Amazon Vine program is a great opportunity to receive reviews for your products legally and increase customer loyalty, increase the visibility of your new and old listings. Before it was only for Vendors, but now it is open to Seller Central sellers as well.

How Amazon Vine Program Works

Amazon Vine program is a program by Amazon, that helps sellers to get reviews about products legally. Its feature is the fair interaction between the Seller and the Reviewer. The Seller provides his product, and the Reviewer writes a true and honest opinion about it. The Seller cannot influence the evaluation of his goods by the Reviewers, because he does not know who exactly will get the product. Therefore, such reviews are most valuable, because cannot be faked or bought.

On the other hand, Sellers cannot rely solely on positive reviews when they participate in this program. Its purpose is to provide an opportunity to get real reviews about the goods, but they can be both positive and negative.

Knowing About the Amazon Vine Program

How is all this going on? Sellers and Vendors send their products for distribution through the Amazon Vine Program. Amazon independently selects the Vine Voices who are most relevant to this product and sends them an invitation in a monthly e-mail newsletter to participate in the review of the product. If the Vine Voice agrees, the goods are delivered to him/her, and then he/she must write a truthful and honest review about the product within 30 days from the date of purchase.

The reviews received from the Vine Voices carry a lot of weight both for buyers who find them useful and for sellers who want to increase sales. Customers have more confidence in such reviews because they can’t be faked or bought. Therefore, the more such product reviews are there on the listing, the higher loyalty of potential buyers.

How Reviewers Are Selected for the Amazon Vine Program

Amazon Vine program determines reviewer’s rankings through over time customer posts. Amazon also use votes from other customers to show whether reviewers truly provide trustworthy and helpful reviews of a product. The number of reviews they wrote, as well as the time they performed such reviews, also matters when choosing the Vine Voices. Among the reviewers' database, Amazon selects those Vine Voices that are most relevant in order to review the seller’s product.

Keep in mind that you cannot influence this choice in any way. Also, you cannot know in advance who exactly will participate in the review of your product from the list of Vine Voices. Moreover, sellers cannot edit or modify the reviews that their products received when participating in the Amazon Vine Program. Even if the review is negative, all you can do is publicly comment on it. But even in this case, you get an advantage over your competitors because you demonstrate your interest in resolving conflict situations and customer support.

You can request the removal of a review only if it is contrary to Amazon policy.

Who Can Take a Part in Amazon Vine Program

Previously, Amazon Vine Program was available only for vendors. Costs were average from $2.500 to $7.500 per ASIN. Presently, Amazon Vine Program is available for free to all Seller Central sellers and Vendors. Customers can also become members for free via an invitation that will come directly from Amazon.

Amazon Vine Program’s criteria evolve from time to time. Currently, here is what can make you part of the Amazon Vine Program.

1. You must be a professional seller that has a registered brand in Amazon Brand Registry.
2. You must have fewer than 30 reviews on your product.
3. You must have purchasable FBA offers in “new” condition.
4. You must have the available inventory.
5. Your listing must have images and descriptions.

Once you select the product in Amazon Seller Central Account and select the number of units to enroll (max 30), you need to send the goods to Amazon. Then they’ll be delivered to Vine Voices.

Benefits of Amazon Vine Program

• You can easily join the program and get reviews for a new product or goods that you have already sold on Amazon.
• Vendors benefit from Amazon Vine Programs because it can give businesses faster ways of growth by getting more sales.
• Amazon Vine Program can be a helpful injection for product reviews to increase sales from previous listings that have less than the expected results or became static.
• Amazon Vine Program is the best way to get reviews, even if the product is not sold on Amazon yet. Sellers can start to participate in the program and send samples of goods for review even before it appears on the market. This helps to get early reviews, which are very important when launching a new product.
• Vine Voices Reviews have more “weight” for Amazon’s search algorithm, and therefore will contribute to better brand recognition. Moreover, the better and more significant is the Reviewer, who left a positive review, is, then the better is the chance of the product to be ranked higher. After all, if the product is liked by such an "influential" reviewer, the other customers will like it too.

Amazon Early Reviewer Program vs. Amazon Vine Program

We’ve created a spreadsheet to help you to understand the difference between the Amazon Early Reviewer Program and the Amazon Vine Program.

To Sum Up

Reviews are generally important for purchasing and product sales, that is why these kinds of programs are beneficial both for customers and sellers. Amazon Vine Program is now available for free. Therefore, this is a great opportunity to get reviews for your products and make your business more profitable.