If you haven’t heard of Amazon Vine, you gotta read this because it’s really cool!  This is a 100% Legitimate program RAN BY AMAZON, that gives YOU the opportunity to review totally free Amazon merch!

If you read our last article about our undercover investigation into the corrupt reviews on Amazon (My Trip to the Dark Side of Prime: How Paid Reviews Work), you know that there’s a boatload of dishonest Amazon sellers looking to farm 5-star reviews for their Prime products. But did you know that Amazon ALSO has it’s own review program? Yep! It’s called Amazon Vine.

The difference between the shady paid-reviews and Amazon Vine is that with Vine you are not expected to leave a 5-star AND there’s no pay, but you do score 100% FREE products that you get to keep! I know, you’re probably thinking, “Won’t I get kicked out of Vine if I leave some 1-stars because I don't like what Amazon sent me to review?” - NO. The entire purpose of Vine is 100% unbias, honest reviews!

HOW PRODUCTS ARE SELECTED TO BE A PART OF VINE

I sincerely think that Amazon recognized the problem with the corrupt paid reviews, so Amazon came up with an innovative way for sellers to get REAL reviews. The seller simply enrolls in the Vine program and lets Amazon know which of their products they want reviewed. Amazon then acts as the middleman and gets the products into the hands of HONEST reviewers who are a match with the products that are submitted to Vine; for example, if you are a regular buyer of cosmetics on Amazon, it would make sense to have you review a Vine lip plumper.

WHY DO SELLERS WANT VINE REVIEWS?

Amazons search engine algorithms give the highest ranking to products that have obtained positive “expert reviews”... which makes sense; if a couple makeup-lovers who regularly write reviews for Amazon are crazy about your lip plumper, the product is likely really good and will likely make other Amazon buyers super happy. Most importantly, this means that Amazon will sell the sh*t out of this item but it also means less product returns and less disappointed Amazon buyer reviews…. Like, what is worse for the ‘zon than a review that says “This is my first purchase on Amazon and this lip plumper is awful. Total waste of $14! I can no longer trust Amazon and am canceling my membership!” when instead they can funnel that same buyer to a lip plumper that the pros love? Amazon used to charge sellers $2,500 to become a part of Vine, but they must have realized that by charging such a high amount, sellers feel forced to not use Vine and instead pay for dishonest 5-star reviews. So Amazon dropped the $2,500 fee and it’s now 100% FREE for sellers - of course the Vine sellers pay for the inventory that will be given away for free to the Vine reviewers. Sellers also have to cover shipping costs and FBA fees. - BUT, Amazon promises to get those Vine products into high ranking reviewers hands, which means that, if the product is ACTUALLY GREAT, it will end up being a huge hit on Amazon! This is pretty much priceless for the seller!

HOW TO BECOME AN AMAZON VINE REVIEWER

If you want to become a Vine reviewer, check your Reviewer Ranking. If you want to check your current ranking, login to your Amazon account. In the account section, scroll down to “Your Amazon Profile”:

Now you will see your profile:

Next, scroll down the page just a little tiny bit and, on the left of the screen you can view your Reviewer Ranking:

***** NOTE: It is VERY, VERY common for your review ranking to constantly change. Last month my review ranking was around #18,000. This month is #9,700. Nothing much has changed in the past 30 days on my end, so apparently one of my reviews has been heavily viewed by people this past month… or something of that nature. Anyways, if your review ranking seems bad today, it absolutely could be completely different in a couple weeks even though you haven’t bought a ton of things. KEEP IN MIND THAT Review ranking is NOT exclusively based on QUANTITY of purchases! It is based on a variety of factors, but mostly it seems to be the amount of USEFUL reviews. In my opinion, I would compare it to a “Viral YouTube Video”, meaning, you can become “famous” off a single video, while other people on YouTube have 10,000 videos yet don’t have a fraction of the views and “likes” that a single Viral Video has.

HOW TO APPLY FOR AMAZON VINE

Amazon doesn’t offer an application for the Vine program. They use their algorithms to target the perfect “experts” for the product they need reviewed. If you are selected they will send you an invite if you have been selected to be a Vine Reviewer, so make sure the email on your Amazon account is the email you actually USE… and check!

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR ODDS FOR LANDING AN AMAZON VINE INVITE

Want to score that amazing Amazon Vine invite?  Check out Part 2 to this series: How to Increase Your Odds of Getting an Amazon Vine Reviewer Invitation