Amazon Vine: Your way to the first reviews on Amazon

Are you an Amazon seller just starting out with your first product? Then you are probably facing the same problem as most others: How do you get your first reviews?

You can of course wait for sales to come in from real customers. However, this can take a long time. Without reviews, sales at the beginning are usually meager.

A common piece of advice from the internet and FBA coaches is to generate reviews through family and friends. However, this carries the risk of an account suspension, as it violates Amazon's Terms of Service.

However, there is also a simple and straightforward way to ensure the first reviews: The Amazon Vine program.

What is the Amazon Vine program?

To explain Amazon Vine, we want to look at both perspectives of the program. First, there is that of the seller, so also your perspective, and that of the customer. Let's start with the customer's perspective.

Amazon Vine is popular and sought after by buyers. And for a very specific reason: it is an exclusive club. You can't just become a member. It's not easy at all. Amazon Vine is an invite-only program by Amazon.

Customers who frequently make purchases and provide reviews have a good chance of being invited to benefit from the advantages. We will explain to you how this works exactly further down. For now, it is important to know that Amazon selects customers to receive product samples in order to review them.

Another point for the popularity of Amazon Vine. In exchange for a review, you receive free products. But where do these products come from? That's relatively simple: from sellers like you.

As a seller, you can register your products with Amazon Vine for a fee. Vine members can then access them and receive a copy to review.

How does the registration process work for Amazon Vine? 

Registering your products is relatively simple. Go to Seller Central and you will find the "Vine" section under "Advertising". Simply follow the instructions there for product registration.

To register for Amazon Vine, you must also meet some requirements. You must be registered as a seller in the "Professional" plan on Amazon. Furthermore, you must have a registered brand of your own or, if not, be an authorized brand representative for the item. Finally, you must use FBA, meaning you have your items shipped by Amazon.

In addition, you must consider further points when participating in Amazon Vine. You can provide up to 30 units for review during registration, which means receiving a maximum of 30 reviews. This maximum limit applies even if you already have reviews. For example, if you already have five reviews on your listing, you can register a maximum of 25 units.

Amazon Vine is not intended to improve your average rating, but is primarily aimed at new sellers. In addition, Amazon charges a fee of 170€ per registered ASIN and both the sales and shipping fees per product retrieved. So, it's not very cheap. However, if your product has not received any reviews after 90 days from registration, the base fee will not be charged.

Excursion: How can one become a member of Amazon Vine?

As promised above, we also want to show you how you can become a member of Amazon Vine as a customer. Unfortunately, this is a well-kept secret by Amazon. Nevertheless, information occasionally leaks out that we do not want to withhold from you.

At this point, we would like to point out that the exact conditions of the Amazon Vine program for customers are not public and are also not known to us in detail.

Amazon itself says that only particularly trustworthy reviewers are invited to Amazon Vine. This means that only a few customers are eligible for Amazon.

What does that mean specifically? On one hand, you have to shop frequently on Amazon and accordingly have written many reviews. In addition, you need to have a large reach and have been marked as helpful frequently. If you go into your private Amazon account, you can also see how much reach your reviews have and how often they have been marked as helpful.

It is not known at which values one will be invited to Amazon Vine. Occasionally, Vine members contact the seller with questions about the product. This way, some information may leak out. However, reliable numbers are probably only known to Amazon.

Conversely, contacting is not possible and not allowed. Orders through Amazon Vine are anonymized for sellers.

It is also known that the rule that Amazon Vine members had to review a product within 30 days, which was in effect until last year, no longer exists. Apparently, Amazon has modified the system.

There are probably different levels of membership, which are based on the percentage of reviews completed within the past year. 90% of reviewed products are supposed to be the requirement for the highest level. It is not known whether a specific number of products must have been accessed, but it is likely.

This highest level is naturally coveted, as only high-priced products are supposed to be available there. In addition, Amazon Vine members are encouraged to critically engage with the product and evaluate it honestly.

We would like to provide you with more insights from a customer perspective into this exciting program, but unfortunately the information available is very scarce and often speculative.

Is Amazon Vine worth it?

The question of whether Amazon Vine is worth it is something that everyone must decide for themselves. From our point of view, it is definitely worth it. However, it is a cost-benefit analysis. Especially with high-priced products that were expensive to purchase, one could come to a different conclusion.

In addition, there is no guarantee of receiving good reviews through Amazon Vine. It is not possible to proceed gradually, for example by registering only five products first and seeing how it goes. Only one registration is allowed. So, you have to go all in right away.

Vine reviews are also marked as such, similar to verified purchases. For many customers, this is definitely a trust factor. However, for others, it may seem more like a paid review.

From our experience, we can give you an important point. If your product fails with the rather critical Vine members, it will probably also fail with "normal" customers on Amazon. However, if you receive predominantly positive reviews, you can rely on being positively evaluated by "normal" customers as well.

Conclusion

Reviews are an extremely important performance factor for your listing. There is no question about that. Starting on Amazon without reviews is therefore almost unthinkable and unfortunately not easy. Just think about when was the last time you bought a product without a review. This is probably the case for most other customers on Amazon as well.

You have many options to get reviews. With Amazon Vine, we have shown you a direct but somewhat costly way. However, you do not run the risk of violating Amazon's Terms of Service here, and you will receive honest feedback. From our point of view, this is very valuable, and we can recommend that you seriously consider registering with Amazon Vine.
And if you also want to measure the exact impact of new reviews on your performance, then you should definitely refer to the Open Beta of Sellerfox Sign up. With Sellerfox, you can not only track your average rating, but thanks to our unique event function, you can directly see whether and what impact the rating had on your performance.