To become a successful seller on Amazon, you need to learn how to get reviews on the platform. The reviews promote a strong correlation between the conversion rate on your Amazon page and the number of positive reviews and provide positive social proof. This post will look at everything you need to know about obtaining reviews on Amazon. So let's get right into it.
Why Do Amazon Reviews Matter?
Amazon reviews are essential for driving purchases. They influence your products' Buy Box performance, dramatically affecting your listings' visibility. Simply put, if you have more Amazon reviews, you also gain more sales.
Image Source: businessinsider.com
In actual fact, research has shown that 72% of shoppers trust a product more due to positive reviews, and 98% of consumers read online reviews before making purchase decisions. This is because positive reviews add transparency and create trust, which assures the buyers they are getting what they are paying for.
Additionally, the reviews give the customers second opinions on a product and what to expect from them. In most instances, customers who go through reviews do so to gather more information, like whether the item they are purchasing is comfortable, if it's functional, and if it's of high quality. That details help them make a more informed purchase.
Amazon's Policy on Asking for Reviews
When selling products on Amazon, there are a lot of rules and regulations you must be aware of to avoid the risk of having your product listings suspended or permanently terminated.
Most importantly, Amazon prefers all customer reviews to occur organically, and according to Amazon's terms of service, you should not incentivize the buyer to leave a review. Particularly, Amazon demands that you can not:
- Write reviews on Amazon for yourself or any of your competitors. On the same note, you can have your friends, family, and coworkers write the reviews for you.
- Write a fake review, be it a positive or negative review.
- Offer discounts or free items in exchange for reviews.
- Only ask for positive reviews or ask for reviews from buyers who had a positive experience.
- Ask a customer or reviewer to remove or change their review.
- Publish inappropriate or abusive seller feedback or disclose personal information about an order.
Go against any of these rules and regulations, and you will receive an Amazon review manipulation warning email. If you continue violating Amazon's review terms of service, Amazon will escalate your penalty.
With these risks in mind, let's discuss how you can get reviews on Amazon.
How to Get More Reviews on Amazon
Image Source: junglescout.com
1. Utilize the Amazon Vine Program
Amazon Vine program is a long-running and completely safe way to get reviews on Amazon. To enroll in the program, an Amazon seller must first sign up for Brand Registry. The sellers must give away products to Amazon's reviewers or Vine Voices to use this program. Then they will review your product for free and keep them, but of course, there is no assurance of getting positive reviews.
When launching a new product on Amazon, 5 reviews are often enough to jump-start your listing. The good bit about the vine program is that sellers will get real and honest reviews about their products. Again, you can get an honest review and an incredible customer report within days.
Under this program, a seller will get a Vine Voice marker on their review instead of the Verified Purchase badge. Previously there was a similar program, Amazon Early Reviewer Program, which gave up to 5 reviews for $60. However, the program was closed in April 2021.
To qualify for Amazon Vine, you need to:
- Partner with a professional seller
- Be registered with a brand
- Have not more than 30 reviews
- Offer FBA with inventory
- Have enough inventory
2. Request Reviews via Amazon's Seller Central
Image Source: feedbackwhiz.com
Right now, another effective way to gain reviews on Amazon is to request a review in your Seller Central account. To do this, you will need to:
- Navigate to the manage orders on your Central account and pick an order you want a review for.
- Click on the order and select the order detail page.
- After that, click on the request a review button
- Under that, click on yes.
After you have completed these steps, Amazon automatically sends a seller feedback request and a product review request to the customer. The great bit about this is that the message will be translated into the buyer's language.
That said, you must note that you can manually request reviews within 5 to 30 days after the order has been delivered. However, you can not customize the message or even reply to these messages, nor can the seller.
3. Reach Out to Customers Who Left a Seller Feedback
Image Source: sellerengine.com
Some clients will leave seller feedback instead of a review or rating. The good bit is you can convert the feedback into a review. To do this, you can email the buyer who left positive seller feedback and requests them to leave a product review. You can also include the step the client need to follow to make it easy for them.
4. Solicit Reviews From Friends
You can also gain product reviews from friends who have tested or used your products. This is probably the easiest way to create your review portfolio and amass early reviews. This method is particularly helpful if you are a new seller at Amazon with only a few sales under your belt. Nevertheless, it would be best if you were extra cautious since Amazon can easily notice your connections to friends via Facebook, Google, or other social platforms.
5. Add Product Inserts
You can also include inserts encouraging buyers to leave a review as you sell your products. Simply a product insert reminds the clients to leave a review.
Image Source: dribbble.com
However, you need to be extremely careful not to provide any then statements like "If you leave us positive feedback from you, you will get a lifetime extended warranty." Instead, you could say, "Thank you for shopping with us; your feedback is valuable to prospective buyers and us."
