How to leverage good customer reviews to grow your Amazon FBA business

This is especially important when you consider the enormous quantity of products that are available for sale on Amazon. With millions of products available and countless sellers vying for attention, customer reviews play a pivotal role in driving sales and building trust.

Getting positive reviews for your products not only helps them stand out from the crowd, but they improve your credibility as a seller by improving your overall seller rating. However, in order to get reviews you can’t just rely on luck. As with all parts of running your own FBA business, you have to put in a lot of hard work to get those reviews, while ensuring that you stay with Amazon’s strict review policy.

So how can you get those customer reviews and use them to grow your business? In this guide, we’ll tell you everything you need to know  to help you attract more reviews while also keeping on the right side of Amazon.

As reviews are a long term play, you may want to treat this carefully, as this strategy works best if you are

• the major seller on the listing,
• intend to stay on the listing long term

Otherwise – especially if you have limited stock – it may not benefit you at all.

What are Amazon’s rules on getting product reviews?

Amazon has strict rules and guidelines regarding customer reviews to ensure the integrity of the review system and maintain a fair marketplace for all sellers. Because of this they have a strict policy for sellers which dictates what they can and can’t to to get results.

Failure to adhere to this policy can lead to some pretty serious consequences, including having your reviews cancelled or even having your seller account suspended or banned. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the things you can and can’t do.

You can’t incentivize reviews: As a seller you are forbidden from over any kind of incentivisation to get reviews. This includes offering free or discounted products, vouchers or money.

You can’t manipulate reviews: Sellers are not allowed to manipulate the system in order to get more reviews. This includes using multiple accounts to post fake or misleading reviews or working with other sellers to get reviews.

You can’t swap reviews: As a seller, you are not permitted to request reviews of your products from other sellers in exchange for reviews of their products. You are also forbidden from participating in any schemes where sellers swap reviews.

You can’t solicit reviews from outside Amazon: Amazon doesn’t allow you to request reviews outside of Amazon’s message system to get reviews. For example, you can’t email your customers or post material to them asking for reviews.

You can’t cherry pick who you ask for reviews: Amazon wants to keep its reviews as true and unbiased as possible. You’re therefore not allowed to only ask customers that had a good experience for a review.

You can’t manipulate the “helpful” votes: Amazon allows customers to vote on whether a review was helpful or not, they do this by giving reviews a thumbs up or down on the product listings page. As a seller, you can’t manipulate this e.g. by upvoting positive reviews and down voting negative ones.

You can’t review yourself: Amazon sellers, their immediate family and anyone with a financial interest in the business are unable to review their own or competitors’ products.

No Multiple Reviews from the Same Customer: Amazon discourages multiple reviews of the same product from a single customer, and they may remove duplicate reviews.

You must always respect customer privacy: Sellers should respect customer privacy by following Amazon’s privacy policy and terms of use. This forbids any attempt to obtain personal information from customers for the purpose of soliciting reviews.

You should report violations: Amazon actively encourages sellers to report any violations of these review policies by other sellers.

You can’t encourage unbiased reviews: When asking for customers reviews, you aren’t allowed to try and sway customers to rate you higher. For example, even saying something like “We’d love it if you gave our product a 5-star rating” contravenes  the review policy.

Top tips for getting more Amazon reviews

So now we know the rules we have to follow, it’s time to start actively working towards getting more reviews. Like we said before, you can’t just hope that those positive reviews start rolling in. You need to make sure you work for them. Let’s have a look at some of the ways you can start to do this.

Add a product insert

This one is a simple, but effective way to get some more reviews. When you package your product, add a card or flyer into the packaging thanking the customer for their purchase and ask them to write you a review.

You should make your insert visually appealing, so that it stands out amongst the packaging and you might want to consider adding a QR code which directs users directly to the product page so they can easily leave a review.

Obviously this method will only work if you’re able to add an insert before you send it into Amazon for fulfilment (or if your FBA prep center can do it for you).

You also need to remember that you can’t try to get customers to leave a positive review, as this contravenes Amazon’s review policy. However, you can talk about how important reviews are to your business, and how getting reviews from customers gives you the possibility of improving your overall customer experience.

Use the “Request a review” feature

As we mentioned earlier, you have to be proactive when trying to gather Amazon product reviews. Amazon will automatically send out a message to users asking for reviews after they have completed a purchase. However, you are also able to resend this email again manually using the “Request a review” button. To do this, follow these steps:

• Log into your Seller Central Account
• Go to the “Orders” section
• Navigate to the “Order details” page of the order
• Press the “Request a review” button

The customer will then get a reminder email asking them to review your product. Granted, you can’t personalize these emails, but this gentle nudge might be what the customer needed to remind them to leave a review.

