Getting Started
Five steps take you from a new account to a live store earning commissions. Most of the work is done for you, and the whole thing fits in an afternoon.
1. Pick a niche, or let us pick one
Your niche is the subject your store focuses on. You do not have to work it out yourself: the create page suggests six for you, each with a reason and ratings for search potential, social potential, commissions and how well it should last. Press Research more niches for a fresh set until one appeals.
Prefer a ready-made store? The Instant Store library covers the popular niches already, so you can simply choose one you like the look of.
If you would rather think it through properly, the Choose Your Niche category is there for you.
2. Create your store
Go to Stores, then Create a Store, and choose how you want it built. An Instant Store is a ready-made store that AI makes uniquely yours, and the AI Builder creates a brand-new one for any niche you like.
Either way, AI builds the categories, fills the product catalogue, writes the articles, sets up your homepage and applies a design. It takes about five minutes and you can close the page while it runs. We will let you know when it is ready.
Not sure about a niche? Build it and look at it. Deleting a store frees up your plan allowance immediately, so you can try as many as you like at no cost.
3. Add your affiliate tags
This is the step that turns clicks into commissions, and it takes about a minute.
Go to Settings, then Affiliate Networks, and add your Amazon Associates tag. Every store on your account picks it up automatically, including ones you create later, so this is a one-off job rather than something to repeat per store.
No Amazon Associates account yet? Go to Connect Amazon in your account and we will walk you through opening one, question by question. You will have a working tag at the end of it.
Do not skip this step or leave it until later. A store running without tags looks completely normal and earns nothing, and people have run them that way for weeks without noticing.
4. Follow your store's Launch Plan
Open your store from your store list. Its dashboard has a Launch Plan: a checklist covering your design, your content, adding your store to Google and setting the store live.
It is tailored to your store and it knows what is still outstanding. Follow it to the end.
5. Come back for traffic
Your store is built and live. The rest of this Playbook is the fun part: bringing people to it and turning them into buyers.
Start with the Creating Content and Search Traffic categories, or Social and Community if your niche is a visual one. An hour a week is plenty to keep it growing.