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How to Get Reviews on Amazon in 2021 – 8 Proven Methods
Ecommerce underwent an incredible surge in 2020 as consumers shifted from shopping in-store to online. By the end of the year, 71% of consumers believed the majority of consumer shopping would happen online in the future.
We know reviews are a key influencer in consumer decision making and how much sellers value them. In fact, 52% of sellers say that getting reviews is a challenge on Amazon. That’s why we’re providing the latest on how you can earn more for your business in 2021.
Product reviews can make or break a new Amazon FBA seller. According to a 2017 study performed by G2 and Heinz Marketing, 92% of customers are more likely to purchase a product after reading a positive review.
When you launch a product this year, it’s important that you know how to get reviews on Amazon — and how to get them quickly and legally.
In this article, we’ll cover the eight most effective ways to get product reviews on Amazon. This list includes Amazon programs and features, as well as seller strategies off-Amazon that third-party sellers can use to seek and gain reviews.
Important: As of this writing, all of the methods listed below are viable ways to get product reviews and do not violate Amazon’s terms of service.
How to get reviews on Amazon in 2021
Gaining new reviews on your listings is hard but not impossible. Let’s go over eight effective ways to grow your review count on Amazon!
1. Use Jungle Scout’s Review Automation feature
This feature inside Jungle Scout is the easiest way to request reviews from your Amazon customers. Jungle Scout’s Review Automation feature takes a “set it and forget it” approach to earning product reviews.
This first-of-its kind, Amazon ToS-approved feature sends automated review requests to customers who have purchased your product. While you can manually request reviews in bulk with Jungle Scout Chrome Extension, this in-app tool streamlines the process by automatically doing it for you. It eliminates the tedious task of manually requesting reviews from buyers in Seller Central so you can save time, and invest it back into your business.
You can easily see the status of review requests and track how much time you’ve saved on your Review Automation dashboard. Never miss an opportunity to earn a review — simply turn on the feature, and you’re good to go.
Jungle Scout subscribers can also take advantage of other multiple tools that allow you to get more Amazon reviews.
The Review Automation tool is available through the Jungle Scout Suite and Professional plans.
2. Use Amazon’s “Request a Review” button
Amazon’s “Request a Review” button allows you to manually request reviews for each of your orders in Seller Central within four to 30 days of purchase.
This is an incredibly powerful feature that can exponentially increase your chances of receiving a review.
Here’s some proof: prior to the release of the “Request a Review” button on March 8, 2020, the average review increase for orders was 3.6 reviews. For 94.7% of sellers who used “Request a Review” after it was released, the average increase jumped to 25.9 reviews. That’s a massive difference!
Of course, going through each and every order to click the “Request a Review” button can be tedious and time-consuming. This is where Review Automation and our next solution come into play.
Bulk Request Review
If you have Jungle Scout’s Extension, you can request reviews for your Amazon FBA orders in bulk, rather than sending a request for each individual order.
On your Amazon Seller Central order page, click on the button for Jungle Scout’s Extension. It will then open and ask you to add additional permissions. Once you agree to the permissions, a new “Request Reviews on This Page” button will appear on the far right on your orders list. When the requests are done sending, the button will change to say “Finished Requesting Reviews.”
Select a date range (we recommend between four and 30 days as that is the time period during which Amazon allows you to request reviews) and click the button. All of the orders on that page that qualify for the “Request a Review” button will then be sent review requests.
You can also submit individual requests without clicking on the orders. That way you won’t have to go through each individual post.
Bulk Requests in the Extension is available with all Jungle Scout plans.
3. Enroll your product in the Amazon Vine Program
Amazon’s Vine Program is open to sellers who have Amazon brand-registered products and fewer than 30 reviews.
In the Vine program, a seller submits 30 units of inventory. Vine reviewers then receive the product for free, test the product out, and write a review.
In many ways, it is similar to the incentivized review programs banned by Amazon in late 2016. The only difference now is that the reviewers in the program are being vetted by Amazon.
According to Amazon, “25% of reviews received occur within 5 days of the order, while 99% of reviews received occur within 35 days of the order,” so (naturally) this is a game-changer, as it helps newly registered products get reviews fast.
Currently, Vine is free for third-party sellers. However, we suspect that Amazon may start charging fees to enroll or participate at some point. As of this writing, we do not know what the cost will be. To find out how to enroll, check out our guide.
4. Use third-party automated email responders
In addition to Amazon’s internal automated responder, many sellers use third-party responders to send messages through Amazon’s seller messaging system.
It’s important to note, however, that Amazon limited the quantity and types of messages that can be sent via its Seller Messaging System. From Amazon:
“You may send proactive Permitted Messages for the following reasons: resolving an issue with order fulfillment, requesting additional information required to complete the order, asking a return-related question, sending an invoice, requesting product review or seller feedback or both, scheduling the delivery of a heavy or bulky item, scheduling a Home Services appointment, verifying a custom design, or any other reason where the contact is required for the buyer to receive their purchase.”
