Give Your Business a Better Potential for Long-Term Success
Reviews are one of the most important parts of any successful Amazon business, and since the removal of incentivized reviews, there have been many more businesses struggling to get substantial numbers of positive reviews. This doesn’t mean that collecting reviews is impossible now, just that the times are changing and so must your brand’s Amazon review collection tactics.
Here, we’re going to get into some of the different ways that Amazon sellers can get reviews. We’ll cover some legitimate ways, as well as some less-than-legitimate ways that brands boost their review numbers. Here’s everything you need to know about Amazon review collections.
Many Amazon sellers have undoubtedly heard the terms “white hat” and “black hat” before and haven’t known what they meant. While they may sound relatively mysterious or covert, they are common terms that refer to the legitimacy and often legality of the methods or tactics used in getting the reviews. Simply put, white hat methods are the most common and acceptable ways to get reviews, while black hat methods often involve practices officially prohibited by Amazon or other illegitimate, often paid, means.
In 2020, Amazon made the move from full reviews to a simpler rating system. Under the old system, customers would be able to leave a text review that contained rating points. The new system will allow a customer to simply leave a star-based rating, without the requirement of a text review as well. This made getting ratings from customers much easier for many sellers, since getting a quick single-click rating from a customer is far more likely than requiring any substantial text component. As a bonus, ratings tend to be skewed a bit more positively, or numerically higher, than comparable text reviews.
The calculation of ratings, however, is not as simple as many sellers might want to believe. The formula that Amazon uses to come up with the average rating for a particular product depends on an array of different variables. This system uses a weighted average that gives more weight to reviews that are supposedly more reliable. This means, in theory, the reviews gained through black hat methods are always going to be worth less than legitimate ratings from legitimate customers with a history of buying and reviewing on Amazon.
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Here are some of the common white hat and black hat methods for getting reviews for sellers’ products. While this list certainly isn’t exhaustive, it does showcase many of the more common or popular ways that people collect legit and non-legit reviews.
The most popular white hat review collection method for new products is to enroll in the Vine program tucked away in your advertising menu. The Vine program gives your product away to members known as Vine Voices, who are customers with a solid history of providing insightful and helpful reviews. It will cost $200 per ASIN to enroll in the program, and it’s only available for products with fewer than 30 reviews. The downside to Vine is that the reviewers tend to be very critical, and the average rating is about 3 stars.
Since 2019 Amazon has provided a “request a review” button in Amazon Seller Central. In basic testing, using this button is the easiest way to send a polite request for the customer to leave a review, and can push your rate of reviews up by 10% or more. Making it easier and quicker for customers to leave a review is the most effective way to increase your number of overall reviews.
Using product inserts in the packaging of your products can be intensely useful in reminding customers to leave a review during a time when they are eagerly opening the product they’ve been waiting for. One thing you need to be careful of is that you word your insert specifically to not ask for a positive review, and do not offer any form of incentive. Both of these are tactics that violate Amazon’s seller policies. Asking customers to register their product for an extended warranty is a common way of getting their email addresses, which can then be used to ask for reviews later.
Another popular way of driving not only reviews but baseline sales is to use steep discounts to bring in traffic. Many sellers will include an automatic 15%-25% discount when launching new products to get a massive number of sales and reviews in a short period. There are also rebate clubs that still technically comply with the terms of service, and while they tend to focus more on getting sellers higher credit for sales, they still result in high review volume.
One of the biggest drivers for repeat business is providing an excellent customer experience, and this includes customer service and issue resolution. If you have engaged with any customer that had questions prior to purchase, support needs following a purchase, returns for an unneeded product, or a customer satisfaction issue, communicating with them can be a crucial effort that results in actual satisfaction. They see that you care about their experience, and are subsequently much more likely to leave a good review.
If you have customers that have bought products and have left you positive seller feedback in the past, they are a perfect audience to court for reviews. You may have to include a short tutorial on how to leave product feedback instead of seller feedback, but it can often be well worth your time.
Back in 2021 Amazon rolled out a feature that allows sellers to contact customers that left reviews of 3 stars or less. This is the perfect way to open a dialogue with customers who simply weren’t satisfied, in the hopes of finding out what you can do to improve their opinion of your product. The downside is that you must be Brand Registered, and Amazon sends a preformatted initial message, that you cannot customize.
Customers are far more likely to leave engaging, positive reviews for products that have beautiful packaging. Forget your plain boxes and poly bags, if you want to wow your customer before they even open the product, a full-color package is what will really impress. Additionally, make sure that any manuals you have look good, and are written in fluent English, not some vaguely-passable translation. This goes for even simple products that you might think don’t need any manual or instructions.
While strictly paying for reviews is obviously prohibited, there is nothing to say that sellers can’t partner with outside firms to help them manage their customer relations. By working with The Amazon Junkies you can rest assured that only legitimate methods will be used to source you the highest quality reviews from actual, satisfied customers. If you are interested in learning more about what our firm can do for your brand, reach out today for more information.
