How to Open an Amazon Affiliate Store

Open an Amazon account, if you do not already have one. If you have an Amazon shopping account, you can use the same log-in information for the Amazon Associates site. Fill out an affiliate application on the Amazon Associates website at affiliate-program.amazon.com. Provide your mailing address. Supply a profile of your website by entering the name and URL of your website, along with a brief description of the site's content. Read the terms and conditions of the "Associates Operating Agreement" and submit your application.

Check the e-mail account you use in connection with your Amazon account for an application submission confirmation, which lets you know that your application is in the system to be processed. Your affiliate approval e-mail will follow shortly -- usually within a few hours or a day at the most -- officially welcoming you to the affiliate program. Log in to the Amazon Associates website with the link provided in the confirmation e-mail.

Click on the third blue tab along the top, titled "aStore," and then click on the button in the upper right hand labeled "build an aStore now."

Open your first store page by clicking the "add a category page" button and naming your page. Click the radio button for the product display option. Go to hand pick products, display products from Amazon Listmania lists or display the best selling products from the selected categories according to your needs. If you have chosen the option to hand pick your products, look them up by name or item number. Add each one to your store, arrange them in your preferred order and return to the category page.

Click the yellow continue button at the bottom left side of the page to continue to the next page and select different colors and designs for your Amazon store. Experiment with one of Amazon's eight predefined designs from the theme drop down at top of the page or change the background and text colors individually by clicking on the color boxes in sections A, B, C, D and E and clicking on a new color.

Type a name or header for your store in the text box labeled "name your store." Upload your logo or featured image as a store header from a URL hosted on another server by pasting a direct link to the photo in the box provided at the bottom of the page. Click on the yellow continue button at the bottom of the page to move to the next screen.

Click on the radio button for right or left side placement of the widget sidebar. Mouse over the widget types to learn what they do. Click the check box for one of the five widget types you want to include on each type of page, such as "Similar Items" and "Accessories" widgets on the product detail page or "Customers who bought this also bought..." on the shopping cart page.

Click the yellow button at the bottom of the page labeled "Finish & get link." Click on the blue links to learn more about the different options for publicizing your store. Link your store as a standalone site, imbed your store using an inline frame or imbed your store using a frame set. Copy and paste the link provided to your website to link to a standalone store that Amazon hosts. Embed the store on your webpage so customers view the store without leaving your site by clicking the appropriate radio button, copying the code and pasting it into the source code of your website where the store will be displayed.