The Amazon Vine Review Program
In a previous blog, we emphasised the importance of product reviews in your listing’s success. Today, we delve into Amazon Vine – a review initiative program created by Amazon for sellers.
Join us in this blog as we explore the benefits of the Amazon Vine program, as well as the drawbacks and costs involved.
Looking to submit your products to Amazon Vine straight away? View the eligibility guidelines and step-by-step instructions here.
Introduction
In an earlier blog, we explored the effectiveness of increasing the number of product reviews on your listings.
Detailed and honest product reviews left by real customers can help increase conversions on your listings; potential customers will read your description and then move on to the reviews and real opinions of customers who have bought the product in the past. If the reviews line up with what they expect from a product, they are more likely to buy it than if the listing had no reviews.
Even if some product reviews are neutral or negative, potential customers would rather see an array of honest reviews than 100% positive reviews. According to these statistics, 95% of consumers suspect reviews are fake if no negative ones are visible.
What is the Amazon Vine program?
Amazon Vine is a review program created by Amazon, designed to encourage trusted reviewers (also known as Vine Voices) to test a product and leave detailed and insightful reviews. This provides customers with well-written and insightful reviews to help them make a purchasing decision, and also provides sellers with more reviews on a newer listing.
Example of a review left by a Vine Voice.
Once signed up for Amazon Vine, up to 30 units of your product are offered to Vine Voices to be claimed for free. Once the products have been claimed, tried and tested, Vine Voices will usually (though are not required to) leave an insightful review about the material, ease of use, practicality, sizing and other aspects of your product. This is not guaranteed to be a positive 5-star review, but will be rich in detail (and may even include images).
Depending on the type of enrolment tier you are in, you can register up to 5, 10 or 20 different products on Amazon Vine. With a total of 30 units per product to be claimed by Vine, you could benefit from as many as 600 reviews in total on your enrolled products.
Positives of Amazon Vine
High-quality reviews
Compared to reviews left by regular customers, Vine reviews are rich in detail and offer more insight into the customer’s experience. This is ensured on Amazon’s end by making Amazon Vine an invite-only program for customers – only accounts that have a history of leaving lots of useful reviews will be invited to join the program and claim free products.
As well as providing a customer perspective for potential customers to read, it also helps you as the seller to see how you can improve your product. Vine reviews may make comments on how well the product fits, how suitable the material is, ease of use or anything that may be relevant and something you could improve on. This is great for sellers who have just released a brand new product and are still looking to further refine their product.
Example of review length from a regular customer (top) and a Amazon Vine customer (bottom).
People are looking for reviews
Over 80% of consumers will read online reviews before using a local business. Furthermore, they typically read an average of 10 reviews before feeling able to trust a business. As mentioned earlier, having neutral or negative reviews showing up on your listing is not detrimental. In fact, many consumers appreciate seeing them as it shows honesty and authenticity from both the seller and the product.
Increases conversions
Having product reviews on your listings is another driving force for making potential customers decide to purchase your product, for the reasons stated above. Overall, having public reviews increases total conversions by around 3%. The more reviews you have, the more effective they will be, but having as little as 30 reviews can help improve conversions by 25%.
The ‘Vine Voice’ badge
Each review left by a Vine reviewer features a ‘Vine Voice’ badge next to their name. This badge of trust makes people more likely to read and take in the information in these reviews, which can help them decide to make a purchase.
The Vine Voice badge shown on a review left by a Vine customer. You can also see the green text that says ‘Vine Customer Review of Free Product’
Drawbacks of Amazon Vine
Vine Voices may choose to leave negative reviews
You aren’t guaranteed a positive review from Vine Voices. They will try to be as honest as possible and this may result in a review with 3 stars or less depending on your product and their expectations.
Amazon does not allow you to contact reviewers for further information or to change their review.
Vine Voices don’t have to leave a review at all
This can seem unfair, considering the reviewer just received one of your products for free. But if you send multiple units to be claimed, you are most certainly going to receive at least a few reviews.
Amazon will offer your product to a closed group of Vine Voices for the first 28 days, and then they offer it to all Vine Voices afterwards (if any units are remaining).
Costs involved
Enrolling your products on Amazon Vine includes costs that are discussed in the section below.
Costs involved with Amazon Vine
If you are already set up and eligible for Amazon Vine, the only fee you will have to pay is £140 (for sellers) or £1,200 (for vendors) for each parent ASIN submitted.
If you haven’t yet sent stock to a fulfilment centre, the delivery and storage costs of FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) will have to be calculated, as well as other costs such as seller account fees.
Your products are given to Vine Voices for free, so you need to consider this before applying. How much would it cost you to write off up to 30 units of your product? In the long run, it should be beneficial as your listing will become more established with several reviews.
Eligibility for Amazon Vine
To enrol your products in Amazon Vine, both your account and products must meet certain eligibility criteria. To qualify, you must:
- Be a Brand Registered Seller for the product that you wish to enrol
- Have less than 30 reviews on the product listing
- Offer the product in a ‘New’ condition
- Have available inventory of the product through Amazon’s Fulfilment Centre
- Have an image and description on the listing
What products are not eligible?
- Applications & Digital Software
- Certain products in Restricted Categories
- Adult Products
- Hazmat Products (such as batteries or adhesives with non-harmful chemicals.)
- Bulk Items
- Product Accessories / Products that need another product to work, such as printer ink cartridges. However, accessories to products that most people would have (such as an iPhone case) would be allowed.
How to enrol your product for Amazon Vine
Once you have checked you and your product are fully eligible for Amazon Vine, the process for applying is fairly simple through the Seller Central page.
If you don’t have any stock of your products at a fulfilment centre, you need to send some before you enrol. Visit our blog about FBA to learn how to prepare for sending stock to Amazon’s fulfilment centres.
Step One:
Log into your selling account on Amazon Seller Central.
Step Two:
Go to Advertising > Vine
Step Three:
Enter the parent ASIN (or the regular product ASIN if you don’t have any variations) of the product you want to enrol in the top right.
Step Four:
Press Begin Enrolment.
Step Five:
Verify your product information.
Step Six:
If you are submitting a product with no variations, enter the number of units you wish to make available for Vine reviewers to claim (maximum of 30 units).
If you are submitting a product with multiple variations, you need to pick with variations to enrol in the programme. Amazon recommends that you choose all product variations in stock as this gives the most flexibility to Vine Voices to select their favourite variation, optimising your chances of getting insightful reviews.
Step Seven:
Click enrol. Review the fee and terms of conditions of Vine, and click Enrol to complete the enrolment.
Once the product is submitted, you cannot change the number of units enrolled and you can’t enrol it for a second time.
Conclusion
In summary, Amazon Vine is a review program created by Amazon where a select group of consumers receive free products in return for insightful and detailed product reviews. Enrolling your products into the Vine program can provide you with detailed (and ideally positive) reviews to help kick-start newer listings, which will in time increase conversions. While this program offers great benefits, it does require you to pay a small fee and give up to 30 units of your product away for free – and Vine Voices don’t necessarily have to leave a positive review (or any review at all). The costs and implications of Amazon Vine may affect certain sellers more than others, but overall we recommend it due to its success in launching some of our clients’ new listings.
Need help enrolling your products, or weighing up if Amazon Vine is suitable for your products? Contact Actimerce today for a helping hand.