It has been quite some time since reviewsbecame famous in the vast world of the internet. This great instant feedback tool came with no less controversy. Youtube, Google, Amazon, eBay… all use reviews to a greater or lesser extent, either to guide future buyers in that compulsive purchase that calls them so much and to make known the “impartial” point of view of certain items. And doesAmazon have any marketing tools for it? The answer is Amazon Vine.
Table of Contents
At Amazon,ratings are paramount to conversion and, consequently, product ranking. Amazon knows this and uses it to its advantage: If you have positive reviews and your product is well valued, it will position it better and show it more to potential customers. These help to make a purchase since products without valuations or with a very small number of them, are more difficult to sell, as is not owning the much coveted Prime. All this amalgam of data and possibilities are part of Amazon’s intricate algorithm that rewards things such as the cheapest price of the product and thus win the buy box… but this would give for another topic, or as the best valued product.
And it is that the opinions and comments of customers is one of the main values that buyers give when buying products on Amazon. The list is completed by topics such as:
- the variety of products offered within the platform
- free shipping
- fast shipments (often in 24 hours or on the same day in many cities around the world)
- how easy and intuitive the platform is
- the return policy it offers (guarantee from A to Z)
Amazon has been no stranger to this trend of reviews and seeing that they could greatly help newcomers to their platform, they offer a powerful tool to their sellers called Amazon Vine.
How Amazon Vine works
Amazon Vine is a double program that invites top Amazon reviewers to try new products for free and brands to boost their sales with these reviews by sending the products to a group of “testers” that Amazon selects. It works like the micro-influencers to whom we send our products for free to promote them on their social networks.
For a new brand, get started on Amazon it is a slow and very cold start. Despite getting sales thanks to a good job of branding, boosting the brand with campaigns and performing actions that help the algorithm of Amazon to position, such as A+ content or the Store, sellers lacked the envite and tranquility that a good review provides (and the coveted stars in the product profile).
Who can participate in Amazon Vine?
To participate in Vine,you must be the holder of a series of requirements that, if you are the owner of the brand, are easy to meet. On the one hand, you must have less than 30 comments on the product detail page, have an offer in FBA format and the product active and available. And here comes the disadvantage on the part of the client, and that is that this service not only costs the gift of the product to those who will perform the review, but will have to pay a fee to Amazon of € 500.
Who are the Vine Voices? They are those Amazon customers with a large number of reviews and whom consumers have considered useful. This selection is made based on category, so we will always be offering our relevant Vine Voices products.
Amazon Vine: The Pros
For sellers, the main appeal of the Amazon Vine program is that it gives businesses a relatively quick way to add product reviews to a list. A good strategy is to use the program before launching a new product, so that on the launch day it has more than one review and get many more conversions in advertising campaigns or when positioning your product. And not only for new products, Amazon Vine works for those listings that need to increase sales and give a serious boost to the brand, positioning the products much better and giving much more trust to buyers.
Another great pro of Amazon Vine is as we have seen, the reviews have an important weight in the Amazon algorithm and in the eyes of the buyer undecided by the product he is going to buy. And much more weight if these comments are by Vine Voices recognized and with many reviews behind them.
Amazon Vine: the big counter
All that glitters with this program is not gold, especially for sellers, and the main drawback is the price. A campaign based on giving away 5 products and paying € 500 is not a feasible option for all companies, plus it is not ensuring sales, and depends on the cost of the product, the campaign can have a fast or incredibly slow return.
Amazon Vine Alternatives
And as we have seen, not everyone will be able to afford this powerful tool that Amazon has. At Arimetrics we recommend that the best alternative to Amazon Vine is to get a good marketing strategy and monitoring of your customers’ purchases, adding a cardboard card in the order so that they score you on Amazon, interacting with them post purchase through messaging on Amazon, posting reminders on social networks so that they make a valuation (if possible positive) of your products, … in short, trying to improve and expand the shopping experience of your customers.
What can we do for you?
Arimetrics is an agency specialized in Amazon. If you have a brand and want to sell on Amazon, we work for you. Together we develop a branding and visibility strategy to boost your sales in this channel. We accompany you from the initial set-up of your account to the advertising campaign on Amazon.
