Latest / Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast / Top Strategies for Getting and Managing Amazon Reviews

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Top Strategies for Getting and Managing Amazon Reviews · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, this is Selling on Giants at the E-Commerce Marketplace Show, where we chat with experts in the e-commerce industry and talk about the latest insights, strategies, and best practices you need to succeed on major e-commerce marketplaces.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Victor Dwyer, and today we're joined by Becky Trowbridge, the digital marketing manager at e-comengine.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: She's dedicated to helping Amazon sellers thrive in a highly competitive market.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be talking about top strategies of getting and managing reviews.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super passionate about this.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Becky, please give us a little intro about yourself and how to pronounce your last name, please.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: My last name is Trowbridge.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for Trowbridge.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I work here at eCom Engine.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: We're the makers of Feedback Five and Restack Pro.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: And we actually pioneered the Amazon feedback request back in gosh, like 2009.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: So we've been around.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: We've worked a lot with Amazon on the request to review functionality and automation for that.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: And the review space has really just been where I've spent a lot of my time.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: I've been here for going on six and a half years.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: So really immersed in all things Amazon.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I used to own an external traffic agency to eventually get reviews on Amazon.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just a lot, especially when Amazon really started cracking down.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start out like, why are Amazon reviews so important?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why does it matter?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, I need more reviews, but people don't really stop and think about why they need more reviews.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: So one big thing is obviously social proof.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: You've got buyers that are shopping online, so they can't actually handle your products.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: So the ability to see what other people are saying, it basically functions as word of mouth marketing, right?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: But the benefit of this kind of word of mouth is it also benefits you from a search standpoint because what people are saying in your product reviews can impact your search rankings on Amazon.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then you also need to be thinking about retail readiness.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: So getting those 15 reviews really early on is key, making sure that you have an average rating, they say 3.5 stars.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm like, man, I don't know that I would pour ads into something that was at 3.5 stars.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's kind of you want to be trending upward for sure from that.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you definitely need reviews to have your ads function well to make sure that you're making the most of that budget.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want to spend a lot of money on something that's not going to perform.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: So those early reviews tell you that you're doing what customers in Amazon are looking for.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that's really key.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think another thing that gets overlooked a lot is that reviews just offer a really important insight into the buyer mindset.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: So as you're looking at your space, like we're always trying to understand what's your market share, what's your niche, what are the trends, what's happening, you know, prime day, Q4, where do you need to put your money?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you need to do more?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Can you launch other products?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: And getting those reviews can really give you, I mean, you don't have that kind of insight in a traditional brick and mortar, other than maybe talking to people while they're checking out.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really awesome to have that where it's already in a place where you can export it, you can put it together, use a word cloud tool or something and do some sentiment analysis and see what's really going on in your market.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's amazing.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And how can Amazon sellers get more reviews these days?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because we know it's a touchy subject, especially with TOS and everything else like that.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to get your more perspective on how can Amazon sellers get reviews in 2023.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not easy.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be honest with you.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: From time to time, Amazon might send a review request, but it's really few and far between, and you have absolutely no control over it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we say because we know that Amazon's review algorithm relies on the recency and the relevance of your reviews, that you should just be requesting reviews on every eligible order.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean annoying buyers, right?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like you want to send a single request, you don't you want to keep it short and sweet and kind of get to the point.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're not requesting reviews, there's really no way to get them because it's unlikely that buyers are just gonna say, hey, you know, I really love this product.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, every once in a while they might, but it's more likely that they're gonna come tell you that they hate your product.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: So to provide some buffer for that, you need to be asking for reviews.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And there are a number of ways you can do that.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: One of them is enrolling in the Vine program.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: So that does cost money.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think it keeps changing.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's like$200 per ASIN right now, and you also have to give your product away for free.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: But those Vine voices are weighted more heavily in the review algorithm than a lot of the other reviews.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that can be really key, especially if you're launching a product and you're trying to get those initial reviews.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: You can use buyer seller messaging to send a request.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can use request a review button in Seller Central.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: You go to the order details page and you just click the button that says request a review for every single order.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you have any kind of volume at all, that gets really tricky, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: So another thing you can do is you can automate with third-party software, like the tool that we have feedback five.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: There are several others.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you are using third-party software, just be really sure that it's in the selling partner app store.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: We have seen sellers get in trouble by using solutions that aren't vetted by Amazon.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: And if someone's in the app store, you know that Amazon's taking a look at their integrations and you know everything's good, so you're not going to get in trouble with Amazon from the software that you're using.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: However, yeah, you still have to follow the rules.