This is a guest post by a great friend of this blog, Pete Johnson–aka Beetley Pete. Pete shares here his experiences as an Amazon reviewer.
Being An Amazon Reviewer: A Personal Experience
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I have been buying things online from Amazon ever since it started to get its well-deserved reputation for reliability and value. I began by buying Region 1 DVD films from the US site. Hard to find films, only available by importing them in that way. I was soon buying lots of stuff from the UK site too. As well as DVD films, I bought perfume gifts, household items, and even clothing.
At first, I ignored the emails that asked me to review these items. I was still living in London, busy working, and mostly using a smartphone app to purchase the goods. However, once I was retired in 2012, I had a PC, and time on my hands. I set about writing fair reviews of everything I had bought, anything from a Hungarian film on DVD to a garden rake. I wrote up the reviews, pressed publish, and forgot about them. In a short time, I had published a lot of reviews and actually managed to enjoy the process too.
The Amazon Vine Programme
Then one day, I received an email from Amazon. They were starting up a new project, to be called ‘The Amazon Vine Programme‘. Those who were on the list of top 5,000 reviewers would be offered the chance to receive goods free of charge, in return for a fair and unbiased review. They used a combination of my order history together with asking for my preferences and came up with a list, published every day. I could pick five items at once, for delivery by the Prime service the following day. Once I had reviewed those items within thirty days, I could pick more, and so on. The things I ordered would be my possessions, but could not be sold, as many were trial products or rough drafts of books. That seemed fair enough to me, so I gladly accepted the invitation. I was also excited to know that I was in that top 5,000, as it had never occurred to me.
Almost five years later, and the amount of free stuff I have received is enormous. Dog food for Ollie, toys for our grandson, watches, kettles, lawn mowers, and tools. Even a carpet cleaner, and a selection of personal grooming products like electric razors too. I have also ordered the occasional book and DVD film when offered. Everything has been fairly and properly reviewed. If something is good, it gets five stars from me. If it breaks later, I can alter the review down to two stars, and explain why. It’s a great system, and I will regret the day Amazon decide to stop it if they ever do.
Staying Among The Top 5,000
But I suspect it will rely on me keeping my place in that top 5,000, which isn’t guaranteed. I have noted that I move up and down the rankings, influenced by ‘Helpful’ votes from prospective purchasers, or ‘No’ votes from some others. Many products attract no votes at all, and few ever get a comment. But every now and then, one review seems to capture the public imagination and receives large numbers of helpful votes, then my position creeps back up a notch. I also discovered that some companies employ people to give you negative votes if they didn’t like what you said about their product. And unbelievably, other reviewers jealous of their ‘top slots’, may well give you negative votes and comments to knock you back down that list.
Presenting Yourself
One thing to think about is how you present your profile on Amazon. I decided to include an email address, hoping for some engagement with other reviewers perhaps, or contact from Amazon customers. Instead, I was bombarded with requests to review products, mostly from companies in China. At first, they offered to send me codes, which would have eliminated any initial outlay on my part. Ant review would have to state that it was a fair review of a free product of course, but some emails suggested that I could ‘pretend’ to be an ordinary purchaser. Amazon soon caught on to this and stopped allowing the free codes. This prompted the suppliers to ask me to pay for the goods up front, and then receive a full refund later, via Paypal.
I never went down that path though. I am not about to send any Paypal information to a complete stranger in a foreign country, just to avail myself of some LED lamps, or a garden hose, I assure you. I recently removed my email address from the profile, and you may want to consider doing that too if you ever find yourself on the top reviewers list.
So, the next time you get an email from Amazon, asking you to review something, go ahead and do it. You never know, you may well end up on the Vine Programme, being able to choose your own free stuff!
