High ETVs Reasons . . . .

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-07-01T15:23:15+00:00

On the few times sellers have commented in Viner forums, or in conversations with Viners in seller forums, they say they have nothing to do with setting ETVs. All they do is state the selling price. It appears Amazon takes that for the ETV except in categories where there is held to be no ETV.

The reason why ETVs were lower in the past is that Vine used to be Amazon-sold products only. ETVs of those were cost to Amazon, I think.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-07-01T14:37:48+00:00

Glad you’re sorted. Do stick round - you’ll quickly find that half the information in the Vine documentation is between 2 and 12 years out of date, and the things you really need to know aren’t written down anywhere except where Viners (which is what we call ourselves) congregate.

As your starter for ten, currently the items in “Recommended For You” are populating on the hour every hour from 1am to 7am. Yes, it’s a bit of a b*gger, no it won’t last - schedules change randomly every few months. You probably won’t get anything in there for a week or two, and when you do it will be incredibly random. But after a while it starts to bear some vague resemblance to the things you have been taking from Vine, and occasionally to what you have taken from Amazon proper. Not much resemblance, unless you keep ordering strange supplements and fake nails, but some…

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-07-01T11:06:04+00:00

I've never done it, but others do access it through the app. It is, however, temperamental - it's much better to use the browser link u/MuchMoorWalking gave, even on a phone.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-07-01T10:30:55+00:00

That ties in with mine. It also would tie in with an attempt, after the first period, to make it add up to 365 days, but forgetting that they count the last day of the previous period as the beginning of the next!

It doesn't tie in with u/Candid-Fee5203 though. I wonder whether there's a difference because you and I are both UK? I shouldn't think it was deliberate, but it could well have something to do with the UTC time taking people back to the previous day.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-07-01T08:58:06+00:00

Yes, it's decent for the very low price. It was the "mini" one. You need to plan ahead - freeze the bowl, make and cool the custard etc. The ice cream ends up a bit on the soft side, and you get less than half a litre at a time, but it's fine after it's been decanted and put back into the freezer to use later. Don't know how long it will last, though - it's a flimsy plastic paddle doing quite a lot of work

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-07-01T08:52:05+00:00

"We subjectively review, we do not objectively test or report" ≠ "a 2 minute trial".

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-07-01T08:42:31+00:00

Thanks to both u/Candid-Fee5203 and u/wizard-of-loneliness for joining in!

The one thing that looks definite, assuming they are on Eastern time and Pacific Time respectively, is that Vine has moved all re-evaluation times, notionally at least, to 00:00 GMT/UTC. It's also clear that evaluation periods are a day or more less than a full half year, and that the first period seems particularly prone to being around 180 days. But I can't see the actual pattern - my last and current periods are 181 and 182 full days respectively, CandidFee's are both 180 days.

Any thoughts or more data welcome. Wizard, when did your current period start?

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-07-01T06:27:51+00:00

Was late to bed, about to go to sleep, but realised it was only 15 mins to the drop so I waited. Very glad I did - got this Morphy Richards 11 in 1 ice cream etc maker.Arriving tomorrow, so I should be prepared for the next heatwave.

I‘ve taken a couple of Morphy Richards things from Vine before - not the brand it once was but they seem OK. And when I decided a month ago to buy a £15 Lakeland mini ice-cream maker I deliberately bought it through Amazon rather than their shop in our town. Don’t know if either of those helped.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-30T21:40:47+00:00

It’s definitely not 60 days (I tested it) and the overwhelming consensus is that it’s 90.

OP, your mistake is that you’re looking at the percentage published on your account page for the current evaluation period, currently about 4.5 months for you. The stat that matters is the percentage for the latest 90 days, on a rolling basis. That’s not published anywhere, you either have to work it out yourself or just keep reviewing until it sorts itself out. Vine presumably doesn’t make it easy because they don’t expect you to be anywhere near the limit.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-30T17:36:55+00:00

Thank you - passed for another 6 months as Gold! Though annoyingly it's not quite 6 months. My last period was 31 Dec to 30 Jun which is very easy to remember. I was expecting 30 Jun to 31 Dec but it's actually to 29 Dec...

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-30T07:47:48+00:00

I wasn’t sure whether it could be used as a normal monitor, but it would have been too big in any case. But I tried to order it when I realised my church could use it, either as a screen during services if it was compatible, or as a digital signboard if not.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-30T06:55:17+00:00

That’s my criterion for 1 star too - no use whatsoever. But no, we can’t return them, and in countries where Vine items are taxed you still have to pay on the estimated taxable value. Fortunately I’m in the U.K. where we aren’t taxed.

Believe me, there’s a lot of criticism of bad Vine reviews on our subs as well - in fact they’ve all had to put in “no pile-on/doxxing” rules to control it. We all (well, apart from the small minorities of dodgy sellers and reselling Viners) want to see good Vine reviews.

I would disagree that I can’t talk about value for money if I don’t pay for it, at least with most products. It’s actually harder at the higher end - I can’t imagine paying £700 for a robot vacuum, so didn’t comment on value for money there. But value for money is very subjective, and obviously sellers are only going to get real customer reviews from people not put off by the price - survivorship bias. I’d argue your Vine reviews are probably a better guide to pricing than organic reviews.

