What is the Amazon Vine Program?

The Amazon Vine Programme for brands is designed to generate authentic and unbiased product reviews on Amazon to help vendors and sellers with their new product launches. 

It involves a selected group of trusted reviewers, known as Vine Voices, who receive free products from participating sellers. 

These Vine Voices are chosen based on their reviewer rank and helpfulness, and they are expected to provide honest and comprehensive feedback on the products they receive.  

The Vine Voices play a crucial role in jumpstarting the review process, especially for products that may have limited customer feedback.

Here is an example of a review from one of the Vine voices.

How Much Does Amazon Vine Cost?

There is a cost added on for the programme that includes an enrollment fee per parent Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN), seven days after the publication date of the first Vine review for the respective product.

However, if you do not get any reviews or if the first Vine review is published more than 90 days after Amazon makes the product available to Vine Voices, you will not be charged for the enrollment fee!

Amazon Vine Program Eligibility

To participate in Amazon Vine Programme, as a seller you need to have some prerequisites:

• You must be a Professional Selling Partner
• You must be enrolled in the Amazon Brand Registry for the item that you want to enrol
• You must have eligible FBA offers

As a vendor, ensure you’re registered in Amazon Brand Registry and have available inventory for eligible ASINs.

In order to be eligible, the items that you enrol must meet the following criteria:

• Have already launched at the time of enrolment
• Have fewer than 30 reviews published on its product detail page.
• Have available inventory
• Not be an adult, digital or heavy and bulky product.
• Classified under a browser node.
• Have an image and a description

Take note: You can enrol an ASIN in Vine only once in its lifetime. You can’t re-enrol the ASIN or any other variation of the parent ASIN after cancelling an initial enrolment.

In addition, products are excluded from Vine for the following scenarios:

• The products require are a bundle of multiple products for delivery or review.
• The products require the reviewers to separately order another product in order to conduct a review.
• The products do not correspond to the exact product listed on the offer.

How to get started with the Amazon Vine program

To enroll in the Amazon Vine programme, follow these steps:

1 – If you’re a seller, log into your Seller Central account
2 – Go to the Advertising dropdown and select Vine

If you’re a vendor, log into your Vendor Central account, go to the Merchandising dropdown and select Amazon Vine

3 – Add the ASINs you want to enrol and click on Begin Enrolment – you’re able to enrol up to 200 ASINs

4 – If you are enrolling a standalone ASIN: Select the number of units you want to enrol (minimum:1 maximum:30).

If you are enrolling a product set: Click Add variations and select the variations that you wish to enrol in the programme and click Add variations to confirm.

5 – Review the enrolment fee and accept the Terms and Conditions of the programme and click Enroll

6 – Track progress on the Details page

What are the benefits of Amazon Vine?

Enrolling in the Amazon Vine Program offers numerous benefits for sellers, making it a valuable opportunity to enhance product visibility, credibility, and sales performance.

1. Receive reviews fast

One of its key advantages is the speed at which reviews can be obtained as within a few months, sellers can receive up to 30 reviews, giving their listing a significant boost and helping them gain momentum in the marketplace.

2. Quality reviews obtained

The quality of reviews is another notable benefit of the programme. Amazon Vine members are chosen based on their track record of delivering high-quality and helpful feedback. This means that products reviewed by Vine members are likely to receive well-written and thoughtful feedback that can help other shoppers make informed purchasing decisions.

3. Receive valuable insights

Sellers can also benefit from these detailed reviews to gain valuable insights into their products, enabling them to improve or highlight strengths based on the Vine Voice reviews.

4. Increase visibility and drive traffic

By accelerating the generation of reviews, the Vine Programme contributes to increased visibility and exposure for products. Products with more reviews tend to rank higher in search results and are more likely to be recommended to customers, driving greater traffic to their listings and improving conversion rates!

Key considerations before starting with the Amazon Vine programme

This is all great, but before saying “Let’s do it!” and marching ahead there are a few things to consider before starting the Vine Programme.

1. Accumulative costs

One is the costs that are involved. For each product, you have an enrollment fee and you need to provide free products to Vine Voices, over time these expenses add up, especially if you have multiple products to promote, so this is something the be aware of before going ahead.

2. Restriction of free products or sample submissions

Another thing to remember is that there is a restriction on the number of free products or samples you can submit for reviews. The programme allows for a maximum of 30 units per ASIN, which means you may not be able to gather as many reviews as you desire.

3. Honest reviews could spell bad reviews

Also, Vine reviewers tend to review with a more critical eye. Their role as Vine Voices is to provide impartial feedback, which entails actively seeking both positive and negative aspects of a product. That doesn’t mean you won’t receive favourable 4 or 5-star reviews, but there is always an element of uncertainty involved.

Once a Vine review is posted it cannot be removed unless it violates Amazon’s policies and guidelines.

So we recommend carefully weighing up the benefits and downsides to determine if participation in the Vine programme aligns with your goals and resources.

Free enrollment to test Vine Programme!

Applicable for Sellers only (not Vendors)

If you’re still uncertain about whether the benefits of the Amazon Vine Program outweigh the costs, we have some good news for you!

Until July 21, 2023, you can take advantage of a free enrollment offer for up to 2 units per ASIN.

The enrollment fee of £140 will only apply if you enrol three or more units per ASIN and receive the first review within 90 days.

This special offer allows you to test the programme and evaluate its effectiveness for your business without incurring any immediate costs – perfect!

To claim your free enrollment just follow this link.

Thoughts from Amazon experts

While it’s true there are things to consider about the Amazon Vine programme for your brand, like costs and unknowns around the type of reviews you will receive, we believe the benefits outweigh these. If you receive some critical reviews take it as useful feedback to use or take the time to write great responses too.

Reviews are great for discoverability and visibility on Amazon, and for a new product, this is a great way to drive awareness on a platform that can be quite crowded with competition. With the recent offer of enrolling two units for free, we say go for it! Try it out and see if it’s the right fit for you. If it works out, we think it’s a great tactic to add to your Amazon strategy going forward.

Need some help?

Looking to gain an edge by participating in the Amazon Vine program as a seller but unsure of where to start? Fortunately, you possess a hidden advantage that many others lack – us! This is Unicorn represents a group of Amazon specialists, eagerly available to assist you in maximizing the potential of your Amazon store, ultimately boosting your sales.

Simply book a consultation or send us an message.