FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - AMAZON VINE

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Q: Is Vine a scam?

A: No, Amazon Vine is not a scam. It's a invite-only reviewer program created by Amazon.

Q: What is Discord and how do I join the Amazon Vine Discord?

A: Discord is a popular "chat" application. Great for quick responses when you need information or just to socialize with the Amazon Vine community. You can download Discord here (https://discord.com/download) and you can join the Amazon Vine Discord with this link (https://discord.gg/9AN4QudXgC).

Q: How are Amazon users selected for Amazon Vine?

A: This is mostly unknown, though many theorize that it's related to how much attention your prior reviews have received, though this seems to be less likely in recent times.

Q: How do I join Amazon Vine?

A: As previously stated, this is an invite-only reviewer program. Amazon will send you an invite via email if you've been selected. That being said, this subreddit is only for Vine users.

Q: Is it really free?

A: Technically, yes. Though in some countries like the United States, Vine users are subject to taxation for the products they request. The taxable value for each product you order (notated as "ETV" when selecting product) is added to your taxable income, for which you receive a tax form at the end of the year if your taxable income (See https://www.amazon.com/vine/account) exceeds $600. Keep in mind that US tax laws state that you are still responsible for the ~$600 in taxable income, meaning you are still expected to report it to the IRS even though Amazon doesn't.

Q: What countries have introduced Amazon Vine?

A: As far as I know: US, UK, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Japan, and certain parts of Canada.

Q: How often does Amazon send invites?

A: This has varied greatly over the years. In my experience, they have been maintaining replacement levels (one out, one in) for most of the time I've been in the program though there is no real way of knowing this information. That being said, within recent times of this FAQ being written (Nov 12th, 2022), there has been a massive influx of Viners likely due to the large number of unclaimed third-party products in the "Additional Items" tab.

Q: How many Viners are there currently?

A: This is unknown, but my guess is around 5-8 thousand and growing daily.

Q: How many items can I request each day?

A: From Amazon Vines Resource Page (https://www.amazon.com/vine/resources): "Silver Tier: This is the base tier that allows you to request up to 3 items per day from products valued at $100.00 or less. To be upgraded to the Gold tier, you must order 100 products and review at least 90% of your orders within the evaluation period stated in your Account page. Gold Tier: This is the premium tier that allows you to request up to 8 items per day from products of any value. To remain in this tier, you should order 100 products and review at least 90% of your orders within the evaluation period stated in your Account page."

Q: What is the Tier System?

A: In October of 2022, Amazon introduced a reviewer tier system which consists of two tiers: Gold and Silver. When entering the program as a new Viner, you will be placed within Silver by default. To graduate to Gold tier, you must order 100 products and review at least 90% of them during your evaluation period.

Q: I can't see anything in my "Recommended For You" AND "Additional Items" tab, what's happening?

A: Technically, there is a third "tier" and we call it "Vine Jail". This essentially means that you need to catch up on your reviews! Here is Amazon's statement on it: "To maintain an active account, be sure to review at least 50% of your orders at all times. If less than 50% of your orders are reviewed, your account will be placed under review. However, you will still have access to Vine, but the new product recommendations will be turned off and your account will be at risk of being closed. You can recover your account once you have reviewed greater than 50% of your recent orders for at least two weeks in a row. If we don’t see any improvement in review levels, we will unfortunately close your account after 30 days of monitoring."

Q: Why do products disappear before I can order them?

A: When a seller enrolls a product in Amazon Vine, they only allocate a set quantity of products (Usually 30) to be reviewed. In most cases you are competing against other Viners when selecting a product before the available quantity runs out. By the time the product reaches "AFA", there are usually very few available.

Q: I can't see anything in my "Recommended For You" tab, but there are products under the "Additional Items" tab, what's happening?

A: If your "RFY" tab is empty and "AI" isn't, this is probably a pause in products that is affecting everyone. This isn't your fault and your Vine status is not in danger, regardless of what the RFY text says. We theorize that these pauses occur when Amazon's Vine team is working on the internals of the Vine website. This usually happens early on in the year around Jan-Feb, but there are exceptions. Check out recent posts in r/AmazonVine or recent messages in the "#status-and-news" channel of the Discord.

Q: What is my evaluation period?

A: It is the 6-month period of time listed on your account page (https://www.amazon.com/vine/account). Your evaluation period never ends, it just starts over every 6 months. See https://www.amazon.com/vine/help#evalperiod for more information.

Q: What time does my request limit reset?

A: At midnight (Pacific Time)

Q: What time do items get added to the "RFY", "AFA", and "AI" tabs?

A: Usually throughout the first half of the day, starting at around 7AM (Pacific Time) and usually ending around 3-4PM.

Q: What are "RFY", "AFA", and "AI" tabs?

A: These tabs can be described as: Recommended For You (RFY): Items that Amazon deems suitable for you based on an unknown set of data analytics. It is theorized that these items are allocated to Viners in groups, but consider this your own personal queue that you can pick and choose from at your leisure. Available For All (AFA): Items that other users did not select to review from their RFY tab. Items usually begin to leave the RFY around 7PM (Pacific) and begin entering the AFA around 7AM which continues through the day at random times. Requesting something (of reasonable value) from the AFA is highly competitive, as these products are usually high value-name brand products. In the US, these products are usually unavailable by the time you see them, we call them "ghost items" and they are usually denoted by a red "Limited Quantity" warning on the order window. This may be due multiple reasons, some less ethical than others. Additional Items: Items listed on Vine by Amazon's Third-Party sellers. These items are generated by unselected RFY items (which may exist in both RFY and AI at the same time). The brands of these products will likely be unfamiliar to you and generally they are less competitive to request.