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Dang it, man.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: How should sellers know about the Amazon review guidelines?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Amazon doesn't make it very easy to always access this information.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, how can Amazon sellers really know what guidelines to follow?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I regularly pay attention to like six different pages in Seller Central.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I agree.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: It is not easy.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: We've put together a lot of resources to try to make it easy.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like we have a review guide that just kind of goes through from the beginning through, you know, how to deal with negative reviews and all that too.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: But staying compliant is critical.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: You need to keep your account in good standing.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: If you're getting in trouble for review manipulation or anything like that, it can actually impact your ability to sell on Amazon.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: It could get your account suspended or deactivated.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a really big deal.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: However, you are allowed to request reviews.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're sending review requests, you have to adhere to the Amazon communication guidelines.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: That means you need to be sending your request within 30 days of order completion.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: It needs to be in the buyer's preferred language, and it needs to include the 17-digit order ID.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what you have to do to be able to send the request.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Then if you want to go on and like customize your request, so there's buyer-seller messaging is sending your own whatever your message is, right?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, this is my store.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell me what you thought about my product?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: The request or review message is different in that it's a template from Amazon that is sent on your behalf.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then that actually won't ever get you into trouble because it's always going to be compliant with Amazon's guidelines because it's coming from Amazon, right?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're going the buyer-seller messaging route, there are other things to consider.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: The request or review message already has buyer's preferred language because Amazon has that information and already includes the order ID.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: It has everything you need.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like if you want the set it and forget it option, that's what we always recommend.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, like over 77% of our customers are using that message.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: The reason they use feedback five is to schedule automation for it because, like I said, pushing that button over and over is tedious.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: We do know that the message gets really good results, but also we have the ability to do some timing.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a little bit beyond review guidelines.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I'll just say quickly that depending on your products, there are different sequences based on when you might want to send a request, right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you have something like supplements, you don't want to be sending a review request the day after the person receives a bottle of supplements.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like really 30 days is even kind of early, right?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because they don't have time to really get to know the results, but you want to be on the further end of that spectrum.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you've got something that is used really quickly, you want to send the request really quickly.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we have timing functionality and ways to exclude orders, like we automatically exclude refunded orders, for example, because you just don't, that's a bad customer experience.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: If they got a refund from you, they don't want to be getting a review request and you don't want that review.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: But then that's if you're going the buyer-seller messaging route, you can't ask for positive reviews.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: You can't attempt to influence a review in any way.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: You can never ask a buyer to remove or change a review.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of other rules around review manipulation that are worth knowing, like you and your employees, your relatives, like you can't leave reviews for your own products.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: You also can't leave reviews for your competitor products.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen people get in trouble over this.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it sounds very big brother, right?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: But it has happened.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, staying compliant is really crucial.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the easiest way to do it is honestly that request or review message.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to get, you know, branded and you want to get fancy with it, there are ways to do that, but you definitely need to be careful about the language that you're using and just keep it really neutral.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think is the best way to get reviews?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is it through that buyer-seller messaging or is it through that automated review request?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: What's more effective in getting the review, you think?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's definitely the request or review message.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because that comes from Amazon, I think it just looks a little more official.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: And also, I personally have found it really hard.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: Amazon's made it really tricky to send buyer-seller messaging to request reviews.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think they really want sellers to move over to that request or review message as well, just from the compliance standpoint, because there were a lot of changes when the communication guidelines changed back a couple of years ago.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: It might even be longer than that now, but there were a lot of things about HTML and coding and just like keeping things consistent to make it a better experience for the buyer.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: And Amazon likes to kind of control that.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: So when they're sending that message, they are able to do that in a way that they can't through buyer-seller messaging.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's part of it too.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: I recently had a few people that were complaining about the difference between a seller review and a product review.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when you press that review request button, it like does both.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when people go to leave the review, it only requests the like people think they're leaving it for a product, they're leaving it for their the seller.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And is there any way to get around that to like really focus on getting product reviews rather than seller reviews?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: No, unfortunately, that's something that a lot of our customers have requested also.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: I know it's a pain point for a lot of people.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: We also find that there are a lot of people that still just really want to focus on feedback, like maybe they have negative seller feedback for some reason, or they're trying to improve their account health, and that's like their main focus.