Reviews are a lifeline to any business, whether brick and mortar or an online business. Amazon reviews are important for sellers to boost the validity of their offers and drive sales.
A few 1-star reviews can impact sales and bring down an Amazon business owner’s morale as they frantically look for ways to improve the product offer or increase the positive review count.
Amazon’s review guidelines have changed over the last few years, and with the removal of the Early Reviewer program in 2021, many sellers are wondering what they can do to boost reviews to help drive sales.
We’ll provide some fresh ideas to boost your reviews on Amazon while revisiting some of the staple review methods. One of these staple methods, the Early Reviewer Program, was recently discontinued, so let’s dive in!
Table of Content
1. What Was The Amazon Early Reviewer Program and Why Did It End?
The Early Reviewer Program was a program put for by Amazon in 2017 and designed to help sellers garner reviews of their products. It came about with the rise of false and fraudulent reviews taking over the platform back in 2016. Amazon wanted to provide a more fair and reasonable approach to the review process while maintaining review integrity.
Sellers who opted into the program paid $60 per SKU to participate and were from the US, UK, India, and Japanese marketplaces.
The reviewers were handpicked by Amazon and had buying accounts in good standing. 1-5 star reviews could be left on approved products, while Amazon gave the reviewer an incentivized gift card of $1-3 once the review was complete.
The program sparked a bit of controversy in Amazon as Amazon had always claimed incentivized reviews were against terms of service. Some sellers would see massive delays in reviews, and it’s argued as to how much the review rating increased during the program’s operation.
Amazon sellers would still come to rely on the program. When Amazon announced no more applicants would be accepted in early April 2021 and that the program would formally end on April 25th, 2021, sellers were disappointed. The program became the backbone of many sellers’ launch strategies, and sellers were left in a bit of disbelief when it abruptly ended.
But don’t panic, things in Amazon change rapidly, and it’s hard to say if another review option will come about in the future. Until then, here are 4 other ways you can gain reviews on the platform.
2. Request an Amazon Review & Seller Feedback
Amazon sellers’ usual method to increase reviews is by using the request a review button or a tool such as Helium10’s Seller Assistant.
When the feedback rules in Amazon shifted in 2020, sellers were notified that specific requests were not permitted, and failure to comply with proper review and feedback requests could see sellers in hot water. These requirements are exact, so it’s often easier to integrate software to automate the process and avoid falling out of terms of service.
Helium10 is a trusted software in the Amazon space as it offers a one-stop shop for Amazon tools. The Seller Assistant Extension is a Chrome extension that is integrated into your professional seller central account. Once activated, sellers can select the request a review button to manually send review requests.
Helium10 also offers a fully automated email marketing tool that supports automatic feedback emails within its interface. Feedback emails are an essential form of communication and one of the only times a seller is permitted to send a customer email.
These automated options make the process of gaining reviews straightforward, and the results can see quick turn around in reviews and feedback.
3. Provide a Great Offer
If you’re looking to establish good reviews, social proof, trust, and brand credibility on Amazon, the best way to do so is to offer a high-quality, purposeful product. Having a great product is crucial to reviews as customers will become vocal if product quality is lacking.
Ways you can mitigate Amazon FBA customer returns issues include thorough research in your supplier acquisition and completing pre-shipping inspections on all your orders.
Errors can arise during manufacturing, and so can defects. Since most sellers cannot perform in-person inspections themselves, having a reliable supplier, good ongoing communication, and conducting product inspections can prevent quality issues from arising following shipment.
A high-quality offer can invite non prompted reviews by customers who are thoroughly pleased with their orders.
4. Amazon Vine Program
Amazon Vine invites the most trusted reviewers on Amazon to post opinions about new and pre-release products to help customers make informed purchase decisions.
Amazon vine is invite-only and is based on a buyers reviewer rank, a metric designed to understand how helpful their reviews are to other customers.
How Does Vine Work?
Amazon sends Vine members free products from participating businesses. The vendor cannot influence these reviews in any capacity and nor does Amazon edit Vine reviews.
Vine reviews are trusted and credible and can significantly impact review numbers and sale velocities.
5. Product Inserts Using Seller.Tools
Product inserts are an excellent opportunity to boost Amazon reviews by creating an essential means to provide follow-up while also relaying product tips, tricks, and how-tos.
Amazon sellers must follow specific product insert rules to stay within terms of service; failure to abide by these rules can mean account suspension. It is important for sellers to closely know Amazon’s customer review policies.
Boasting innovative marketing tools for Amazon sellers, Seller Tools does precisely that. The software offers various methods to increase reviews while staying within Amazon’s terms of service.
Seller Tools harnesses messenger marketing using ManyChat and Facebook to leverage custom ManyChat messages, verify orders, and send rebates automatically. Another highly unique feature of Seller Tools is the particular product insert funnel it hosts.
Users can create custom landing pages that verify Amazon orders and automatically distribute gifts. Reviews and feedback are not required for the customer to receive these gifts, meaning the sellers can have a worry-free experience and remain within Amazon’s TOS.
The web hosting platform is straightforward, easy to follow, and helps streamline the review process.
Summary
Reviews help bolster trust and can strongly influence potential buyer decisions. If you’re selling on Amazon, reviews will be a common area that you should attempt to increase throughout your journey on the platform.
Best practice is to follow Amazon’s terms of service to keep your account in good standing and provide an accurate representation of your customer’s experience.
A high-quality product is hard to argue online and is generally noticed by customers. Focusing on your offer to start with can have tremendous impacts to review counts. It can also mean you do not have to find extraordinary measures to increase your reviews overall.
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