The last few times I reviews purchases on Amazon, I’ve been invited to join the Amazon Vine Program.
What is Amazon Vine?
Amazon Vine is an invitation-only program which selects the most insightful reviewers in the Amazon store to serve as Vine Voices. Vine Voices have the unique opportunity to order items free of charge and share their product experiences with Amazon customers to help them make informed buying decisions.
How does it work?
Once enrolled in Vine, Voices may request products from thousands of brands selling in the Amazon store which are shipped to their doorsteps at no cost. They then use the products and provide insightful reviews that reflect their honest and unbiased opinions - positive, neutral, or negative. Reviews of a product ordered through Vine appear in the same location as other reviews. Amazon Vine reviews are distinguished with this special badge “Vine Customer Review of Free Product” for full transparency.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long after receiving the items do I have to review?
Amazon expects Vine Voices to use each product before writing an honest and unbiased review. Most Voices review within a month. This ensures that your reviews are informed and helpful to other shoppers.
Will I be contacted or influenced by the participating brands?
No, the products that are submitted by brands are distributed to Vine Voices by Amazon. Brands have no contact with the Vine Voices, and have no information about the specific Vine Voices reviewing their products.
Do I need to pay taxes on these free products requested from Vine?
In certain locations, some products ordered through Amazon Vine are considered as income and are subject to taxes. It is your responsibility to ensure any taxable income is correctly reported. If in doubt, you should seek independent professional advice.
Is anyone here signed up for this?
I never know what I want until I want it. It seems that I would be able to request products, which I will receive in exchange for honest reviews. It’s possible, or even probable, that there will be items that I want, and would be happy to review in exchange. I would have to provide my SSN for potential tax purposes.
It’s tempting. I mean, I have submitted many reviews; mostly positive, but some/most positive with some not-so-good opinions. And at least one where I found the product to be not good (1-star).
A few years ago, Amazon sent me a single can of tomato soup, unsolicited, for free, in its own shipment when I hadn’t even ordered anything, and asked that I post a review of it.
I did, but I haven’t received any other free product from them since.
(As I recall it was decent and had pretty good flavor, but I don’t care for tomato soup in general so I probably rated it 3/5.)
Thank you, yes, I am. You get three lists- the best one is stuff curated for you, based upon what you have ordered or watched, etc. Maybe a dozen things. Then there is “available for all”- meh stuff that other reviewers didnt want. Then there is 'additional items- and there are currently over 2000 pages each with 30+ items. So, many many things.
You pick what you want. You do not absolutely have to write a review, but if you do not your standing is in doubt. But you have time.
So, pick items that you wants, and since you want them- you usually give a good ***** review. But I have gotten clothes from China (for example) that are two or three sizes too small- and so, they get a poor review (if the clothing is otherwise fine, they get 2 or 3 stars). Or I got a 200 piece first aid kit with 198 cheap bandaids and a pair of cheap rubber gloves- that got a poor review. But most get *****.
There are few books, oddly. But lots of - cell phone accessories- clothing (mostly womens), kitchen stuff, decor, auto parts, toys, etc.
You could easily equipt a kitchen- except for the major appliances, and once in a great while they will have one of those. And a full wardrobe.
You get a 1099- stuff like food, pills etc are valued at 0, but the rest do have values. Talk to your tax professional- you may be able to 0 out your Sch C.
Like @DrDeth I am in the Vine program. I’ve gotten some decent products for the cats from it, but a lot of what I see in there is just not for me, so I don’t get a lot from it these days. But every so often I poke around a bit and find something.
Because of the 1099 thing I am careful not to just go in daily and request things - I don’t want to end up paying a chunk of taxes for things that I didn’t want! At the same time, the occasional time I can tell I’m browsing regular amazon because my brain wants the dopamine kick of shopping, I make myself go over to vine and look there. If I find something that I need/want ,then great! If not, great!
My wife orders a lot of long-sleeve T-shirts from Amazon. It seems she sends half of them back. I get the impression the trouble is mostly with China-made clothes being too small. (Or a couple of times, too big.)
I was a Vine reviewer 10+ years ago. I believe I was selected because I had reviewed various products and got “helpful” votes on my reviews. It started off with mostly books, then expanded to anything and everything. I got some pretty good stuff in return for reviewing it, like a Breville convection oven that I still use.
But as time went on more and more people were put into the program, and at 15:00 EST when the Vine newsletter emails were sent you had to be really quick or you wouldn’t get anything. A few times I found myself clicking on things I wasn’t really interested in just to get something.
Between that and when they started reporting the review items as taxable income I was out.
Anyway, it’s worth a shot, hopefully they have some sort of better allocation system now and the taxes won’t be a big deal.