Amazon Vine is a great way to get more product reviews. But what other benefits can sellers experience?
Amazon is the largest ecommerce platform, and there’s no doubt about that, given that it sells more than 12 million items! Since there are so many products, sellers face a lot of competition. Fortunately, Amazon offers many ways to get your inventory to the top.
The Vine program is one way sellers can boost brand recognition and sales. It can increase reviews and visibility for your products. This is especially helpful if you struggle to increase reviews or engage your customers.
But what is the Amazon Vine program? And how can it elevate your brand? This guide will show you the pros and cons of Amazon Vine, what to do about negative reviews, how to join the program, and more.
What Is Amazon Vine?
In this program, sellers (called vendors) offer free products to reviewers. All reviewers must provide honest and fair reviews for their products, which means the reviews may be negative (more on that later).
Amazon Vine is an invitation-only program. Only certain brands can join, and Amazon only requests their top reviewers. And while the program has many benefits, it may not be the right solution for brands trying to increase brand recognition and conversions.
How Can Amazon Vine Elevate Your Brand?
If you receive the invitation, there are many reasons why you may consider joining. You can access a pool of high-quality reviewers and get reviews quickly, especially if you’re releasing a new product.
Amazon Vine also offers social proof and brand recognition, making the brand seem more trustworthy. All of this will build brand trust and convert more customers.
While Amazon Vine is the better solution for brands with low reviews, it’s also an effective program if you want to bring your products to the spotlight.
Some of the more specific benefits include:
- Increased brand and product awareness
- Boosts traffic to new or low-selling items
- Increases sales
- Trustworthy reviewers
- Increase your number of organic reviews
How Does Amazon Vine Work?
Vendors and reviewers will have a different experience when using Amazon Vine. Here’s a look into both.
Vendor Side
Sellers on Amazon Brand Registry can join Amazon Vine as vendors and enroll their products. Amazon will recommend your products to reviewers. If a reviewer chooses to try your product, Amazon will send them the item for free.
Once the reviewer has the item, they will review it on your product page. The review must be fair and honest, but most reviewers will still cover the basics, such as how it works.
Reviewer Side
If a consumer posts helpful reviews to other customers, Amazon will invite them as a “Vine Voice.” When a Vine Voice posts a review, a badge will appear next to their name to distinguish this review from organic customer reviews.
I was invited to join Amazon Vine. I’m a hopeless Amazon addict and Prime subscriber, so I do a lot of my shopping on the ecommerce platform. I also try to review as many products as I can.
Since many customers found my reviews helpful, Amazon offered me a chance to become a Vine Voice. However, I declined due to tax obligations (I would owe taxes based on how many products I received for review).
After joining Vine, Amazon will recommend products based on the reviewer’s expertise. Amazon ensures sellers only get Vine Voices with excellent knowledge of the specific product category. Reviewers won’t post a positive review to receive free products, and brands can’t endorse reviewers.
While Vine Voices receive free products, Amazon may request they return them after they review them.
What If Vendors Get a Negative Review?
As stated, Vine Voices must be unbiased in their review. This means brands will risk getting a negative review.
First and foremost, it’s essential to address that negative feedback won’t impact a seller on Amazon Vine. Sellers can still enroll products in the program, and Amazon will continue recommending them to Vine Voices.
Amazon cares about truthful reviews and won’t penalize sellers or reviewers for negative reviews. That said, Amazon will remove any reviews that violate their terms and conditions.
In typical situations, sellers can comment back to customers and try to justify the situation. Can brands do the same on Amazon Vine? Sellers can’t contact Vine Voices the same way they can other customers.
There are still ways sellers can rectify a negative Amazon Vine review, however. These include:
- Improve any misleading listings or descriptions
- Add any missing information
- Correcting product defects and weaknesses (especially if the product is new)
- Revamp the marketing and advertising to improve visibility after correcting the problems
Joining Amazon Vine
Are you interested in joining Amazon Vine? Here’s the process you can expect:
Eligibility
There are minimum qualifications a brand must meet before they can join Amazon Vine. We mentioned they must be on the Amazon Brand Registry. Here are a few other requirements:
- Be a new brand or have fewer than 30 reviews on the product detail page
- FBA seller
- Have pre-stock available
- Created listings with a description and product pictures
There are some product restrictions, which we will mention in another section.
Sign up and Enroll Products
To see if you received an invitation, log onto your Amazon Seller Central (not to be confused with Amazon Vendor Central) account and go to Settings. Click User Permissions and find the advertising section. Find Vine and activate it.
To enroll your products, click the Advertising tab and find the Vine section. There are three types of Amazon Vine types:
- Basic. 5 products
- Plus. 10 products
- Premium. 20 products
After choosing your type, you can see your ASINs on the Vine Dashboard and select the ones you want in the program.
In addition to selecting specific ASINs, you can enroll pre-launch products to have some reviews before making the item available to the public.
Product Restrictions
Before submitting your ASINs to Amazon, it’s best to know the product restrictions. You can’t submit certain ASINs if they fit these descriptions:
- Adult items
- Dangerous goods
- Samples
- Product bundles
- Heavy and bulky products
- Dropshipping
- Items that need an additional ASIN to use (such as an electronic device and a battery)
- All items must be the same as they are on FBA
There are also restrictions when enrolling in product variations.
FAQs
Which countries is Amazon Vine available in?
Amazon Vine is available in the following countries:
- USA
- Canada
- France
- UK
- Italy
- Germany
- Japan
- Spain
Does Amazon Vine cost anything?
It depends. If a seller enrolls only a couple of products in the program, there are no costs with Vine. However, 3-10 products incur a $75 fee, and 11-30 products incur a $200 fee. These fees also vary by country.
Amazon won’t charge you until a Vine Voice reviews a product. If you haven’t received any reviews 90 days after enrollment, Amazon won’t charge you.
Why is Amazon Vine only available to FBA sellers?
Amazon protects the identities of Vine reviewers. To ensure sellers don’t view their sensitive data, Amazon handles all fulfillment via FBA.
Can sellers cancel Amazon Vine?
Absolutely. On your Amazon Seller Central account, go to Advertising and click Vine. On the Vine Dashboard, click Stop.
If Vine Voices hasn’t claimed a product, you can cancel it before it gets reviews. But if Vine Voices already claimed an item, they will still post a review after you leave the program (canceling does prevent additional reviews, though).
You can’t re-enroll a product after canceling Vine.
Elevate Your Brand
Amazon offers many programs to boost brand visibility and sales. Vine is one of the many programs available. With Amazon Vine, sellers can get high-quality verified reviews from Amazon’s most trusted reviewers.
Are you still struggling to elevate your brand? Our Accelerator service offers different tactics to grow your brand and boost revenue.
Authors
Stephanie Jensen has been writing ecommerce content for seven years, and her copy has helped numerous stores rank on Amazon. Follow her on LinkedIn for more insight into freelance writing and creating high-quality content.
Esteban Muñoz is a content manager with several years’ experience in digital marketing and ecommerce. He’s been able to achieve incredible growth for his associates by optimizing and managing their accounts, and creating in-depth content marketing strategies.
