Amazon Early Reviewer Program in 2024

Gathering initial reviews on Amazon products can be daunting in our digital world. True, AMZ understands that you need good and attractive reviews to get decent sales from your customers. However, salespeople end up entangled in a vicious cycle of searching for a top reviewer or Vine reviewer in an Amazon Vine program, which might sometimes be hard to avoid. Sometimes, sellers are forced to personally talk with friends or family to leave comments or suggestions in the comment section to boost their sales.

Luckily, thanks to Amazon’s Early Reviewer, there is now a new way to rack up all your first testimonials using the option. The sophisticated program can incorporate fundamental aspects to ensure your sales reach the desired scale. You will be surprised by its ability to ease things in your favor. Nonetheless, before we explore this solution and what you need to know about it, let’s first find its definition and what it entails.

Early Reviewer Program on Amazon: Definition

Typically, the Amazon Early Reviewer program provides incentives and authenticates feedback from their clients for any new product. According to the marketplace, the option’s main aim is to enable brand owners to acquire early testimonials to help shoppers make better decisions, leading to better page views, sales, and search click-through rates.

This opportunity provides shoppers and buyers with a win-win situation where buyers get rewarded for sharing opinions, and merchants gain traction on their new products. Before becoming an Amazon reviewer, below are seven things you need to know about the Amazon Reviewer Program.

7 Things You Need to Know About the Amazon Review Program

1. Early Reviewer Program is a separate brand registered for Amazon sellers. It’s only available to individuals in the US. Besides, you can only be eligible to apply for this Brand Registry if you are a US-based Amazon seller and must own a trademark to your brand name. What’s more, it must appear on all your products.
2. Your ASIN must be priced above $15.00 and have less than five reviews to become eligible for this program.
3. After the program performs the seller’s first review, he or she is required to pay $60 for every enrolled SKU. Besides, it will continue to solicit reviews for every SKU for one year until all five reviews have been received.
4. Although ASINs can enroll in the early reviewer program, they cannot influence the star rating of the available reviews. In addition, the platform does not review or modify testimonials as long as they follow the community guidelines.
5. Amazon performs a random selection from a list of clients that have either participated in the program or bought goods. However, they should not be recorded with abusive or dishonest reviews. They should also be capable of meeting the early reviewer program criteria. It also means that not all customers who purchase will get rewarded.
6. Reviewers who have submitted reviews that meet the required community guidelines will be eligible for a small gift card of between $1 and $3. Typically, the reward is a token of appreciation for any genuine review.
7. If you want to recognize an Early Reviewer Program quickly, you should check out the orange donation badge with the label “Early Reviewer Rewards.”

Why Should Amazon Offer the Program?

In any given market, reviews are regarded as one of the biggest hindrances. If your business does not have a decent number of reviews, you may find it difficult to push sales or compete with most top sellers in the market.

It was quite easy to gain testimonials for any new Amazon product. Sellers could easily dish out free stuff to their shoppers for honest reviews. However, review manipulation complaints prompted Amazon to shut down the option permanently.

What’s more, last October, AMZ banned incentives on product reviews, which rattled the seller community. As a result, sellers could no longer gather the reviews needed to successfully launch new products in the market.

Furthermore, sellers could also send emails to their clients and maintain a follow-up to gather reviews. However, Amazon received complaints in March, so they provided customers with an opt-out of the seller communication network. It makes generating customer reviews harder for sellers. What’s more, removing negative testimonials from Amazon also becomes more challenging – use this weblink to learn more about the related regulations and best practices.

Facts about the Program

As a result of Amazon’s harsh punishments to sellers, they have been left clueless with little or no idea how to grow their review base to compete with established products. As a result, it is estimated that the industry’s average review rating is about 1%. However, with a keen utilization of an optimized email follow-up, reviews can be increased to about 5%.

Even so, sellers will only be capable of gaining five reviews of up to 100 sales. It, indeed, sounds tough for any established product. On the other hand, it sounds almost impossible for any brand-new option. The majority of questions we get are from sellers complaining that they see 1 or 2 sales on their platform and wonder how they should reach 5 to 10 reviews. Such feedback is necessary to enable buyers to feel confident while purchasing products.