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And that request or review message, it includes the product review request kind of front and center, and then the seller feedback request is kind of like an afterthought in the bottom of the message.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it can get confusing when people get both in the same email.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: And people, I mean, sellers frequently confuse them.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like I feel like I'm constantly explaining that, even with my own head.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, wait, okay, seller feedback is about your ability to sell and product feedback is about your product, but seller feedback includes things about your packaging and you know, pieces that are attached to your product.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it does get a little bit muddy sometimes.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what would you recommend to kind of help with this process?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it sounds like there's not too much that we can do.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know we can change the date range of like uh when to request the review and if someone did it through a refund.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is there any other recommendations you have when it comes down to sending those automated review requests?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think really what you just said, thinking about the timing and also just thinking through buyer journey and where they are and what you can do to try to reach them at the right time, I think is probably the most critical part.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Beyond that, I mean, there's not really a lot that you can control, like you're not testing subject lines or anything like that.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: So you're kind of at the mercy of the algorithm a little bit.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I feel that.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what can sellers do about negative reviews?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So unfortunately, Amazon removed the ability to comment on reviews, which really, really sucks, to be honest.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, what can sellers do about negative reviews?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the comment thing, I wrote an article about that when it first happened, and I was also very frustrated with that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: But I also feel like the functionality behind that was never great to begin with because it wasn't notifying the buyer that you had left a response.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: So we would always tell people, leave a public reply, because when new people are looking at your listing, they're seeing that public reply and it's showing that, right, it's demonstrating that you're providing good customer service, you're paying attention to buyers, you're really in that mindset.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: But it was never really like a communication either.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I was really excited a couple of years ago for brand registered sellers, Amazon released a feature that lets sellers contact buyers who left between a one and three star review.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you can go into the brand registry and you can offer a refund or a replacement.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: You can also ask for more details about what went wrong.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, those are message templates sent by Amazon.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: So you're not like specifying, hey, was it something about XYZ feature?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're just sending like a template that says, hey, you know, what was going on, basically.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: But that can provide some insight.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: You can't ask sellers to change their review, just reiterating again, because I think you can ask them to change a feedback.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes people get confused about that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you can't ask them to change a review.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: You should always try to make an attempt to resolve the issue.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Just I think from a good customer service standpoint, we're always trying to provide a good experience for buyers on Amazon, right?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's Amazon's customer obsessed, and you need to be too.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: So if you get a negative review and it's violating some kind of guidelines, like the community guideline, there's profanity or some kind of like hate speech or something, you can ask Amazon to remove it by reporting it as a review abuse, and that's an option.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're not brand registered, unfortunately you can't do a lot in terms of contacting buyers.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: But if it is abusive or violating some other guideline, you can try to do something there.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you notice that someone leaves a bad review and you're able to find them on the back end and message them, is that a good strategy, bad strategy?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts on that?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Bad strategy.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Amazon doesn't want you doing that.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: They make that pretty clear in the guidelines.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you really don't want that bad review, don't even bother messaging them, basically.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not worth the risk of your account.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, that's helpful.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then why is it important to monitor reviews for brands and sellers?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we have a review monitoring feature where we pull in a lot of data and put together some analytics for you.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And we actually make it possible to export Amazon reviews, which I know is a feature a lot of people look for because you can't do that from Seller Central.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're looking at your reviews, like I said, it's just kind of this hotbed of information about your customers and what they're thinking about things, and you can look for those trends, like get ideas for new products.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: You can also, I think one of the most important things is use it as a way to improve your listing content.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: We talk a lot here at eCom Engine about the importance, and I'm sure you guys too, the importance of your listings, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you're not setting clear expectations for the buyer before they even purchase from you and they get a product that looks completely different than your listing content, told them it would, you're gonna get a negative review.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're looking through those negative reviews and you're seeing trends like, oh, the color wasn't as described, or you know, this thing broke or whatever, it gives you the opportunity to go back and try to fix things either with your supplier or manufacturer, or, you know, in some cases it might be a matter of updating your listing to like pantone colors or something, just to be as specific as possible and make sure that you're providing that information in a way that is really understandable for everyone.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think also there's an importance of keeping tabs on products that you're thinking about selling.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you can do that by either tracking those ASINs or with features like the product opportunity explorer and Amazon Seller Central, I think is really underutilized.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: We did a webinar recently and had some really awesome insights from that about finding your market share.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot there, but it also provides some, there's a beta of customer review insights.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's pulling in sentiment analysis and making it really easy for you to see what's going on in your niche.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: So even if you're not looking to add a new product, that's a really good place to go just to see, like, hey, what's going on?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, is there something I could be doing better?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I think just using reviews to really stay informed about the customer experience, improve your listings, improve your products, all of that's key.
