Participating sellers can provide free units of their products in order for this select group of Vine Voices to post customer reviews for the products they submit. Participating in Vine helps build awareness of your product, boosts the sales of your slow and new products, and helps customers make informed decisions about the new products you offer.
What are Amazon Customer Reviews?
At the end of the day, vendors and sellers want to know which courses of action are going to increase the bottom line, and the Amazon Vine program is just one option brands can implement to increase the number of product reviews.
Let’s take a closer look at the timeline (as it relates to how Amazon has been eliminating reviews): On December 16, 2020, Amazon officially ended the ability to respond to reviews. Shortly after, Amazon announced the end of the Early Reviewer Program by issuing the following statement:
When is Amazon ending Customer Review reporting?
Amazon is ending Customer Review reporting as of March 29, 2021.
Later this month, Amazon will be ending Customer Review reporting in the Vendor Central brand analytics. Here’s everything you need to know about the end of Customer Review reporting and how vendors and sellers should navigate next steps.
Product reviews (good ones, at least) can do wonders for your Amazon business. Product reviews have a significant impact on a product’s ranking, traffic, and sales performance on Amazon. The more product reviews, the more likely a product will improve its discoverability and buyability – two vital components to success on the Marketplace.
What are the next steps for vendors and sellers?
Not only can they lend trust to your brand, instill confidence in your products and help you better your services moving forward, but they also help you show up higher in search and, thanks to all of these things, increase your visibility, click-through rates, and sales as well.
- Be brand registered in Amazon Brand Registry.
- Have fewer than 30 reviews on the product detail page.
- Have a buyable FBA offer in ‘New’ condition.
- Not be an adult product.
- Have already launched at the time of enrollment.
- Have available inventory.
- Have an image and a description.
What is the Amazon Vine Program?
To participate in Vine, you must be a Professional seller, have registered a brand in Amazon Brand Registry, and have eligible FBA offers. Once your enrollment is complete, Vine Voices will have the opportunity to request your enrolled products to review.
According to Amazon, Amazon Vine invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new products to help their fellow customers make informed purchase decisions. Amazon invites buyers to become Vine reviewers (called Vine Voices) based on the insightfulness of the reviews they published on their Amazon purchases.
“The Early Reviewer Program is being removed. We will not allow any new enrollments beginning March 10, 2021. We will stop all active enrollments on April 25, 2021, and you will not be charged for any reviews for enrolled products that are published after this date. You will not be charged for the service if the program has not generated any reviews for your business. Amazon will return your program fee within three months after the program closure date for any active enrollments with more than one review and not completed by April 25.”
According to our experts, one potential reason why Amazon has decided to end the Early Reviewer Program is due to a lack of traction among sellers (although we cannot confirm this). As an alternative, the Amazon Vine program can help vendors and sellers ramp up sales and advertising on new products.
Vendors and sellers should aim for an approach that will gain as many product reviews as possible. While reviews are not the only component sellers should base their strategy on, they do help sellers gauge how many reviews they should aim for to compete within their market. Sellers should research what kind of review volume they need to rank on the first page.
As of now, the program is being offered to Sellers who meet the criteria below:
To learn more about Amazon Vine, check out our recent post “Amazon Vine Program Now Available To Sellers“.
