Having a good amount of positive reviews is the backbone of every successful Amazon seller’s story. There are plenty of ways of gathering them, as FeedbackExpress has shown before, but there’s one method we tend to recommend against: incentivised reviews. You want your reviews to be spontaneous and organic, and here’s how to do it.
What is So Bad about Incentivised Reviews Anyway?
For the unfamiliar, incentivised reviews are when you give away a product or sell it at a reduced rate in exchange for someone leaving you a positive review about it. At first glance, it seems like everyone benefits and there’s no harm. The buyer is happy because they get something cheaply or for free, and you’re happy because you have one more five-star review to help you shine. But while the benefit exists for you and that buyer, it doesn’t for future shoppers.
So much of online selling has to do with trust. Prospective customers can’t just walk into your store and visually and physically inspect your wares, so they need to turn to other methods. The experiences of others is one of the main ways they do that, so having great reviews helps increase sales. But if your reviews are founded on personal gain, that does little to inspire trust in the new buyers. After all, how much can they really trust you if they can’t be 100% sure that others have been honest about you? And once trust is gone or damaged, it can be incredibly difficult to get it back to its original form.
Also, Amazon Has Banned Incentivised Reviews
So trust is one of the biggest reasons to stay away from incentivized reviews, but so is the fact that Amazon changed their Community Guidelines to formally ban them. As of 3 October 2016, they tightened the reigns even more. Before you could give away or sell a product cheaply in exchange for a review if the recipient disclosed that in their review, but now you can’t unless it’s through the Amazon Vine program. They opted for that because Vine has trusted and vetted reviewers in place that aren’t swayed by cheap/free products and will write unbiased reviews that can be trusted.
Fewer Poor-Quality Products Will Make it Through
One of the biggest pros of this new policy change is that buyers and sellers will tend to see a shift towards more high-quality products, while those on the lower end of the scale will be naturally phased out. And this benefits both parties. Buyers will get items that are better and last longer, while sellers will have more happy customers who tend to leave more happy reviews. A win-win all around.
It’ll also tend to weed out more of the sellers who rely on quick sales with cheap products, which really tend to dilute the overall quality of Amazon anyway. Being a successful merchant is not an overnight effort, and it can be discouraging, to say the least, to find your efforts hampered by flashes in the pan who didn’t have as good an inventory as you do.
What You Should be Doing to Adapt and Stay Ahead
If you’ve been using incentivised reviews before, you’ll have to shift your way of thinking to keep in with the new guidelines. Luckily, it’s not difficult and only requires a few minor changes.
- Promotions: It’s an excellent idea to keep running promotions and specials, so the only thing you’ll have to change is doing them in exchange for reviews. Use other means of enticing buyers, like offering straight-up discounts, free shipping, or special product bundles. Plenty of other sellers are doing it, so you know promotions and specials definitely work on Amazon.
- Product Quality: This is a chance to rebrand yourself, much the same way Don Draper did on Mad Men rebranded Topaz pantyhose so they could be sold in a more upscale setting. This is your chance to build an aura of sophistication and quality.
- Vine: But if you still feel like aggregating reviews in exchange for products is still a strategy you want to pursue, then maybe look into Amazon Vine. However, this program is best-suited to sellers just starting out who are looking for those oh-so-valuable reviews. Plus, it’s not available (yet?) to third-party sellers, so you may not even be able to join anyway.
Another way you can succeed on Amazon now that incentivised reviews are gone is to get top software like FeedbackExpress to do it almost entirely for you. You’ll be the seller who stays on top of their exchanges and uses all techniques available to get great reviews, and buyers will notice your increased prestige. And to get you started, we’re giving you the first 14 days entirely free.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