• 16:02
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• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what would you say to someone that has zero reviews and really trying to rank their products on Amazon to get more reviews for those new Amazon sellers and new products?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: What would you recommend to get more reviews on Amazon that have zero reviews right now?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think requesting reviews, I always emphasize the importance of not putting all your eggs in the same basket, right?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like we love Amazon, but we also talk a lot about the importance of having your own website or your own email list.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're able to drive traffic in that way, like send an email to all the people following your brand and say, hey, we just launched this new product on Amazon.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's a really good way to get sales and start getting those initial reviews.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: If you're just putting something up on Seller Central and hoping it will get traction and just kind of crossing your fingers, it's probably not going to work.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: You really need to have a strategy around it.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And is there any other things that Amazon sellers shouldn't be doing when it comes to reviews that you see a lot?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that's a kind of like a loaded question because there's like I know there's a lot of things that could be associated with that, but do you see anything that Amazon sellers are doing wrong when it comes to reviews?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of not requesting or not understanding the guidelines, just not taking the time to kind of sift through it all.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: We see that a lot.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: And we see a lot of confusion over whether they're allowed to request or not.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Also, I think not utilizing some of the features that are available to them.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not directly related to reviews, but things like Amazon tailored audiences, like if you're brand registered, you just have a world of new features to check out.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I see a lot of sellers kind of sleeping on that and not looking into how can this impact my business?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: How can I get repeat buyers?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: What can I do?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I do think those repeat buyers, we have a way to target them specifically.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if you've got someone that's buying your product on subscribe and save or they're regularly coming back and repurchasing, like that's the perfect person to review your product, honestly.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're a fan, they're into your brand, you want to hear what they have to say.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I think just being able to pay attention to those and kind of sort them out from the new buyers is also important.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's something that not everyone's doing.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I want to talk about this.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: I always bring this one up.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's a product, it certainly says, give me a five-star review and I'll give you$40.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about this.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, everything about that is terrible.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: I get these in the mail and I just cringe sometimes.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you can't incentivize, like we talked about.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: That means you can't offer a coupon in exchange for a review.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: You definitely can't offer a$40 gift card.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: That can get you in trouble really fast.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, it might slide for a little while, but if you have a competitor do a test buy or something and they kind of turn you in, and we're seeing that more and more, like it's not worth the risk.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely can't ask for a positive.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't want to be out there saying, leave me a five-star review.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: I will say on the insert front, I have seen some really clever stuff recently.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: I forget what I ordered, but they sent like a postcard and it said something like, roses are red, violets are blue, we'd love it if you leave us a review.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just like, I mean, it was a simple rhyme, but it didn't say anything that was going to get them in trouble.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like the design was cute and it caught my attention.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Yeah, that's a really, you know, smart way to get someone's attention because they didn't offer me money or anything, but they definitely stood out from the pile of Amazon packages and inserts that I received.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so what it sounds like is if you're trying to get reviews, you can do some clever things with the postcards.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then can you go into the difference between a postcard and a product insert and talk about some gray-ish strategies that you can do?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I assume there's something you can do with your product inserts, right?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I'm trying to so a product insert meaning something like instructions or yeah, like the the insert inside the package.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, like kind of similar to this.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is like a product insert that I got.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, obviously, this is a black hat one.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: But like, can you talk about like possibly like saying, hey, if you have a problem, contact us at this or whatever to possibly take.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're not necessarily saying, hey, don't leave us negative review, but you're saying, hey, if you have an issue, contact us here.