Wow, what an informative post! I talk to Pete daily anf he sent me the link to this post and I am so glad he did! As a book reviewer, I post a lot of reviews on Amazon but I don’t pay much attention to them or put much value in them. After reading Pete’s guest posts and knowing that I will continue to post reviews on Amazon, I am going to make a genuine effort to review all the products I buy and take time tp make them valuable. Great Post, Nicholas! I’m so glad you shared this with everyone! Pete’s writing is not just fantastic, it’s super informative!?
Thank you so much for visiting and commenting, Dani 😀
Thanks for sharing the post. The Amazon reviewer ranking makes a difference on where the review will appear under a product.
Oh, right! I was wondering about that. Thanks!
Thanks for that, Linnea. Good to know that detail.
Best wishes, Pete.
Thank you very much for this posting! This things i never knew before, but its very goo to know. Michael
Thanks very much for your comment, Michael.
Best wishes, Pete.
This is certainly very interesting, Pete and Nicholas. I only buy books from Amazon as most other things can’t be shipped to South Africa so I never knew about this. I get lots of requests from Amazon for book reviews which I try to do anyway.
On behalf of all of us authors, thank you for reviewing 🙂
Thanks, Robbie. Keep reviewing the books. You never know when they might add another incentive scheme. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
Thanks for sharing this very helpful post by Pete. I know he was a vine reviewer, as I follow his blog and he had mentioned it there, but didn’t know the full story. Thanks for the advice too. I stopped replying to comments on my reviews when people didn’t like my review of a non-fiction book and started making nasty comments (let’s say the book was fairly liberal and political but my review wasn’t…). I agree with your policy of not replying to reviews of one’s books, Nicholas. Great post.
Thanks for reading, Olga. Those nasty people who comment undoubtedly have an agenda, I’m sure of that.
Best wishes, Pete.
Thank you, Olga 🙂
Great post today and inspiring. I write novels and short stories and review too but mostly because I like to review books–but don’t have time to do on a regular basis.
It’s telltale that Pete only managed to do it properly once he retired 🙂
Thanks for your comment, Paula. As Nicholas said, I am retired, and blogging/reviewing is my hobby. In fact, it’s more like a part-time job! 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
Excellent post, Pete 🙂 Like you I have encountered some rather nasty comments from people who have read my reviews – none more so than the negative comments I got from some people who didn’t like the fact I pointed out some inconsistancies between book one and two of a well known indie sci-fi author’s series. They tred to fudge the fact and came up with a bizzare explanation that tried to paint a picture of consistancy between the books and went all out to argue their point of view. Then someone else commented on my review and found the same inconsistancy as I had – that made my day. It’s all fun and games when it comes to writing reviews, but it is something I enjoy 🙂
Thanks for adding your own experiences as a reviewer, Catherine. Although I didn’t mention it here, I stopped answering comments in 2016, as I felt that too many were deliberately argumentative.
Best wishes, Pete.
That’s the flip side of being a reviewer, isn’t it? I have a no-comment policy on any reviews on my books and always urge other authors to do the same. I view the review section as a private space the author doesn’t really belong to.
I qualified for the Amazon Vine program for a while, as I’d written quite a few film reviews. But I tired of the process, and haven’t written a review in a long time. I can see there is some chicanery involved in staying in the top tier. Not for me.
Thanks for commenting, David. I am well-aware that you have a lot going on, and are too busy to be spending time testing products, and writing reviews.
Best wishes, Pete.
I wondered about those reviews! I rarely take the time to give one, but I guess in your case, it paid off! thanks for sharing the story.
Those reviews are a huge part of the process of selling (and buying) on Amazon, Susanne. They can make or break a product, especially something new to the market.
Best wishes, Pete.
It sounds like Santa Clause visits all year long!
Warmest regards, Theo
He struggles with the narrow chimney on our wood-burning stove, Theo. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
Lol – great way of putting it 😀
Very interesting! thank you!
Many thanks. I am glad that you found it interesting.
Best wishes, Pete.
Great post, Pete! I really enjoyed it. 🙂
Thanks for reading and commenting. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Best wishes, Pete.