Japanese Affiliates Have a Yen For Commissions!

A recent article in the Yomiuri Shimbun cited some interesting figures from the Yano Research Institute. In 2008, Japanese affiliates can expect to earn over 100 billion yen (Apprx. $1billion) in commissions. This is up from 31.4 billion yen earned in 2005. Needless to say, super affiliates are in for a windfall next year and it wouldn’t surprise me if the bulk of those commission payments will come from the finance sector. But does this mean the wealth will be shared evenly? Apparently not. A majority of Japanese affiliates (43%)  continue to earn less than $10 a month in commissions, while less than 10% earn over $50 a month. If we assume that there are 500,000 affiliates in Japan (a liberal figure I think), and let us say that less than 5% will take home 90% of the commission pie, then top Japanese affiliates can expect to earn about $36,000 each in 2008. Of course, these are just rough figures, I personally know super affiliates that earn ten times that amount in a month, nonetheless the numbers are impressive. One more figure that comes to mind is 30%: That is the average fee rate charged to merchants by the affiliate networks for their role in all of this. Thirty percent on top of the $1 billion paid to affiliates. It will be interesting to see which of the top 5 Japanese affiliate networks stand to get the lion’s share of that $300 million commission pie.