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And basically doing like anything like gray hat that could or anything that could be allowed in Amazon's terms when it comes down to product inserts.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll say I think that the documentation around what Amazon's okay with for product inserts is basically non-existent.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's just pretty much us extrapolating what we know from the review guidelines in general.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think that customer service is another fuzzy area.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: It seems like if you're a bigger brand that's making a lot of sales, you can do certain things that other brands can't necessarily get away with.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of complicated.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I would say if you're sending an insert and kind of trying to make sure that if someone has a bad experience that they contact you instead of leaving a review to be safe, I would not request a review on that same packaging.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: So in that case, if we were doing what you just talked about, like you have product insert, you're saying contact us if there's a problem.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: I would just have like a separate card that said what I was talking about before, like, oh yeah, we'd love it if you leave us a review.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, don't even say we'd love it if you'd leave us a review.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Don't use the word love on there.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then when it comes down to the postcards, what you get mailed in afterward, is it kind of the same thing there?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like when it comes down to like a customer service type of question that you could put on the postcard, like any strategies that you have there on the postcard side?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Not so much.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: We haven't really focused on that as much because we're all about automating and we look at the postcard as kind of just like another prong in your approach.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: But because the documentation has been kind of fuzzy, we haven't spent a lot of time focusing on it just because we're not always 100% sure what would be okay and what wouldn't be okay, especially when it comes to that customer service question.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I'm not much help there.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're good.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And is there anything else that's been top of mind lately for you when it comes down to reviews that you've been wanting to talk about?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: It could be like someone could be doing this and need to be doing that.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that's really been top of mind for you lately?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think, you know, as we're heading into the second half of the year, there's a lot going on with Prime Day, Q4, you know, everything's kind of picking up and hopefully people are seeing more sales.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think really looking at your prime day performance as a dress rehearsal for your Q4 performance and using that time to maximize getting reviews.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Something that we see a lot is people kind of, you know, they go on vacation, they're busy, they don't necessarily request reviews for those prime day orders.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's like prime time, if you'll pardon the pun, to get reviews.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because what we see a lot is people are actually buying for themselves at Prime Day.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Q4, they're kind of like buying gifts for everyone.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: They're not necessarily going to leave you a review or a detailed review because they're not necessarily the person leaving or using the product.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: So really making the most of the end of summer to make sure that you're requesting reviews on those prime day orders and then using that information to fuel your inventory decisions and your budgeting decisions and think about your ad strategy and everything else that's going into Q4, just really picking up on that momentum from Prime Day and taking it through the end of the year, I think is key.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And is there anything else that you've been wanting to communicate before we sign off?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Any other tips or tricks when it comes to getting any more reviews that we haven't talked about yet?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, I will say I think another piece that sometimes gets overlooked is the importance of protecting your listings.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: And something cool that we've been doing here at eCom Engine recently is we've added a lot of listing alerts to feedback five.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we have like a hijacker alert, a search suppression alert, and then we have alerts for listing content changes.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think again, with all these big sales times coming up, if your listing is down or not visible in search, you're potentially losing out on a lot of sales.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: So just always making sure that you're keeping an eye on your listings and you know, knowing that there are solutions out there to do that for you if necessary.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you have 2,000 ASINs, it's just impossible.
• 24:28
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that sounds great.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's all we have time for today.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, please, Becky, tell them how to find you and how to find your business.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can find me on LinkedIn and you can find ecomengine at ecomengine.com, and you can always email me at Becky at ecomengine.com.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Becky, thank you so much for joining.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you everyone for watching.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the Selling on Giants e-commerce marketplace show.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Catch you next time.