of Amazon.com.au in time for Black Friday on .
Black Friday came and went and Amazon’s Australian website didn’t massively transform online retail in Australia in time for the year’s biggest shopping event.
I noticed something here the other day, which I haven’t seen anyone report on yet. Amazon Australia opened a placeholder website for a new Affiliate Program portal. Amazon currently operates 12 separate affiliate programs around the world.
The new website is at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com.au/.
Amazon only operates an Affiliate Program in countries with a local Amazon marketplace website. Amazon relies on its large network of affiliates to help it promote products and maintain a high level of awareness — even a feeling of omnipresence — among their customers.
Earlier this year, Amazon made it easier for its their affiliate program partners to monetize international visitors with the launch of their new OneLink regional redirection service. OneLink redirects visitors to their nearest regional Amazon website and onto equivalent product pages across borders.
Update (): The Amazon Australia Affiliate Program is isn’t yet linkable with Amazon OneLink.
eBay launched their Partner Network in Australia just two months ago (); calling on new partners to help them dig out a bigger cut of the Australian market. eBay’s timing suggest they may have wanted to establish a local presence in Australia before Amazon could launch its own affiliate program in the country.
The new Affiliate Program website has its own encryption certificate specific for its domain name. This certificate is of the same type and from the same issuer as the certificate that’s used on the main Amazon Australia website. The placeholder website appears to have come online on (exact date unconfirmed), and certificate issuance transparency logs say the certificate was issued some weeks earlier on .
Other than that, there isn’t much to be said about a single blank page.