Getting Reviews and Sales Post Amazon TOS Change

Amazon once again changed their Terms of Service, this time about giving discounted or free products in exchange for reviews. Notice of this change caused quite a panic when it was first released on October 3 last year. Many sellers depended on the system of incentivized reviews, and could not see a way around it or a way to make up for the loss. Below we outline what this change means and what you can do to get reviews and boost sales without soliciting reviews.

Amazon TOS Change on Incentivized Reviews

Soliciting reviews is now prohibited by Amazon, with the exception of books and reviews that are run through Amazon Vine. Amazon has allowed the release of advance copies of books for review since the beginning, and this practice will continue. The limitation on the Amazon Vine program is that it applies to new and pre-release products only. Moreover, Amazon controls this program, so vendors and sellers cannot do more than wait for Amazon to invite people to review.

The language in the revised Amazon TOS clearly states that sellers and vendors are now prohibited from soliciting incentivized reviews of any kind. This includes providing incentives indirectly through a third party review service or other similar service. Vendors and sellers are also prohibited from making any kind of connection between discounted products and reviews. In connection, certain advertising and promotions regarding products is also prohibited, such as URLs with affiliate links. Amazon explained in their update announcement that the change is part of the company’s continuing efforts to improve reviews. Amazon has been working on stricter review policies and has penalized thousands of accounts for trying to manipulate reviews.

Per the Amazon Community Guidelines, the updated policy on reviews went into effect the same day that it was announced. Violators may get their accounts suspended or get all their Amazon privileges revoked. Amazon will also be removing solicited reviews that came in before the policy change if they are deemed excessive. Amazon did not give any details on this.

Moving Forward

Without the ability to offer discounts and free products to get more reviews, vendors and sellers will need to try different avenues for encouraging reviews, or other means altogether for increasing conversions. Vendors may try Amazon Vine, but the program is expensive and has limitations on the type and number of products that can be entered. Below are a few adjustments that you can adopt to make up for the loss of incentivized reviews.

1.      Re-assess Review Volume

Even if you have not done incentivized reviews before, you should have a pretty good idea of how many reviews you need to make your sales targets. To make sure that you are still getting enough reviews to maintain and increase conversions for your products, take another look at the numbers and plan for how much you will need to work on your organic reviews to compensate.

2.      Discounts and Promotions

Continue running your discounts and promotions, but make sure to remove any reference to leaving a review in exchange for the deal. Update these campaigns as well to allow access to these deals without requiring a review. Properly organized and managed campaigns of this type will still make customers happy, which will lead to organic reviews, even if not as many as if they were required.

3.      Respond to Existing Reviews

You may have decided in the past not to spend your valuable time responding to reviews. It may be wise to rethink this at this time, especially with regard to negative reviews. Shoppers will tend to look at star ratings and read reviews before buying your product but they may not care about leaving their own, positive review unless they are super impressed. When they see that you are actively engaging with their fellow shoppers, however, they will be more inclined to contribute. Improving your listings and service in other areas will help a lot as well.

Note here that the updated terms also prohibit vendors and sellers from posting and answering questions or other content about their own or their competitors’ products.

4.      Follow-Up Emails

Put some energy into creating or optimizing an existing feedback system. Reviews are a vital component of the Amazon sales process, and organic reviews are the only safe way to go moving forward. The simple fact is that if you sell on Amazon, you are highly dependent on reviews. Having a system of following up with your customers and building a relationship with them is going to be crucial to your success in getting reviews.

Invest a little more in crafting nicely worded and laid out emails to impress your customers. Remember, however, that these emails should never be all about getting reviews. Amazon may consider such abuse of the Buyer-Seller messaging system as a manipulation of reviews, which is punishable under the new terms. A/B test your new email formats to get an accurate idea of which emails are working to get customers to review your products.

5.      Amazon Advertising

If you are launching new products and the Vine program is not an option for you, you can turn to Product Ads or Sponsored Products. These ads can do a lot to help get the word out by making your new products more visible. Ads can also help you to test out new keywords to see how they convert for you. Running ads has also proven effective in increasing organic rankings, so if you are able to run them for longer you can reap that added benefit as well.

The road ahead is going to be a little tougher, but these changes in no way mean that Amazon is not going to continue to be an awesome platform to sell on. More work will need to go into getting reviews to help products rank better, but this is a good thing over the long haul. The change was made to encourage honest, organic reviews. Vendors and sellers are not going to have to worry so much about unscrupulous competitors who manipulate reviews at every turn to try to keep good businesses down.

If you are looking for hands on help with your listings, account management, PPC set up and management, or building a strategy for more sales and reviews, please contact us for setting a meeting.