Amazon Vine Program – Is It Worth It?

Amazon’s only “legal” way of acquiring reviews now revolves around the vine programme. This tool is available to all brand seller owners who use Amazon’s FBA program. you will find this under the “advertising” tab on seller central or under “merchandising” on Amazon vendor. You can sign up to 5 ASINs at a time to the Vine program.
It’s a great way of creating trusted reviews in the marketplace, as vine voice customers are meticulous and detailed in their feedback on your product.

Some key tips when it comes to enrolling on Amazon vine:
• You can only enrol an ASIN ONCE in its lifetime, so choose your review amount carefully.
• Its not wise to enrol multiple products if they form part of the same family variation, as most categories commingle reviews, pick what’s likely to be the best seller from your variation. (eg most popular size)
• The enrolment must “complete” in order for you to 1 of your 5 credits back, so choose wisely, you will need all vine buyers to buy before the vine enrolment can “complete”
• The vine programme is only open to vendors and brand owners on seller central using Amazon FBA
• Don’t offer too many products in vine – our evidence suggests algorithm improvements drop significantly once a product reaches 15 – 20 reviews.

What is a vine customer review of a free product?

Regularly when you read reviews of amazon products you will see “vine voice” or text above the review regarding a “vine review of a free product”, this essentially means the reviewer is a “vine voice”, a select group of customers that Amazon chooses to review new products and give honest reviews regularly accompanying both pictures of the product and sometimes video.

What does it cost?

The vine programme costs £140 or $200 in the US in 2022. It has gone through several price swings, including being free for several years to all brand owners.

On top of the cost, sellers must also choose how many products to offer to vine voice customers, these are giving away to these vine customers for free.

We recommend giving away roughly 20 – 30 items, not all vine customers will leave a review, in our experience roughly 70 – 80% of them will and this will be enough to really spark the algorithm with early review feedback.

Don’t think there’s any impartiality or bias towards your products because you are paying for the service, Amazon vine voices will give detailed and structured opinions on your ASIN.

Is Amazon vine worth it?

It’s an absolute staple to get your amazon products launched, trusted and to improve the conversion rates of your items. Vine customers are very honest and if your product is poor – expect to hear about it, a poor product on the receiving end of vine could ultimately be its death knell.
Vendors and sellers cannot influence the reviewers and Amazon will not modify or edit any vine voice review as long as the vine reviewer has complied with Amazons guidelines.

How can I Join the amazon vine voice program?

Joining Amazon vine is by invitation only, but there are certain criteria that allow will look for in potential customers. The number one is how helpful customers current reviews are too others and how consistent they are in writing. if you consistently write detailed reviews that help customers, Amazon may consider offering you a position as a “vine voice”.