When searching on Amazon, finding the right product to buy isn't always easy. The objects to choose from in the same category are often hundreds and sometimes, if you do not know what you are looking for, you are satisfied with the first on the list. Both the number of times that other users have viewed that product and the reviews received contribute to the positioning of products in Amazon's search results, and of course sellers can also decide to sponsor their products to present them higher: but less reviews will be positive, the more sellers will have to pay to put up their products. For this reason, reviews are becoming an increasingly important factor in e-commerce, and for some years Amazon has been trying to improve the quality by involving some reviewers in a program called “Amazon Vine”.
Professional reviewers
Amazon Vine is a program that has been around since 2007, and can be joined by invitation only. It is not known exactly by what criteria Amazon selects these people, what it calls “Voci Vine”, but the official version is that «customers who consistently write helpful reviews and develop a reputation for experience gained in specific product categories they are more likely to be invited to the program ”. Subscribers to the program receive free products from Amazon to review, sometimes before they hit the market: in some cases, writing reviews has become almost a profession for them. The New York Times told the stories of some of these people whose homes are flooded with dozens of boxes every day, but whose lives are sometimes less enviable than you might think.
This is the case of KT, a 54-year-old American woman who has been part of the program for about three years, and whose home is now almost entirely made up of objects received for free from Amazon. The sofa in the living room, the kitchen utensils, the paintings that decorate the walls, the mattress on the bed, the carpets, the air conditioner: everything was given to her by Amazon. To enter her house you have to go through a porch full of boxes that couriers leave her every day in front of the door, and to avoid the risk of thieves coming to steal them, there is a surveillance camera: also the one donated by Amazon, of course.
For KT and for many of all the other “Voices Vine”, being part of this program is now almost a profession, even if you do not earn money but objects. Since 2015 in the United States, taxes must also be paid on goods received as gifts, if they exceed a certain value, and the most active reviewers can also pay tens of thousands of dollars a year. Then there is the question of the actual possession of the items: those with the Amazon brand can be kept by the “Voci Vine”, while the others can be recalled by the sellers up to six months after delivery. As the New York Times explains, however, this rarely happens, and often the “Voci Vine” resell them or donate them, if only to make some space in the house or to avoid paying too much tax.
When it started in 2007, the program was far less sophisticated than it is today. Subscribers received via email once a month a list of available objects, in limited numbers, and only the first to choose them could receive them. It was kind of a speed race, and as some of them told The New York Times, it was pretty exciting. However, since 2016 things have changed: now there is no longer any monthly email but two lists – one personalized and one the same for everyone – from which you can choose all the objects you want, without limits.
Since 2017, a forum, hosted by the Amazon site, which was reserved for “Vine Voices” has also been closed. It was a place to discuss their “profession”, give advice or just chat, and many of them, who have also made friends in recent years, have moved to other sites, such as Reddit, Craigslist and Goodreads. “We are the same as any sewing or book club”, said KT “We meet or chat about any common interest”.
It's good up to a certain point
Receiving free items every day may seem like the dream of many, but those who take part in Amazon Vine seriously do it as if it were a job, with all the responsibilities that this entails. And in some cases living by constantly receiving products to review can become frustrating, difficult to tolerate for a long time.
Several “Vine Voices” have complained that they have lost interest in the normal purchase of items since receiving them for free from Amazon; a former “Vine Voice” told Reddit last year that she was surprisingly relieved after being banned from the show. “Virtually my entire house is furnished thanks to Amazon Vine. I eat with Amazon Vine. I wash with Amazon Vine. I had stopped choosing what I wanted “.
There are also those who have voluntarily chosen to abandon Amazon Vine, unable to bear the mass of items to review every day. This is the case of Diana de Avila, who decided to give up the program when she realized that she had lost all the desire and enthusiasm she initially had. De Avila, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and has also been a nun for seven years in the past, said that working as “Voice Vine” had helped her to give a new meaning to her life, but at some point she realized that having lost touch with reality. “It was becoming difficult even to be enthusiastic about receiving gifts from people”.
Those who want to buy reviews
The world of professional reviewers is not entirely clear. The personal profiles of these people on Amazon indicate that they participate in the program, but they do not contain particularly precise information: this way sellers cannot try to influence the reviews of their products. However, the New York Times managed to find the same Internet sites where their email addresses, probably hacked by someone, had been put up for sale.
Receiving a lot of positive reviews can mean getting high in search results, and for bad sellers, the fastest way to see their product at the top of the list is to try and buy the reviews. The review market is mainly developed on Telegram or Facebook groups, in which money is exchanged privately in exchange for a good vote on an item on Amazon. From this point of view, the fact that reviewers registered on Amazon Vine are reported as such should be a guarantee of veracity, but to establish with certainty that a review has not been influenced in some way by someone is very complex. However, Amazon constantly checks “Vine Voices”, and it's not uncommon for them to find their account blocked overnight after Amazon finds something suspicious in their reviews.