6. Send Follow-up Emails After an Amazon Purchase Asking for Feedback
Amazon asks for buyers' feedback after a purchase, but it's a generic email with nothing special. However, you can also send personalized review requests to get more verified reviews. Ideally, you should send the mail shortly after the customer has received the product, so its resplendence is still fresh in their minds.
The great bit is that you can also use sites like Feedback Express to send customized feedback or review request emails automatically.
7. Provide Great Customer Service
Outstanding customer service can make a huge difference between a one-time purchaser and a loyal one. The interactions you have with the buyer, from questions on how your product works to the progress of their shipping, is a chance to boost their perception of your brand.
Image Source: ulearning.com
This way, they will easily leave reviews and reach out to you directly if they have any issues with the purchased product. It is necessary to also keep in touch if a customer returns a product since they can still review it, particularly if the return was due to product quality.
Remember, beyond getting their product delivered and problems solved, another thing buyers look for from customer service is a fast response. So ensure you are responding as fast as possible.
8. Ask for Reviews on Social Media
Another effective way to get Amazon customers' reviews is by asking for reviews from social media platforms. For instance, on Facebook, there are many review groups where you can give away or sell products at discounted rates and, after that, request reviews. You could also do this on Instagram or any other platform you like.
9. Attend Trade Shows and Give Out Freebies
Another great way to gain quality reviews is by attending expos or trade fairs. Here you can as your potential client's test and review your products. The good thing is it does not matter if they are reviewers, testers, influences, or other attendees; since you do not know them personally, you are permitted to ask for reviews.
Image Source: franchising.com
However, it's necessary to note that, like other Amazon reviews that aren't connected to Amazon orders, they will not be Verified Purchase reviews and might not carry as much weight in the review ranking algorithm.
10. Help Out a Local Charity or Community Group
Another review strategy that will work is to find organizations like community groups or charities that need your product and are willing to share their experiences.
For instance, sports teams might need equipment that might match your products. You can donate some products to them and let them know that the products you donated are also not Amazon, and it wil help if they leave reviews. You can also request them to purchase more products, if need be, from your Amazon page.
11. Great Packaging
Image Source: pakfactory.com
In most instances, if you have great product packaging, customers tend to overlook product flaws. Your packaging is the first impression a buyer has of your product, and often most buyers will leave their review based on that.
Extra Tips on Amazon Reviews: Do's and Don'ts
Image Source: techicy.com
Dos:
1. Focus on Making Customers Happy
Regardless of the e-commerce business you are running, making your clients happy should be your top priority. If they are happy, they will definitely leave positive product reviews. Basically, conduct your business with customer satisfaction in mind.
2. Write Accurate Product Descriptions
To get a positive review, you will need to have an accurate description of your product. Most unhappy customers with negative feedback will state that the product was not as they expected. So you should set expectations to avoid bad reviews by writing detailed and accurate descriptions.
3. Ask for Reviews
On the Amazon site, you are encouraged to ask for reviews. Nevertheless, you should know there is a right or wrong way to do so. You can include an email saying, "Your feedback is valuable to prospective buyers and us. Allows us to improve our products and service continually."
4. Fix Problems in Negative Reviews
If you keep letting negative feedback about a certain issue with your product, then you should fix the problem. Listen to your clients, and fix any common problems that come up.
5. Regularly Review Amazon's Terms of Service
To avoid being against the law, you must constantly review Amazon's terms of service for updates. They have a page for Selling Policies and Seller Code of Conduct, with a detailed list that provides more insight.
Don't:
1. Buy Reviews on Amazon
These days you will come across sites that claim they can get reviews for you. However, with time Amazon picks up on sellers acquiring paid or fake reviews and will wipe out all reviews for a product, be it a genuine product review or the fake review.
You can also not review your product or post negative reviews on your Amazon competitor's page.
2. Incentivize Reviews
Incentivizing reviews on Amazon will get a zero-tolerance response, even if they are not fake reviews. This includes using a third-party service that swaps free or discounted products for reviews, suggesting to refund the item after a review is left, or any other kind of financial reward or discount in exchange for positive reviews.
3. Ask People to Change Their Reviews
New updates to Amazon's terms of service specifically state that you can not ask a customer to change a review. However, you can reach out to buyers with negative reviews and try to make it right. It should be up to them if they decide to change or delete the review.
4. Ask for a Specific Kind of Review
Whether you are using a feedback request email or a product insert, all you can do is ask your client for a review. You can't ask them for a specific review.
Conclusion
Image Source: googleusercontent.com
Every Amazon seller must know the importance of consistently providing top-quality customer service. Some great tactics are listed in this guide to help you gain more reviews on Amazon. From using the best feedback software to writing the perfect review requests, there is certainly a lot you can do.
Hopefully, this guide has provided good ideas for how to get Amazon product reviews to grow your business on Amazon.
Featured Image Source: amazonseoconsultant.com
