Amazon Reviewer Ranking 101: How It Works

Rick Wong 15 March 2021

Overview

Product reviews play a vital role in a product’s marketability across all market platforms including Amazon. According to Qualtic, 93% of customers read product reviews before buying a product. This is consistent with a study that states 93% of customers are impacted by online reviews on their purchase decisions. In addition, 3.3 stars is the minimum product star rating consumers would consider engaging in. This makes Amazon Reviewer Ranking incredibly important.

On the Amazon search results page and also on the product page, the product review is the first piece of information shown after the product title, right next to the number of total reviews. The price of the product only comes after.

SellerMetrics best Amazon PPC software - Product Ratings on Amazon Product Page

This goes to show that Amazon itself understands just how important these product ratings are for the customers.

Product reviews, particularly the positive ones, help drive conversion. It’s a social proof that the product works and reassurance of the product’s quality. For some consumers, it can serve as the deal-breaker.

Who are Qualified to Leave a Review?

Customer Reviews is part of Amazon’s Consumer Features together with Customer Questions, Customer Ideas, and Idea Lists. To be able to contribute to Customer Features and to follow other contributors, you need to have spent at least $50 on Amazon.com using a valid credit or debit card in the past 12 months.

Promotional discounts don’t count towards the $50 minimum purchase. The total purchase cost is being considered.

How to Submit a Review?

Amazon encourages every consumer to share their opinion, whether favorable or not. There are two areas where you can submit a product review. (1) On the product page of the item you’re leaving a feedback, and (2) via Your Orders page if you are reviewing an item that you purchased.

  1. Go to the product detail page of the item you are reviewing, or go to Your Orders if you have placed an order for the item.
  2. In the Customer Reviews section, click on Write a customer review.
  3. Select a Star Rating. You will know you’ve made a selection when you see a green checkmark.
  4. Add text, photos, or videos. This step is optional but is we highly recommend it.
  5. Click Submit.


Amazon Community Guidelines

Customer Reviews, along with other Community Features, are subject to Amazon Community Guidelines. Of course, we don’t want anyone manipulating the review system, and we also don’t want our review page to be filled with any social mess.

Here are some things to consider before writing a review:

  • Do not leave false, misleading, or inauthentic content.
  • Leave only relevant and helpful reviews based on your honest opinion and experience.
  • Reviews should be about the product.
  • Do not discuss alternative ordering methods.
  • Always be respectful of others.
  • No harassing, threatening, libelous, or defamatory information.
  • Do not use obscenities or profanity and don’t express hatred on the basis of race, nationality, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or age.
  • No obscene, pornographic, or lewd content.
  • Do not post other people’s private information, such as phone number, email address, mailing address, etc.
  • Don’t impersonate other people or organizations.
  • Do not engage in name-calling.
  • Advertising, promotion, or solicitation in any form is not allowed.
  • Do not post content that encourages or supports behavior that is illegal, including violence, fraud, illegal drug use, underage drinking, child or animal abuse.

For the full list of Amazon community guidelines, go here.

How to Check Your Reviewer Ranking?

If you have been leaving Customer Reviews for a while and curious to know what your Reviewer Ranking is, you can simply check your profile.

  1. Log on to your Amazon account.
  2. Hover on the tab on the upper right for Accounts & Lists (where it says Hello), then click on Account.
  3. Under Ordering and shopping preferences, click on Your Amazon profile.
  4. Your Reviewer Ranking should be under the About section.
SellerMetrics best Amazon PPC software - How to Check Your Amazon Reviewer Ranking

What is the Amazon Reviewer Rank?

Simply put, the Amazon Reviewer Rank is your Reviewer profile rank compared to the others. You may have noticed that there is an option to tell Amazon and other consumers whether a review was helpful or not. By simply clicking on the option “Yes” or “No,” which is known as a “vote,” you are influencing the quality of the review, which in turn is one of the many factors that Amazon uses to form a rank of reviewers.

Many users take time to submit quality reviews because of some of the perks associated with it, which includes:

  • The chance to try out new products free of charge.
  • Certain freebies, free samples, and free Amazon gift cards.
  • The opportunity to become a Hall of Famer Reviewer.

At the time of writing, here’s the list of the top ten Amazon Reviewers:

SellerMetrics best Amazon PPC software - Amazon Top Ten Reviewer Ranking

How is Amazon Reviewer Rank Calculated?

There are three key factors that affect Amazon Reviewer Rank. These factors are:

  1. The number of reviews the user has submitted.
  2. The quality of the reviews as indicated by the votes from other users (the “Yes” votes).
  3. How recent the reviews are.

The reviewer listings on Amazon are updated typically within one to three days, and thus the Reviewer Ranking is also updated as often. This is not a fixed schedule, however. At some points, ranks were not updated in a week and sometimes close to a month.

Users with more recent reviews score higher than those with a lot of reviews in the prior months or weeks. 

Also, it has been observed that negative votes (the “No” votes) do not impact much in the Reviewer Ranking. So long as you’re getting above 80% “Yes” votes, the negative votes are not something to worry about.

The Benefits of Having a High Reviewer Rank

We already mentioned about the freebies and the opportunity to try out new products and become part of the Hall of Famers. In addition to those, you will also earn certain badges for reaching a certain rank, like Top 100, Top 500, Top 1000, and so on.

Top reviewers also have the best chances of getting invited to Vine Voice, which is an Amazon program wherein sellers and reviewers are invited for some sort of product testing for pre-released items. These beta items are sent to Vine Voices free of charge for the reviewers’ honest feedback. Please note that this is an invitation-only program where the Reviewer Rank plays a crucial role on whether you’d get invited or not. There are other factors for consideration, like the quality of the reviews and the type of products being reviewed. 

Outside of Amazon programs, other companies also launch their beta testing programs and the pool of top Amazon Reviewers is normally part of their consideration.

Let’s take a look at some of the badges of our current #1 Hall of Fame Reviewer.

SellerMetrics best Amazon PPC software - Amazon Reviewer Rank Badges

How to Improve Your Amazon Reviewer Rank?

Quality, quantity, and consistency – these are the main key components to consider if you want to improve your Reviewer Rank. 

  • Quality – make sure you write honest, detailed, relevant, and helpful reviews. Add images and videos as much as possible, keeping them also helpful and relevant.
  • Quantity – Most of the users within the top 100 spots have reviews in the four-digit area, with the top 1 having over 7,000 product reviews. If you plan to top that, better start now. 
  • Consistency – One of the factors in the Reviewer Rank is how recent the reviews are. If you consistently submit quality reviews, then you’ll never be old.

Take note that since November of 2016, Amazon has put a limit of 5 reviews per user per week. 

Of course, it is imperative that you abide by the Amazon Community Guidelines. 

Final Thoughts

The review system is an effective way to gauge product quality – and product authenticity, especially since fake products have started getting sold online. It is also a way to really help out other consumers by providing them awareness, transparency, and the power of information, so they can be guided on making educated choices when it comes to purchasing products.

While it is much exciting to be part of beta testing programs, like the Amazon Vine, being able to use pre-released products and receiving these products for free, the main point of writing a review is still to be helpful. Keep that in mind with all of your reviews and you’ll definitely be a top-ranked reviewer.

We are SellerMetrics, our Amazon PPC Software helps Amazon sellers, brands, KDP Authors and agencies navigate Amazon Advertising PPC via bid automation, bulk manual bid changes, and analytics.

Sources

  1. Amazon Community Guidelines
  2. Amazon’s Top Customer Reviewers
  3. AMZ Discover
  4. Steady VG
  5. Amazon Vine Program

Categories

Tags

RSS

You may be interested
in these articles