Q: Can I use a script or any form of automation program to interact with the Amazon Vine website in any way?

A: Absolutely not. This is referred to as "botting" and will result in a ban. Amazon has safeguards in place on their back-end which tracks API usage per Viner. This was not as enforced in earlier years as much as it is today.

Q: How soon are Vine items shipped?

A: This has changed throughout the years, but within recent times it has generally been within a 7-day period of time. That being said, there are exceptions based on a product's release date, product size, product type, your local parcel/mail delivery system, and other factors.

Q: Why do I get a "Error: Your request cannot be processed due to local delivery requirements for this product at your address..." message when ordering a product?

A: This is a known problem with Amazon Vine. It's likely that nobody is able to order this product. Usually occurs for large and/or heavy products. We also consider this a "ghost item".

Q: How quickly do I need to review a product?

A: This has changed recently with the introduction of the tier system, but a good rule of thumb is to review it within 30 days.

Q: How long does it take for my reviews to be posted on the product page?

A: This can vary, but generally a few days. For books, the reviews post almost instantly.

Q: How long should my review be?

A: As long or short as you want (within reason). The length of the review should not matter as long as the quality of the review is to the Vine standard!

Q: What is the "Vine Standard" for reviews?

A: Be descriptive! Focus on the product itself, not the shipping, seller, or even the price (From Vine ToS, unfortunately). Don't echo other reviews or the product description. Be unique and informative. Imagine yourself wanting to know if a product was good or not - include the information in your review that would make that decision for your hypothetical self. Also, this may seem unintuitive, but try not to reference other products within your review. Most importantly, do not provide any personally-identifying information in your review.

Q: What happens if my review was rejected?

A: Your review was rejected for an unknown number of reasons. It's possible that you included inappropriate information in your review, but it's also possible that the Vine system falsely identified your review as inappropriate. This seems to happen more often when users include pictures and/or videos with their review as the moderation system has a hard time correctly identifying inappropriate behavior in that form. Many vine users will save their reviews offline in a spreadsheet for this reason specifically, that way they can scan their review to see if they broke any rules and then resubmit. In many cases, no changes need to be made and their resubmitted review is approved.

Q: Can I sell or give away the products I receive from Amazon Vine?

A: This is a topic of controversy within Amazon's ToS and the community. According to the terms of service, you must wait at least 6 months after reviewing a product to sell it or give it away. This somewhat conflicts with the tax implication that Amazon imposes on Viners in the US, which implies that the reviewer is the owner of the product when the product is received. That being said, if your intention is to "make a business" out of selling Vine products online, this incentivizes low-quality reviews en masse and will likely result in you being removed from the program. There are user-reports of sellers and/or Amazon employees monitoring e-commerce websites like Ebay for Vine users that sell their products, though this is not confirmed.

Q: Do all Vine products have a tax implication (Estimated Taxable Value) and how is this ETV calculated?

A: No, ETV varies based on product type and seller type. Generally speaking, consumables like beauty products and food do not have a tax implication ($0 ETV) and as a result they are highly requested by Viners. Common name-brand products or Amazon branded products have an ETV that is calculated based on the projected value of the product after 6 months of ownership, though the exact method of reaching that value is unknown. Items from third-party sellers (commonly found in AI) generally have a non-discounted ETV matching the highest possible value for which the product is sold for. Unfortunately, even if the product is sold on Amazon with a persistent coupon that brings the cost down to 0-99% of the listing price (the actual price of the product), a Vine user is still expected to take the tax hit for full non-discounted price.

Q: What to do if a product is defective, broken, missing, or not the product that was requested?

A: Contact vine-support@amazon.com. Provide the product name, product number, and a description of the issue you experienced. Vine CS will likely remove the product from your to-be-reviewed list as well as the ETV from your taxable income total for the year. Do NOT abuse this and only use it when you feel it is absolutely necessary. There are reports of users being removed from the program after extensive use of this support feature. Further-more, there are suspicions that users are subject to less requested products after extensive use of this feature.

Q: What do I do if a seller contacts me?

A: Do not respond to the seller. Consider contacting Vine Support through the "feedback" link on your Vine page, then selecting "Inappropriate Activity". Users are to never engage with a seller and vice-versa. There may be exceptions for warranties on a product, but this is a debated topic and you should use your best judgement.

Q: What happens if I am kicked out of Vine?

A: Generally, if you've been removed from the program you will see a prompt explaining this when you log into your Vine page. This can happen for a multitude of reasons, but most commonly it's due to not reviewing received products for a long period of time. Amazon has provided more insight for this scenario with the introduction of the tier system and it's resources page. The best thing you can do if you are removed from the program is: First, attempt to identify why you were kicked from Vine. Second, correct that mistake (Like review all the products currently waiting to be reviewed). Third, email vine-support@amazon.com and CC jeff@amazon.com with a description of their mistake or an apology/reason for your mistake. Fourth, continue reviewing products on Amazon and hope that you are reinstated.

Q: Where can I find more information on Amazon Vine?

A: You can find more "objective" and official information on Amazon's Vine Help page -> (https://www.amazon.com/vine/help).

DISCLAIMER:

The answers I have provided here are based on my experiences while in Amazon Vine (USA) as well as being the creator of this subreddit, r/AmazonVine. Many of my answers are subjective and even speculative, so it's entirely possible that your experiences may conflict with this information - in which case we would very much appreciate it if you created a post in our subreddit, providing clarification that may ultimately be appended to this FAQ. If you have any suggestions on things to add to this wiki, please send me a PM here on reddit (u/thedgyalt). Thanks!

The most repeated questions on this sub are:

Spinning Wheel question, can I order a variant, etc.

Add your comment of the most repeated questions to this sub. I'm making it a sticky so in the future, we can just point people to this thread.