Incentivized Reviews Gone.

The Vine Program is In.

Amazon just released an update regarding incentivized reviews. In their statement just released:

Today, we updated the community guidelines to prohibit incentivized reviews unless they are facilitated through the Amazon Vine program. - 2016

What this means for you as a Seller.

As you know, Amazon rewards sellers who rank well. And the most popular way to do that has been through incentivized reviews that offer a free or discounted product, in exchange for a “fair and unbiased review”.

The more freebies you could give out, the more likely to rank higher when those reviews came rolling back in. This was great for new sellers to make their mark fast.

But not any more.

Now, Sellers will need to be part of Amazon’s Vine Program to offer incentivized reviews.

Other things you can do.

• Make sure your listing is completely optimized.

• Ensure your product is optimized! What are current reviewers saying?

• Your copywriting shouldn’t over or undersell.

And don’t despair too much, because I also created this 26 page guide to getting more reviews, and better reviews (without begging).