Amazon is one of the largest e-commerce business in the world and it takes a lot of people to get it to that point. One of the things I like about this company is that it shares the wealth with ordinary people just like me. Some just take one of these programs and turn it into full-time at home careers. Others, like me mix-and-match some of these opportunities to create a patchwork career and make an income from home.

What are some of those ways? Here are the top five income earning opportunities from Amazon. opportunity.

Make Money on Amazon Completing Small Tasks

That’s a mouthful of words and you’re probably wondering what they all mean. Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk)  is a cloud sourcing resource that breaks larger jobs into smaller ones. By signing up with this company you can earn money for categorizing data, email harvesting or even inserting ads to YouTube videos. These jobs are called HITS and they go fast. And they don’t pay much money for each one. But if you can grab enough jobs and get them done fast, you can earn extra money from home.

Over half 1 million people are signed up with AMT with 75% of them being from the United States. A lot of women find this an easy way earn a little extra cash. They might sit down between naptimes or while the kids are in school. Make a commission Payments comes in two forms, your choice. Either an Amazon gift card or you can take payments through PayPal once minimum payout is met.

I’ll be honest, since I did this for a few months, there’s a steep learning curve and it can be tedious, frustrating and low-paying. But it is possible to earn money and earn if relatively fast. One place to help you through the maze is a forum called TurkerNation. If you’re interested in this route, spend some time there first.

Earn Commissions with the Amazon Affiliate Program

If you’ve been doing any research on blogging, this is the Amazon program you’ve probably heard the most about. Once you sign up for the Amazon Affiliate Program you can earn commissions for the products your readers buy through a link on your site.  You may have noticed I have an Amazon ad in the right sidebar. If you click on this ad and go to Amazon and buy a product, I received a small commission. That can be anywhere from 4% to 10%, depending on the product or quantity of products I sell in a month. I can also use text links and other types of banners to direct readers to Amazon. Mostly I do this by recommending products that I like and I think are helpful to my readers.

To become an Amazon affiliate, all you need to do is sign up and have a blog. It’s also important to understand the program and follow Amazon’s terms of service. That isn’t hard as long as you always try to provide good content and an honest evaluation of products. Scammy won’t win you points with readers or Amazon. In fact, it might get you banned the affiliate program.

Sell Physical Products On Amazon

Amazon doesn’t sell everything they… well, sell. To be the biggest retailer in the world takes a lot of product and people. And those other people are third party sellers. While there are a lot of wholesale sellers on Amazon, there are much more who are small fries still making money. And there are lots of ways to sell on Amazon.

Along with buying wholesale and selling through Amazon you can sell private label items or try your hand at retail arbitrage. The latter is what I mainly do. What that means is I find products on clearance, sales, or just hard to find items, and sell them on Amazon. The profit I make is worth the effort it takes (and you’d be surprised at how little time it takes sometimes).

You have the opportunity to fulfill the products directly and send them to the customer. Or, you can have Amazon fulfillment your sales. That’s called fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). It cost a little bit because you’re paying Amazon to do that, so you need to price your products accordingly. But for many, like me, it’s well worth it.

Self-publish Books Through Amazon

Have you ever wanted to publish a book? Well, it’s one of the things that Amazon makes easy. All it takes is setting up a Kindle Direct Publishing account and within minutes you can have a book up on Amazon and ready for sale. Of course, you do have to write the book but there are lots of helpful information on the Internet to get you started.

The great thing this publishing route is that you control it. And most importantly, you receive the majority of the royalties. When you price your books between $2.99 and $9.99, you keep 70% of the royalties. That’s nice. Not only that but if you opt into the Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library programs where your books are borrowed and you are paid for the pages read.

Of course, there are lots of other things that go into being a successful self-published author. Choosing the right niche, the writing, and marketing. But there are many people who are doing just that in lots of categories from romance novels to non-fiction.

Amazon’s Work at Home Customer Service Agents

Many times thought-out the year (the holidays, usually), and in various locations, Amazon puts out the call for seller support associates who can work from their homes. These jobs can pay well. I’ve heard it’s around $11 per hour. And Amazon provides the training and gear necessary.

The job sounds like typical customer service responsibilities, such as interfacing with customers, answering questions and providing solutions. This job requires an understanding of e-commerce and retail, computer skills, along with good communication skills. You’ll also need high-speed Internet access, a dedicated landline, and a second means of communication such as a mobile phone.

I see this job advertised on a number of the Internet job boards, but advice would keep an eye on the Amazon job board. Just enter the search term “work at home” and see what’s available. As I write this, I’m seeing lots of foreign seller support associates opportunities but none in the United States at this moment.

The five opportunities above are the primary ways to make money on Amazon from home, but not the only ways. Another moneymaking Amazon opportunity is its trade in program that allows you to send back items such as textbooks and electronics. If they’re eligible, you receive money back in the form of an Amazon gift card.

Amazon’s Vine program allows you to review new products. In return for an honest review, you get to keep the product. This is an invitation-only program, but if you’re interested you might want to check here to see the criteria needed for an invite.

One of the newest ways to make money with Amazon is the Flex program. It’s not a work at home opportunity, however, but it is an independent contractor one. While it might not work for a WAH mom, it could be the perfect part-time opportunity for hubby. Amazon is expanding into a number of markets with a same-day delivery program. Flex drivers can earn anywhere from $18-$25 an hour delivering products in their own neighborhoods. They can set their own hours (where available) and earning goals. Not a bad deal for a side hustle.

As you can see, there are lots of opportunities to make money on Amazon without living home. And knowing this company, there’s probably more to come. My recommendation is to keep your eyes open, do your own research to find out if one of these Amazon programs is a keeper and then make it work for you.

Till later,

-Kate