The Amazon Vine Programme is no longer free

Amazon have a habit of updating things a lot and often, but this latest update is a bit of a cheeky one. Amazon Vine is no longer free.

What is Amazon Vine?

We all know how important reviews are on products. It’s one of the main things customers go to before deciding to make the purchase. The Amazon Vine programme invites Amazon’s most trusted reviewers to review products and pre-sale items for free. Businesses can sign up to the programme and send off selected items to be reviewed. It’s a great way to get reviews on your product listings (although they can never guarantee positive ones only) and boost your rank in the search criteria. Or so we thought…

Reviews are one of the strongest ways to gain customers.

What’s the latest update?

As of October 12th, businesses will be now be charged £140 per product entry. Up until this point, it’s always been free, but that’s not the worst bit…

At no point were any reminders or notifications sent out, just a switchover notification added to the Vine page.

Just a little addition to their Amazon Vine page…

This lack of communication means so many businesses may now be caught out. As quite a significant update, you’d think we’d have been notified about it, especially considering how many we normally get.

How do I remove products from the programme?

If you have products enrolled in the programme, here’s one of their terms and conditions that might be of interest:

‘You may request that we remove an Accepted Product from the Program by contacting us through Vendor Central or Seller Central respectively and telling us that you want to remove the Accepted Product. We will use reasonable commercial endeavours to remove any Accepted Product after we receive your notice or after termination of this Vine Agreement, but in no event will we be able to remove any Accepted Product later than 5 business days before we offer the Accepted Product to Vine Voices. For avoidance of doubt, removal of an Accepted Product from the Program or termination or non-renewal of this Vine Agreement will not require Amazon to delete or alter any Reviews previously posted.’

So what do you think about this latest update? To see other Amazon updates from October that might be relevant to you, head over to our latest roundup.