If you are an associate with the amazon.com affiliate program and reside in India, you would receive a cheque for your earnings. Wire transfer option is not yet available.
And the cheque denomination is in USD which makes it take longer than usual to credit in Indian bank accounts.
Here is a short note about my first experience with amazon.com USD cheques.
Amazon payment schedules
Whatever commissions you earn in a particular month are credited to your balance 2 months later. So whatever you earn in January is credited on 1st March to your earnings balance.
Afterwards, in whichever month your earnings balance cross the $100 mark, you are issued a cheque on the 31st of the the same month. So if you made $100 in commissions in January, it gets credited to your balance on 1st March, and the cheque is issued on 31st March.
Arrival via Post
Recently I received my first cheque from amazon.com associates program. The cheque was issued on October 31st and arrived at my address on 14th November. That’s about 2 weeks.
Update – 2nd Cheque
The 2nd cheque was send on 30th Jan and should have arrived by Feb 15th, that is 2 weeks later. However it arrived on 10th March. The envelope had a stamp mentioning “Passed by Customs”. So it seems that cheques might take even longer and longer to travel.
How is the cheque send
The cheques are send via US Post and not any premium courier service like Bluedart. Many years ago when Google Adsense used to send cheques, they were send via Bluedart courier service and reached faster and could be tracked on the Bluedart website.
However, no such options are available with Amazon cheques. They shall arrive via usual postal service in your city.
Clearing in Indian Banks
After having received the cheque, the next big thing to do is to get it cleared in your bank account. I am not aware of how different banks operate, but most of the major banks including SBI, ICICI, HDFC and Axis accept foreign currency cheques.
My account is with Axis Bank. The cheque deposit process is different than usual. You cannot fill up the ordinary paying slip and drop the cheque in the clearance box.
I had to go to the Forex department ( they hide somewhere in the backside of the bank premises ) and fill up a small clearance form and submitted the cheque along with that. You may have to fill in a one time declaration form to mention the source of revenue.
The cheque was submitted on the 15th of November and was credited to my account on 15th December. About 30 days later. That is too long a time. I wish this could be little faster.
Conclusion
If anyone of you have had better experiences like faster cheque clearance in the bank, then please let me know.
Some other bloggers ( here and here ) have reported that HDFC and ICICI banks also require a similar period of time to get the cheques to clear in your account. Someone said, that SBI does it a bit faster.
Follow these steps to get the payment in Payoneer directly in India.
https://www.latestonnet.com/2018/05/29/receive-amazon-affiliates-earnings-via-payoneer/.html