Permitted Messages do not include any of the following message types (in many cases we are already emailing customers with this information on your behalf):
Order or shipping confirmations
Messages that say only “Thank you” or that you are here to help if buyers have any problems
Marketing or promotional messaging, including coupons
Language that either incentivizes or persuades the buyer to submit positive product reviews or seller feedback, including by offering compensation, money, gift cards, free or discounted products, refunds, rebates or reimbursements, or future benefits
Language that requests removal or an update of an existing product review
Language that requests a product review only if they have had a positive experience with the product
A repeat request (per order) for a product review or seller feedback”
Basically, you can only send permitted messages to request for a review/feedback or where contact is required. You can no longer send shipment updates, thanks for ordering, etc.
5. Create a contact list for emails
Since the seller messaging system and third-party automated responders have become limited, you will need to find other ways to communicate with your shoppers.
Remember: as long as they’re buying your products via Amazon, they’re Amazon’s customers. To get past this hurdle, you will need to build your brand off Amazon and one of the best ways to do that is by building your own email list.
Thankfully, there are a number of ways to create an email list. You can build one through social media. Or you can create a blog that asks for people to subscribe. Another popular method is to add product inserts into existing products, encouraging people to join your list.
Once you have a mailing list, you can request reviews from those who have purchased from you.
6. Utilize product inserts
Easily, the most popular way to encourage shoppers to leave product reviews on Amazon is through the use of product inserts. Many sellers insert a card into their packaging, asking shoppers to leave a review.
However, product inserts have recently caught the attention of Amazon. They’ve noticed that some sellers have been breaking the “guidelines” described in the “Don’t forget to follow the rules” section of this article.
The example picture below is against Amazon’s terms. You cannot divert negative reviews or tell people to email you instead of leaving a negative review.
Here are some best practices for product inserts:
Ask for product reviews, but remain neutral. Telling people to leave you a five-star review — or even showing a picture of five-stars — is against Amazon’s guidelines.
Give useful information about the company and the product. Make sure people have ways of contacting you if an issue comes up. Good customer service goes a long way to prevent negative product reviews.
Incentivize in other ways. While you can’t financially incentivize reviews with a product insert, you can incentivize people to join your email lists or to follow you on social media. This will help you in the future.
7. Mitigate negative reviews
You can mitigate poor reviews of your products proactively by ensuring that your product is top-notch and worthy of a commendable review. Reactively, you can address any customer service issues that may arise.
Plus, by using a tool like Jungle Scout’s Alerts, you can be notified whenever you get a poor review. Please note, however, that Amazon is removing the feature that allows sellers to comment on reviews.
Update: Previously, Amazon did not allow sellers to reach out directly to customers who left negative reviews. Currently, however, sellers who are enrolled in Brand Registry can now contact customers who left a criticial (1 to 3-stars) review for a product they purchased. This new feature can help you improve the customer’s experience with your brand, giving you a chance to have them remove their negative review, or even better — change it to a positive one.
8. Launch products using Promotions
Many sellers launch new products on Amazon promotional markets like Promotions. And, thanks to the money-saving promotions offered by these sites, some shoppers feel an obligation to leave positive feedback with the Amazon sellers.
Keep in mind, however, that an Amazon promotional marketplace cannot ask a shopper for feedback in exchange for a product. Therefore, getting a review from a heavily discounted or free product is not guaranteed.
Don’t forget to follow the rules
Amazon takes its product reviews very seriously. In fact, many sellers are suspended from the platform due to review manipulation.
When you’re trying to get reviews on Amazon, it’s important that you understand the difference between legal methods and black hat tactics (which can get your business suspended from Amazon).
Here are some essential Amazon product review rules you should know — and follow:
You can’t incentivize reviews
As recently as 2016, you could offer products at a low price — or even for free — in exchange for a product review. It was a strategy that helped countless sellers build up their reviews and gain popularity.
However, Amazon discovered that, more-often-than-not, this led to over-inflated reviews. So, because far more products were receiving a 4-5 star rating than were warranted, Amazon banned this practice in 2016.
Some sellers still offer discounts and rewards on the back end for positive product reviews. This is a black hat practice, though, and could get you suspended.
You can’t cherry-pick reviews
Another thing Amazon has put a stop to within the last couple of years is “cherry picking” reviews. In other words, sellers cannot ask for reviews from customers they know had a good experience while ignoring those who’ve had neutral or negative experiences.
Good luck with reviews in 2021
Hopefully the information in this article has given you good ideas for how to get Amazon product reviews in 2021. And, as things change, we will be sure to update this material.
At the minimum, use Amazon’s methods, as they are 100% free of any “gray areas”. And always make sure to play by Amazon’s rules. Remember: a few extra sales garnered by using a black hat tactic isn’t worth putting your entire seller account in jeopardy.
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