It’s worth noting that this functionality only works for 5-30 days after the order has been delivered, so timing is key. You need to give your customer enough time to use their product, but not leave it so long that they forget about doing it altogether.

Deliver excellent customer service

Now this one might seem obvious, but it really does work. Customers that receive excellent customer service are more likely to leave you a positive review, so you should do whatever you can to ensure customer satisfaction.

If a customer asks a question about one of your products, try to respond to them as quickly as possible. This could be enough to convince them to buy your product, but they will also remember you gave them excellent customer service at the start of their shopping journey, so they’re more likely to leave a good review.

After you’ve helped a customer resolve an issue, it is the perfect time to ask for a review, even if the reason they contacted you initially was due to a problem. Being proactive when resolving it for them then gives you a great opportunity to ask them to write a review.

Remember you can still ask customers to review products, even if they return them. So if a customer finds out that the product they purchased isn’t right for them, you can guide them through the return process and ask them to review the product anyway.

Use the Amazon early reviewer program

Getting customer reviews when you launch a new product can be challenging. Afterall, getting reviews involves selling some products, and you’re less likely to sell products if they don’t have any reviews. You can see the problem here.

This is where the Amazon early reviewer platform can be a big help. Providing your product costs more than $15 and has fewer than 5 reviews, it is eligible for the early reviewer program. After you’ve registered your products Amazon will offer genuine customers Amazon Gift cards valued between $1 and $5 if they write a review for your product after they’ve purchased it.

Obviously you have no control over what they write and how they rate your product, but at least you’ll start getting some reviews for your products. Amazon will charge you a fee of $60 after you get the first review of your product, but providing you can factor this cost into the profit margin of your product, it’s well worth doing.

Respond to customer feedback

If customers start leaving you reviews on your products, one of the best things you can do is respond to it. If the feedback is positive, thank the customer and tell them how important their review is. This will help build a relationship with that customer and they’re more likely to shop with you again.

If your feedback is not so good, make sure you respond to it. Firstly, this shows other customers that you take your customer service seriously and want to help solve problems. Secondly, you can try to help your customer resolve their issue. If you do this successfully, they may even be encouraged to change their review and give you a better rating.

You should also use your feedback to develop and change your products and services. If you’re consistently getting the same negative feedback about your product, it could suggest there’s something wrong  with it that you need to resolve.

Use promotions to drive reviews

Customers love a bargain, so if you want to encourage positive reviews you could try adding a discount or voucher to your product. If your customers can find the product they want at a cheaper price, they’re more likely to write a review because they feel like they’ve got great value for money.

You should make sure if you run a series of promotions, you then make use of the “Request a review” feature we previously discussed rather than just rely on the single review email Amazon sends out. That way you’ll stand a better chance of getting a review back from those customers that feel like they’ve got a good deal.

Wrapping up

If you get your Amazon reviews right, they’re a sure fire way to increase sales through your Amazon FBA business. However, you can’t just expect them to happen. If you want to start seeing an increase in positive reviews, you need to work hard and nurture a good relationship with your customer base.

Deliver excellent customer service, pro-actively ask for reviews from customers either by email or by adding a product insert into your packaging, and strategically use promotions to increase sales of the products which you need to gather reviews for. If you do all of this you will see you not only get more reviews, but your overall customer satisfaction will grow eventually leading to a higher seller rate.

FAQ’s about Amazon reviews

Can you buy Amazon reviews?

Absolutely not. Amazon has strict guidelines in place which makes it clear that sellers should not buy reviews for their products. There are some dubious businesses that do offer this type of service, but these should be avoided at all costs.

It’s also pretty common knowledge that if Amazon suspect you have been involved in review manipulation, or solicited reviews in a way that doesn’t comply with their seller guidelines, they will dig back through months of your account history and punish you for old ASINs, even those you don’t even sell any more. Be warned – buy reviews today and even if you get away with it in the short term, Amazon may one day come back and suspend your account.

Does Amazon detect fake reviews?

Amazon uses a range of different tools to proactively discover  and stop fake reviews on Amazon. On top of that, they also encourage other sellers to inform them if they believe reviews are being manipulated on either their own products or a competitor’s. The consequences of being found of  trying to manipulate the reviews system can be high. Not only can you run the risk of having your seller account suspended, but Amazon also prosecutes people that do this. Up until May 2023, Amazon took legal action towards around 90 fraudsters that tried to farm fraudulent reviews.