Become an Amazon Product Reviewer: The Basics

Writing reviews on Amazon is a great way to earn free or nearly free products.  Wait, earn?  Yep, you read right.  Before you jump right into reviewing Amazon products, please educate yourself on the process and what an Amazon review should contain.

Let’s be real here for just a minute.  If you’re thinking you’re going to get thousands of dollars of products for free with no effort and minimal time, you’re sadly mistaken.  This isn’t one of those “too good to be true” scenarios, but an honest way to work and earn free or almost free products.

If you want to start reviewing Amazon products you have to become #1 product review site, you need to have good writing skills, a thorough understanding of the process, some basic tech knowledge, an Amazon Prime account and the time to review products {uh, obviously, but still}.  Most Amazon sellers want their review done within 1-2 weeks.  Amazon reviewers should have access to a phone or camera for review photos.  I set up my phone to automatically sync my photos to my computer to make the process easier.  If you’re including photos {which you should}, make sure you crop out background mess and rotate the photos the right direction.  Amazon sometimes uploads the photos turned sideways, so keep an eye on that.

Reviews should be well thought out, thorough and {most importantly} honest.  This business {and yes, it is a business} is dependent on the HONEST reviews of consumers.  After all, you don’t want to order a product only to find out the reviews were great but the product actually stinks do you?  Neither does anyone else.  If a product doesn’t meet your expectations, you need to be upfront about it.  Present consumers with the positive and negative aspects of products from an unbiased perspective {your review should be the same regardless of whether you were a paying consumer or you got the product for free in exchange for your review}.

If you receive a product for free or at a reduced rate in exchange for your review, you must, must, MUST say so {the FTC says so}.  Reviews should include a disclaimer at some point.  I usually make my disclaimer a standalone paragraph at the end of the review.  It’ll say something to the effect of:  I received this item for free {alternately: at a deeply discounted price} in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions shared are completely my own.

So, you really want to review Amazon products and understand that it’s a time commitment, huh? The next thing you want to do is update your Amazon profile.  Make sure to add your email address to your profile – companies will contact you directly requesting reviews once you’re established!

Here’s a look at part of my Amazon profile just for funsies… as you can see, I have a short bio and I invite companies to contact me via email.  My email address is located on my Amazon profile, as well as my social media links.

One very important thing to remember… see where it says helpful votes?  The more reviews you write + the more people that say your reviews are helpful = higher Amazon reviewer ranking = more review opportunities.

Once you’re all ready to go, researched up and have your Amazon profile updated, you just need to connect with Amazon sellers!  Check out the easiest way to connect with them and learn some more review tips here.

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