Although sellers ask friends and family to leave testimonials on their products, Amazon highly forbids it. It has integrated policy violation tactics to curb this tactic. As a result, we recommend that you don’t try it. You might risk having your account banned or temporarily blocked. It is, therefore, imperative for sellers to follow the right protocol at all times to safely secure their Amazon seller accounts.

Suppose you wonder about Amazon’s TOS suggestions. In that case, you will come across various options, such as running a production, running PPC, following up on emails, driving external traffic, and many more. Unfortunately, although these methods might be perfect for an established brand, they can prove to be a slow and expensive method of gaining reviews.

Amazon knows and understands this struggle and provides merchants taking part in the early AMZ Reviewer Program a little gain. It is one of the best options for sellers to speed up their customer review process. They get to gain and earn essential reviews. But, most importantly, they get genuine reviews.

The fact is that if your product is terrible, you will most likely get terrible reviews. Conversely, your reviews will be positive if you have a great product. Note that Amazon’s early reviewer rewards its customers differently and does not provide extra perks in the form of a small reward for any positive feedback. Nonetheless, the good news is that you won’t get a backlash for any negative reviews. The ability of buyers to leave honest opinions on any purchase is how AMZ wants it to be.

Pros and Cons of the Early Reviewer Program

The Early Reviewer program offered by AMZ can be a paradox. On the one hand, it is frustrating that a brand has to put so much time and effort into receiving an honest review. On the other hand, the Early Reviewer Program gives a perfect opportunity for companies whose reviews are getting radio silence. 

Your brand might be desperate for new feedback, but how can you measure when it is an appropriate time to participate in this Early Reviewer Program? Should your product be down so many reviews? How long should your item be sold without feedback before the cause for concern? Although it is not a clear answer, the recommendation is that you need to measure your business closely before you decide. Here are a few pros and cons of AMZ’s Early Reviewer Program that you may wish to take to the drawing board with you.

Pros 1

You get the feedback you need to grow sales. Ideally, those testimonials will help your brand gain more recognition and become a top-rated merchant.

Cons 1

Those testimonials might take a while. Research showed that many merchants admitted that it sometimes took 2-3 months to reach the first review. It’s up to your team to decide if your company can afford the time it will take to get feedback.

Pros 2

You can participate with multiple goods if they meet the criteria (with few or no reviews). Besides, you will have the chance to bulk enroll goods to save time.

Cons 2

AMZ does collect commissions for each SKU that sells through the Early Reviewer Program. Your brand will want to carefully weigh the costs from all angles. Is it more cost-prohibitive to advertise those items with few reviews by Amazon’s Early Reviewer Program or via other tools in your AMZ marketing strategy? 

Pros 3

Set it and forget it. Adding your items and allowing the platform to help with the heavy lifting by randomly picking the reviewers will open up more time to concentrate on other aspects of your business.

Cons 3

Giving the right to select your reviewer could backfire. Your product testimonials may come in being less than desirable. On the other hand, incentivizing clients to review their purchases within your own company might be a chance to expand your brand voice. 

How to Join the Amazon Early Reviewer Program?

To join the Amazon Early Reviewer Program as a seller and leverage its benefits for gaining early reviews on your products, follow these step-by-step instructions. The program aims to help sellers acquire initial reviews for new products, enhancing their visibility and credibility on Amazon.

Check Eligibility: Before you can join the Amazon Early Reviewer Program, ensure your brand is registered through the Amazon Brand Registry. This is a prerequisite for participation in the program. Your products must also have fewer than five reviews and be priced at more than $15. Each SKU you wish to enroll in should meet these criteria.

Sign Up for the Program: Log into your Seller Central account. Navigate to the ‘Advertising’ tab, and look for the ‘Early Reviewer Program’ option. This section allows you to sign up for the program and manage your enrolled SKUs. If you can’t find this option, it may be due to eligibility issues or changes to the program’s availability.

Enroll Your Products: After accessing the Early Reviewer Program section, you can start enrolling your eligible SKUs. There might be a small fee associated with enrolling each SKU into the program. This fee covers the cost of the program for all reviews generated for up to one year or until you receive five reviews through the program, whichever comes first.

Review and Accept the Terms: Carefully review the terms and conditions of the Early Reviewer Program. Accepting these terms is crucial for your participation and outlines your agreement with Amazon regarding the operation and ethics of the program.

