Amazon Vine - loads of free books, electricals etc

sirg1006 · Amazon Vine - loads of free books, electricals etc

It looks as though Amazon have been inviting people into Amazon Vine as there's a new person on their forum so if you are interested hopefully this will help you get an invite

Amazon Vine is a group of reviewers who are sent a newsletter on the 3rd and 4th Thursdays of the month with a list of products the publishers or whoever want a little more exposure for. This can be anything from books, CDs, DVDs, electricals and was even diet pills on the last one

You select the items you want to review and just click 'send me this item' and Amazon send it to you completely free of charge in return for your honest opinion of it. It really isn't a bribe for 5 star reviews - I don't think I've given any of the products I've had 5 stars.

The newsletter sent on the 3rd Thursday is tailored to your previous purchases on Amazon so mine have been around 90% books but occasionally CDs, DVDs and the odd electrical item. The newsletter sent on the 4th Thursday combines the items from everyone elses newsletters. There is always a limited stock so e.g. last month there was a Flip Mino HD Camera which went within seconds of being put on people's 1st newsletter so obviously didn't show up for others on the 2nd newsletter.

In the past they generally allow you to order 2-4 items at a time as long as you have reviewed 75% of your previous Vine purchases so you can't continually keep ordering free stuff and not write reviews. Amazon state that you are not allowed to sell these items and each of them have a sticker saying it came from Vine - there are occasions where they may ask for the item back too.

I didn't write anything for months and didn't order anything but never got kicked off so you're not required to order each month. There's no time limit on having ordered a product to having to review it. In fact I just reviewed a product I ordered in 2007!

People can rate your reviews and there's a lot of revenge rating - there have been a LOT of complaints so never let it get to you. Just enjoy the products and giving your opinion on them.

To be invited you need to have posted reviews. My reviewer rank when I was invited to join was somewhere in the 2,000s I think - you can find your rank by clicking on 'Your account' and 'See all my reviews'. At the moment I've got 16 reviews with a total of 242 helpful votes which gives me a rank of 2,792. No one rates my vine reviews so that's just based on what I'd written before so it shouldn't be too hard to get a good rank.

I think Amazon said you can also post your reviews on other sites so if you do have reviews you've written on here, RISI, Dooyoo, Ciao etc just post them over on Amazon and vice versa.

When I joined I had to tick boxes as to what products interested me so make sure you choose good ones. There have been products worth £hundreds - Flip cam, software, books, I got a £60 baby monitor last newsletter, flash pens, ear phones, iPod accessories, DVDs, CDs, kids books, vacuum cleaners, kettle, toaster, beauty products...

Hope this helps someone

D

lisa2062

Thanks Debbie, I've only posted 1 or 2 reviews on there so perhaps I ought to add some more on there now. Lisa x

sirg1006

Always keep an eye on your inbox for "Invitation to join Amazon Vine Program‏" as that's the only way to join

D

lisa2062

Will do! My reviwer rank is currently 208,862 so I'll have to improve that. Lisa x

blueflower

I've only ever left two reviews on Amazon so my rank is 347,602

I will have to start leaving more.

katey

I have just started doing more reviews in teh hope of getting invited!!

katey

I can't see my rank on that page-any idea on how I can find it?

sirg1006

If you go to a review you've written, click on your name and it should take you to your profile and your rank will show under your picture (if you have one up)

D

zanthewitch

Cool!
I will have to look out for that!
Mine is:
Mrs S M Cartlidge
Customer Reviews: 10
Reviewer Rank: 34,061
Helpful Votes: 36

sirg1006

I had a look at my reviews today - the best votes were on a French vocab book, French CD and a craft book. I think if you do have anything more obscure it could get a more rates if there are less reviews.

D

katey

I am 349,600! So a long way to go!!!

charlottestar

I think I got an email about this a while ago and I deleted it. Wish I hadn't now! Maybe they'll send me another email my reviewer rank is 2,308. Maybe I'll do a few more reviews and see if anything happens.

sirg1006

Hopefully they will Charlotte

I nearly deleted mine when I got it.

D

wonderlake

So, only people with high ranks get invited? ?

I see your point about reviewing things that are a bit more off the beaten track- they have loads of stuff on Amazon these days (shoes etc.) - - do you have to be writing reviews that other shoppers then say "this was helpful to me <YES>" ?

sirg1006

People have been talking about it on the private forum for Viners but no one knows how many have been invited but I'd assume they'd take those with reviews/good ratings or people could just join, grab a few freebies and not write anything/anything useful. Everyone seems to have a rank of above 3,000 though.

The annoying thing is some Viners are only writing 1 line reviews which then allows them to get more stuff. I've never heard of anyone being kicked off though but there is a Wiki page which looks like there have been complaints on the US Vine of people joining just to get freebies and sell them which isn't allowed.

Yup all the ratings come from the readers clicking Yes which will then say X out of X people found the following review helpful.

Vine reviews show up with a green line saying Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme e.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Interesti...oks&qid=1246910373&sr=8-1

D

charlottestar

I'm signed up! I didn't get an email but when I logged into my amazon account there was a little box at the side which said 'As one of our top reviewers please sign up to amazon vine' so I did

the revenge rating thing sounds a bit nasty though what's that about Debbie?

sirg1006

Yay Charlotte!

It's just people who have too much time on their hands. Because everyone is ranked in order you'll probably find people rating you negatively so their reviewer rank remains above yours or because the most useful reviews are shown on the product page and the others down the side, they'll want their one showing... silly really. Not like you get anything for being top reviewer.

Expect your first newsletter 8pm on 15th August. From the last 2 newsletters I managed to get £30 hair curling wand, £120 MP3/video player and The Day I Died by Polly Courtney - has mixed reviews but thought I'd try it anyway lol.

Make sure you are logged into the website refreshing the page at 8pm because the newletter will be emailed to you like 5 minutes after the products go on the website so you could miss out on good stuff

D

charlottestar

Wow ok I''ll be waiting on 15th August! It sounds exciting!

When I joined the other day there was still some things left and I ordered a copy of White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi which I've been wanting to read so hopefully got that.