Reviews and star ratings are among the key criteria influencing buyers’ decisions to purchase a product or not. According to data from 2022, as much as 61% of buyers are influenced by positive product ratings and reviews*. Therefore, it’s not in vain that one of the primary questions from new Amazon sellers or those introducing a new product to the market is “How to quickly get the first reviews?”
* https://www.junglescout.com/blog/how-to-get-reviews-on-amazon/
Selling on Amazon is a marathon, not a sprint
The desire to get reviews faster is entirely reasonable and understandable. However, it’s important to stay calm and focus on the quality of your Amazon listings. If your products are of high quality, and your images and descriptions are clear and understandable, and you’re honest about your products – buyers will naturally want to leave positive reviews and share their experiences with other shoppers. Of course, this will take some time.
If you don’t want to wait, you can utilize other methods to obtain Amazon reviews:
- Reviews from friends and acquaintances.
- Request a Review button in the Amazon Seller Central account.
- Amazon Vine program.
The help of friends
This is one of the most popular tricks to gather initial reviews, but it’s also an easy way to raise suspicion with Amazon regarding rule violations.
If you have friends or acquaintances, but not relatives, living in the country where you conduct Amazon business, you can ask them to purchase your products and write reviews. However, keep two important things in mind. First, it’s best if the reviews are posted at least 7 days after receiving the product. This time gap creates the illusion that the product was genuinely tested, and the review is authentic. Second, only about 3-10% of buyers leave organic reviews*, so if 3 out of 5 completed sales have reviews, Amazon might take notice (negatively).
* https://review42.com/resources/what-percentage-of-amazon-reviews-are-fake/
Request a Review
Request a Review is a button found in the Amazon Seller Central account next to each order, allowing the seller to ask the buyer to leave a review. You can send the request email within 4-30 days of the purchase.
Request a Review button was launched on March 8, 2020. Prior to this date, Amazon sellers typically had an average of 3.6 reviews. After the introduction of the Request a Review feature, 94.7% of sellers who started using it saw a significant increase in this number, reaching up to 25.9 reviews*.
* https://www.junglescout.com/blog/how-to-get-reviews-on-amazon/
If your order volume is not high, you might not see the issue, but the problem with this functionality is that it requires manual work – you need to click the button manually for each order. However, today, for larger sellers, there are more and more additional tools for automating the Request a Review function, for example, Helium10. Read more about one of main additional tools here: https://digitalfrks.com/what-additional-tools-are-worth-using-for-amazon-sellers/.
Amazon Vine
Amazon Vine is Amazon’s offered program in which products are tested, and reviews are written by selected Amazon customers. Reviewers are invited to be Amazon buyers who actively provide accurate and reliable feedback about purchased products. Upon receiving an invitation and joining the Amazon Vine program, they receive products for free in exchange for honest reviews. Importantly, neither sellers nor Amazon have control or the ability to edit these reviews.
Sellers who want to participate in the Amazon Vine program and receive reviews must fill out a special form, provide products they can offer to reviewers in exchange for feedback, and wait for Amazon’s approval. Once approved, your products will appear in a catalog from which reviewers can select items for assessment.
More about Amazon Vine program: https://synder.com/blog/what-is-amazon-vine/.
Can I buy a review?
Another question that arises for sellers is about buying reviews. We highly recommend against engaging in this practice because Amazon enforces strict quality control over feedback and may delete all suspicious reviews. Additionally, they can remove or temporarily suspend your Amazon listings and impose other penalties.
If selling on Amazon is posing challenges or if you have additional questions about review acquisition strategies, we, DIGITAL FREAKS, are ready to help address your difficulties. Contact us for a consultation today.