Amazon Early Reviewer Program

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UPDATED: JUNE 2017

Amazon Early Reviewer Program

A new program was announced by Amazon yesterday and is expected to be rolled out soon. The Amazon Early Reviewer Program is designed to encourage customers who have already bought a product to leave a review. This program will provide incentives to customers who have purchased a product to consider leaving a review on the product. Amazon’s banning of reviews on discounted products has been a huge topic of discussion among sellers this month, and this program seems like it will be the answer to many of their concerns.

UPDATED: JUNE 2017

Amazon Early Reviewer Program

A new program was announced by Amazon yesterday and is expected to be rolled out soon. The Amazon Early Reviewer Program is designed to encourage customers who have already bought a product to leave a review. This program will provide incentives to customers who have purchased a product to consider leaving a review on the product. Amazon’s banning of reviews on discounted products has been a huge topic of discussion among sellers this month, and this program seems like it will be the answer to many of their concerns.

What is the Amazon Early Reviewer Program?

Amazon wants to build increased confidence for customers that the products they are purchasing are good quality. Prior to Amazon banning reviews on discounted products, many sellers and third parties we’re manipulating reviews to make their products appear better than they were. Giving away products at a discount for reviews was a huge piece of any product launch strategy. Sellers were concerned that they would no longer be able to get reviews for their product, and that their sales would suffer. The Amazon Early Reviewer Program could be the answer for new products to gain reviews on the Amazon platform.

Amazon will be reaching out to customers who have already purchased the product and ask these customers to share their authentic experience with the product. The idea is that customers will leave honest product reviews and therefore build increased consumer confidence in a product. Unlike Amazon Vine, all customers will be eligible to participate in the program – not just Amazon’s top reviewers. The customers selected to review the product will be chosen at random. Customer accounts that have a prior history or leaving abusive or dishonest customer reviewers will be filtered out of the program.

Customers will be encouraged to leave product reviews by being offered Amazon gift cards ranging from $1-$3. The reward is given to customers who leave a review that meet the community guidelines, regardless of whether it is a 1-star or 5-star review. Like the Vine Program, reviews that are part of the Amazon Early Reviewer Program will have a badge that says “Early Reviewer Rewards.” Sellers do not have any influence over which customers are select to participate in the program. Assuming the rewards are of enough value to incentivize customers to leave reviews, this could be a huge boost to sellers looking for product reviews. This further increases the importance of the quality of your products and your sales volume.

What We Don’t Know Yet

As we mentioned, this program was just rolled out yesterday and not all the details are available yet. There are a few things that are not entirely clear yet. Amazon has stated that not all products are participating in the Amazon Early Reviewer Program. This could mean that Amazon will be banning products in certain categories from participating in the program, i.e. media. It also could mean that Amazon will not allow all sellers to opt-in based on prior account history or health.

In a similar light, Amazon may only qualify certain products from a seller to participate. Amazon could consider products that have a certain number of reviews already to not be eligible. They may also make products that have had reviews removed for being incentivized ineligible. The announcement indicates that sellers can select products to participate in the program. This could also be an indication that this may be a pay-to-play program from Amazon, and not a free program to sellers across the board. Amazon will continually look for ways to increase their revenue, and we believe almost all sellers will be interested and willing to pay for this program.

The Amazon Early Reviewer Program could be a huge boon for sellers concerned with getting reviews for their products. It will be interesting to see how the program will be rolled out to sellers. Check back for updates and more details as they come!

Early Reviewer Program Update

As of late May/early June, the Amazon Early Reviewer Program is now live. The program is available to any third party seller that is currently brand registered with Amazon. You can enroll parent ASINs for variation-twister listings or single products if there are no child listings. The cost is $60 per listing and Amazon will not charge you until your product gets its first review. Your product will be enrolled in the Amazon Early Reviewer Program until the ASIN receives 5 reviews or has been in the reviewer program for 12 months, which ever comes first.

This is a great way for new product launches to get the initial social proof they need. We are currently enrolling many of our clients into the Amazon Early Reviewer Program and expect that this additional social proof will help convert more shoppers into customers in the near future!

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