What is the Amazon Early Reviewer Program?

The Early Reviewer Plan helps sellers to go reviews for new products that have few or no reviews. Without reviews, customers exercise non have all of the information they demand to brand an informed purchasing conclusion. But while product reviews help to drive sales, sales are what make production reviews possible, so many sellers are left with a craven and egg state of affairs; they need sales to obtain product reviews, but need production reviews to become sales. With the Early Reviewer Programme, Amazon reaches out to customers who have already purchased a production to offer a minor advantage of a $ane–$3 Amazon.com souvenir card in exchange for their honest feedback in the form of a product review, whether the review results in a 1-star rating or a 5-star rating.

Why Did Amazon Start this Program?

In October 2016 Amazon changed their Terms of Service and banned incentivized reviews, which included offering a client a production for free or at a reduced price in exchange for a product review. Previous to the TOS change, it was common practice for sellers who were launching private label products to utilize incentivized reviews to apace obtain a significant number of reviews for their new products, and position their product as a legitimate competitor in the Amazon marketplace. This practice was considered within Amazon's TOS as long equally the reviewer disclosed that they received the product at a discount or for free in exchange for their review. But as this strategy became increasingly popular, Amazon started to get a reputation for having skewed reviews on their site since often incentivized reviews were generally positive. And so in order to protect the integrity of their review system, Amazon made the option to practice away with incentivized reviews. Since this TOS alter, Amazon sellers have struggled to launch new products since product reviews are such a huge element of having a successful product, and without them information technology is difficult to bulldoze sales.

How is the Early Reviewer Program Different from Incentivized Reviews?

While in that location are some similarities between incentivized reviews of old and Amazon's Early Reviewer Plan, there are a few of import differences. These differences have immune Amazon to launch this program and still feel confident that the integrity of product reviews volition exist maintained.

Start and foremost, a seller's participation in the Early Reviewer Program is not visible to the customer when they are making their purchase, then the attraction of a reward cannot sway a customer to buy whatsoever particular product. Customers are only notified of the option for a advantage in exchange for a review after they purchase the product. Also, Amazon is in control of the programme, and since the seller has no directly contact with the customer related to the product review, in that location is no run a risk of a seller swaying a customer to encourage higher review ratings.

How Reviewers are Selected

Because Amazon seeks accurate and honest reviews, they choose at random from the customers who have purchased a specific product to offering an Early Reviewer reward in exchange for a production review. The only fourth dimension Amazon would intentionally exclude a customer from receiving an Early Reviewer offer is if that customer has a history of abusive or dishonest reviews. Also, Amazon employees, the seller, and the seller'southward friends and family are not eligible to participate in the program.

When a Customer Participates

After receiving an Early Reviewer Program reward offer from Amazon, if a customer chooses to exit a product review (of whatsoever rating, from one-star to 5-stars) within the offering menstruation, they will receive the corresponding offering reward of $1–$3 on an Amazon gift card. Amazon displays when reviews are function of the Early Reviewer Rewards program by displaying the text above the review content:

How the Program Works for Sellers

Sellers who want to participate in the Early on Reviewer Program must be make registered. So, if you haven't completed brand registry withal, y'all'll need to kickoff with that step. There is as well a $threescore fee per product for program enrollment. If a production has variations, submitting the parent product volition ensure all variations are included in the program. Programme participation ends once 5 product reviews have been obtained through the Early Reviewer program, or at the end of one yr, whichever happens first. You will not be charged the $threescore fee until your kickoff Early on Reviewer production review is successfully obtained. Products must accept a customer price of at least $15.00 to authorize for the plan, and must have fewer than 5 reviews at the time of enrollment.

How to Enroll in the Plan

Once you have enrolled your brand in the Amazon Make Registry, you can begin the procedure of enrolling your products in the Early Reviewer Program. Keep in mind information technology may take v–seven days after enrolling in the brand registry to be able to access the Early Reviewer Program Portal. When y'all obtain access to the Early on Reviewer Portal, you tin can then submit your products by SKU. Submitting your products into the plan indicates that yous agree to the programme Terms and Conditions, which includes agreeing to pay the program fee and agreeing that you will not advertise that your products are participating in the Early Reviewer programme.

Is it Enough?

While the Early on Reviewer Programme offers a helpful fashion to get your first few product reviews, rarely are 5 production reviews plenty to give you lot the competitive border it takes for your product to exist successful. Since the program doesn't actually work unless you are actually selling your production, it is clear that this program is not a catholicon or a standalone solution for launching a new product successfully. Also, Amazon only includes a random pick of customers in the Early on Reviewer Program, and so at that place are still potentially customers who are purchasing your product only not being approached about providing a production review.

This is where Salesbacker comes in. With Salesbacker you can prepare email campaigns to automatically contact each and every customer who purchases your product to introduce your brand, offering additional customer service, and to ask for their feedback on your product via a customer review. Plus, when you sign up you become a free 30-day trial of Salesbacker. So whether or non you choose to participate in the Early Reviewer Program, using Salesbacker should definitely be part of your strategy for both launching new products and maintaining your competitive edge over time.