Monitor Your Dashboard: Once enrolled, you can monitor the status of your SKUs and the reviews they receive through the program via your Seller Central dashboard. This dashboard will provide insights into which products have been reviewed and the impact of those reviews on your product’s visibility and sales.

Follow-Up and Compliance: Ensure you comply with all Amazon policies related to the program. Do not attempt to influence the content of the reviews or directly contact reviewers. Amazon aims to maintain the integrity and impartiality of reviews obtained through the Early Reviewer Program.

Evaluate Program Impact: After your products receive reviews through the program, assess the impact on your sales and product visibility. Use these insights to adjust your marketing and sales strategies on Amazon accordingly.

Remember, the goal of the Amazon Early Reviewer Program is to help new, promising products gain traction through honest, unbiased customer reviews. Participating in this program can be a strategic move to enhance your product listings and build trust with potential buyers.

What’s Next?

Getting reviews sounds super easy, right? Unfortunately, it is not as easy as you might think. Regardless, AMZ has, at least, shown that it cares for everyone. Whether you are an established customer or a new entity in the industry, Amazon has ensured you get all you need to break out of the hustle.

Thanks to the free Amazon review program, individuals can now seek 30 sales for five reviews instead of 150 sales that were used before. Typically, Amazon just launched sellers by significantly boosting their sales levels. Besides, sales of new products are also improved through the favorable incentives provided by the Amazon reviewer program. It is one of the many benefits of having your brand registered. Therefore, if you haven’t enrolled in your brand, you should consider registering your products with Amazon’s Brand Registry.

Additionally, you should also consider that after you have registered your brand, it might take up to 72 hours before you can be allowed to access the portal. So instead of talking about leaving a review, why don’t you join the elite deal club and leave a comment below? What’s more, you can let us know if you have suggestions regarding the AMZ review trader, reviewed products, giveaway service, and Amazon review sites, so do not hesitate to let us know.

Is the question, are you an Amazon business seller? Do you want to increase your customer feedback? What are you waiting for? First, you must create an Amazon seller account, gain five or more reviews, and join the free Amazon program. You will greatly benefit from this service if you want to build your online business. Follow the above process on how to join the program, and your road to success as an Amazon seller on the platform will be inevitable.

Final Thoughts

There is no doubt that getting an Early Reviewer Program is fundamental to anyone looking to get Amazon product reviews and grow his or her sales on the platform. Besides, AMZ has been working around the clock to help Amazon shoppers make wiser and smarter decisions. These decisions will help increase click-through rates on your platform and boost sales and page views.

Besides buyers getting free rewards after sharing negative or positive feedback, sellers easily gain sales from new products. Indeed, if you have ever tried selling on the Amazon solution, you will agree that gaining reviews can be quite hard as you need to have established products with five or more reviews to make reasonable sales per day.

A key thing to note in this program is that it has acted as a bridge for merchants with new products on the platform. It is now possible for sellers to easily gain honest reviews. Thanks to AMZ, you can now comfortably add a new post and expect 2 or 3 reviews after 20 or 30 sales. Previously, it was quite hard to get customer reviews. Sellers would count up to 100 sales to get a maximum of 2 or 3 reviews.

Besides, joining the solution as a new seller is quite easy. You are only required to acquire the desired number of reviews to gain eligibility in the program. Once you qualify, you will get all the necessary tools that will help attract customer reviews. Based on Amazon’s strictness, any business seller must learn to join the reviewer program. Many sellers that have given it a shot have expressed positive results already. So, try it out today and experience all of its benefits yourself.

Is it an Easier Way to get Amazon Reviews?

Although the Amazon Early Reviewer Program can be helpful when it comes to getting product reviews, the app doesn’t work as it should until you start selling your product. So this program can hardly be a single solution for launching new items from scratch. In addition, Amazon includes random buyers in the Early Reviewer Program, so some customers are buying your products but not providing you with a review.

The game changes with SageMailer. Using SageMailer, you can set up automated mailing campaigns to contact each of your customers to tell more about your brand, offer additional customer service or ask for their feedback. So whether or not you’re a participant of the Early Reviewer Program, SageMailer can be a part of your product launching strategy and a tool for maintaining your competitive edge.