Ultimate Guide to Amazon Product Reviews

While a seller manages a considerable aspect of running a business on Amazon, there are a few factors that they cannot control. For example, Amazon customer reviews. Buyers will purchase your product and then leave a review for the rest of the customers.

This can affect your brand to a great extent. It can either boost or drop your sales depending on what they say about your product. If the buyer leaves a positive review, more people will want to purchase your goods. On the contrary, if you receive a negative review, it will discourage people from viewing your products and drive them away as it gives an image of your product being unworthy. 

Amazon product reviews play a crucial role in the success of your product listing. Before buying any product on the platform, an individual looks for proof of whether it is authentic. The only way of doing this is with the help of other buyers’ reviews. The reviews provide transparency and help build the trust of new customers. They are like unpaid marketing; they can promote your product for free. 

If you want to learn more about reviews and how to get good reviews, please read until the end.  

What are Amazon Product Reviews

Amazon Product reviews are the feedback individuals give about your product. After making a purchase, customers leave comments about their experience with that product, how they use it, whether they received a damaged or defective piece, if it has helped them in any way, and so on. 

A positive review will help boost your sales as it shows the buyers are happy with your goods. Here is an example of a positive review. The buyer gives a detailed description of the product, explaining he likes it because it’s cheaper and lasts longer than the other batteries he has used. He says you can use it for household items like remote control, flashlights, etc. 

An Amazon negative review works in the opposite way. Here, the customer talks about why the batteries he bought didn’t work for him. While the same product worked well above, this person has had a bad experience.

It is impossible to get positive feedback all the time. Damages are inevitable, but as a seller, you need to ensure that it doesn’t happen often and that the products you ship are in the best condition.

Are Reviews and Feedback the same?

There is a common misconception that Amazon reviews and feedback are the same. The terms are often used interchangeably. But in reality, they are very different. 

An Amazon review is related to the item only. When the customer shares his experience with the product, whether good or bad, they are talking about that particular product. 

Whereas feedback is related to the seller. If a customer shares his experience with shipping, delivery, packaging, or customer support, they are talking about the service. 

Why you need Amazon reviews

Amazon product reviews are powerful and indirectly contribute to promoting your brand to get more traffic. There is no hard fast rule about the quantity that is required. If your product belongs to a popular category, you need to have relatively more reviews.

If it’s a niche product or in case it belongs to an unpopular category, a smaller number like 5 to 25, will do the job. The more reviews you have, the higher you will rank on the search results page because a higher number suggests that the product is authentic and people are buying it. 

1. Building trust: Customers trust products that have more reviews. If there is no solid proof of the quality of the item, they will be hesitant to invest in it. Since they cannot physically check the quality of the product, they rely on a third person’s opinion of it.

2. Get more conversions: When a large number of people share a positive experience, it is evident that the product is genuine. It encourages potential buyers to purchase the goods, which results in increased conversions and sales. 

3. Promote your brand for free: This is a form of indirect marketing, as you are not directly attempting to reach more customers. The positive feedback convinces people of its authenticity, and they will buy more.  

4. Higher ranking: When you get plenty of good Amazon reviews, your product will rank higher. Due to the high rank, your listing will appear at the top of the search results page whenever a user looks for a product related to what you are selling.  

5. Win the buy box: Winning the buy box depends on sheer luck. But you can work towards ensuring that your product is qualified for winning. Getting positive reviews is one of the ways of doing it. It shows Amazon that your product is eligible to win the buy box.  

Beware of Fake Reviews 

Any seller knows that reviews have the power to affect the visibility of your listing. As we mentioned earlier, positive reviews can get you more customers. That is why it is very crucial.  

So what do new sellers do? If they are relevantly new and want to be visible to customers, they will be in need of more reviews. But to get more reviews, one needs to have a good amount of traffic and sales. How does one escape this vicious cycle? Well, there are unethical ways in which people try to get a good rating. Let’s have a look at how you can spot them - 

• Fake reviewers use a very vague tone. They do not provide details about the product and use generic words that can be applied to any category, for example - nice product, hate it, useless, etc. 

• If most of the ratings have either 1 or 5 stars, with no special mention of the product and its features, then it can look suspicious.

• You may want to pay more attention if there are multiple similar reviews on a single day. It is an indicator of them being fake. 

• If the reviewer mentions or provides links about another brand, you can be sure it is fake. 

Many sellers use this technique to bring their competitors down. It is important to identify them so that it does not harm your brand image.  

Now that it’s out of the way, let us learn more about how we can get more Amazon reviews.

How to Get More Amazon Reviews: 

Although there are multiple ways of getting reviews, you must always take the ethical route; otherwise, your account could get banned. Therefore, Amazon has implemented a few review programs to help sellers. 

• Amazon Vine Program: If you have enrolled for Brand Registry, you will be eligible for Amazon’s vine program. Invite trusted customers to join this program so they can write a review of the new/pre-released products and provide an honest and unbiased opinion. This action adds value to your store. It is beneficial to buyers as well as sellers. It allows sellers to showcase their products to potential customers.

• Request a Review Button: Amazon’s request a review button is a tool where sellers can ask customers to rate the product and provide seller feedback. It can be found in the Seller Central dashboard and needs to be sent to each buyer individually. The buyer receives it in the form of an email. These Amazon templates are non-customizable. 

• Third-party software: Although Amazon has its own tool for reviews, there is some third-party software made exclusively for this purpose. It is important to select software that complies with Amazon’s guidelines to avoid getting your account banned from the platform. 

If you get a significantly large number of orders every day, it is impossible to manually request every one of them to review your product. With the help of these third-party Amazon review request tools, you will be able to send automated requests to a large group of people. 

Check out this Video to Develop the Best Amazon Review Strategy:

How to Get Positive Reviews

Now that we know how to get more reviews let us look at some ways to get positive ratings. Certain factors cannot be compromised if you want your products to reach more people. 

1. High-quality products: The products you are selling need to be of the highest quality because if they are defective or unsatisfactory, it will drive away the buyers anyway. Make sure the items don’t have any kinds of cracks, scratches, or openings. If your goal is to get more Amazon product reviews, this is the number one criterion to focus on. 

2. Sturdy packaging: Make sure your packaging is intact before shipping it out. It must be sealed properly, fragile items should be bubble wrapped, the label must contain all important details like order ID, address, etc, and the boxes must be rigid. If the products are not packed properly, your customers may receive damaged pieces, and it will automatically bring your ratings down. 

3. Respond to queries:  Responding to customers’ queries instills confidence and trust in your brand. They understand that you value your customers and are willing to spend time answering their questions. It also provides extra information to other buyers and encourages them to buy your products. 

4. Product inserts: A product insert is a piece of paper or a thank you card addressed to the buyer. It is added along with the order and usually contains their contact information, social media handles, coupon code for the next purchase, or a review request. Adding a product insert is a great way to encourage them to leave a positive review. 

5. Send emails: Have an email list and send out a thank you mail every time a customer purchases your product. You can use a template and send out bulk emails to your customer asking for reviews and feedback.