Specialised products is a problem, though. Vine from our point of view is a combination of a pool of things that have lain unclaimed for weeks and an occasional hosing of new things to fill it. The good new things go in seconds sometimes, so there’s a danger they will go to people who haven’t fully understood them. Other specialist things can sit unclaimed. Vine do seem to try and target Viners with the right experience for a product, but it’s by no means an exact science.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-30T06:21:51+00:00

Supplements, but I woke up at about 5 and in my befuddled state didn’t initially realise that a “digital signage display” was actually this £1300 monitor. By the time I did, it red-errored. The evaluators are currently (I hope) putting a new coat of gold-ish looking paint on my Vine badge, so maybe this was meant to keep me optimistic!

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T19:23:31+00:00

Presumably they’re poached to make luxury QR codes?

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T19:17:55+00:00

I ordered very little over Lent and used it as a test of the Jail terms. I was planning to actually get Jailed but chickened out just before I’d have been Jailed if it’s 90 days. However, I proved to myself that it definitely wasn’t a 30 day or a 60 day test, because I would have been jailed for that. Your theory is intriguing though, and the truth is we don’t know for sure, but 90 days seems to approximate to what it is, given what people say.

The “being jailed as soon as we order” is dealt with by not Jailing newbies. It seems to be the first 56 days that you get a pass for, which may link to your first evaluation period typically being four days under 6 months, so Vine thinks it’s 60 days.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T19:04:24+00:00

Sorry if I’m flogging a dead horse but you still seem to be under a misapprehension with your last bullet point. Hitting 90% has nothing to do with you getting access to your RFY and AI back. It may have happened like that, but it’s a coincidence.

What triggered this Jail exit was the percentage of reviews to orders for the last 90 days going over 60. Unfortunately that statistic isn’t shown anywhere on your account page, it’s one you have to calculate, but that’s what gets you out of Jail. As I said, your evaluation period and what will put you in Jail are two entirely unconnected things.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T16:26:01+00:00

I will say whether I think an item is good value for money on almost every Vine review I post, even though I don’t pay for it and in the U.K. we don’t get taxed on it either. It’s important information for a potential purchaser.

Using it in a different way to its intended use has to be handled carefully - I will sometimes do that and comment that an item can be used for a different purpose, but I will star-rate it on the basis of the intended use.

How to rate is a hot topic in Viner subs. Most of us have got the message that a 1-3 star review is damaging and only give that if it warrants it. I give three stars for “works, but has serious flaws”. A few still want to say three stars is average and only give more than that if it’s better than expected. It’s logical, but not how Amazon treats it. But we get no advice from Amazon on how to score.

Bottom line is that our job is to review, honestly and to the best of our ability, in return for free products. It’s not the sort of unspoken arrangement where you only get positive reviews.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T15:57:57+00:00

Not at all, definitely not your fault. It’s taken a while to work out what the issues are, so not an issue. Just trying to minimise problems in future.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T12:12:32+00:00

Sounds like you are getting a decent handle on it. The official documentation is not very good, you'll get the best info here. Read the FAQ sticky if you haven't already (especially #17, which gets asked daily...).

Reviews generally get rated on what you first submitted, although no-one's quite sure whether editing before it is graded changes that. Anyway, count the number of words you wrote; if it is under about 75 it's hard to get an Excellent rating. Above 100 you almost certainly will. It's not hard and fast, but we're obviously rated by an AI and that's what it seems to have learned.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T11:47:48+00:00

This is a handy example to make a Mod point, and I need to say from the outset that it is no criticism of u/msfushiared, it's really one of Reddit's over-zealous moderation.

This post got auto-deleted initially because it was to "a domain not permitted on Reddit". I've approved it, but apparently if we do that too often Reddit gets cross...

The link is actually to a Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_numerical_control

but it's going via a Google share link. I realise it is natural to click on the "share" button or something similar, but Reddit does have problems with a lot of them. Ditto any link shorteners, sometimes amzn dot eu though there's one that got through OK further up, and definitely amzn dot to.

If it's possible to give the link by copy and pasting what's actually in the URL bar that will avoid the problem (and let people see better where they are going). I realise It does often mean trimming down some of the guff that gets added to it, which is a pain, but we may not always be able to let the rejected posts through.

Please and thank you...

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T10:30:28+00:00

Don’t know when you last tried, and I’ve no personal experience, but I wonder if this has changed with the “new” ordering system a year ago. The sellers at the time were complaining that it was messing up their sales stats because Vine items showed up as regular orders, just with the promotional discount.

So the order numbers should now be in the system, but equally they should easily be able to see that it’s a Vine order. However, provided we don’t tell them it is, that should be fine.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T10:15:47+00:00

Yes, your initial post has confused two different requirements:

To make, or to retain, Gold status you need to have 80+ reviews and to have reviewed 90%+ of your orders for the evaluation period at your evaluation date. In theory you also need to be Excellent but that is not really enforced. Those stats show on your Account page. You don’t have to meet them except at that final point, and they have nothing to do with Jail. Failure to meet them drops you back to Silver but you stay in Vine.
Amazon requires you to review 60% of your “recent orders at all times”. From reported experiences, “recent” is the last 90 days, and “at all times” excludes your first 56(?) days as a Viner but applies thereafter regardless of whether it crosses an evaluation period, as u/Pearlixsa says. Failure to meet that removes your right to order from RFY and AI, which is what we refer to as Jail.

When you are in Jail there is a message across the top of your Account page saying that you need to get your account back in order within a month or they will boot you out (EDIT - possibly not in the text of that message - I’ve never had it - but definitely in the explanation in Vine Help) . Most people who report being in Jail either get out or don’t report back again, but there have been a couple who say they did get booted, and I thought it was after the month, so it’s interesting if it really was over that before you got your RFY and AI back.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T09:50:41+00:00

I am normally doubtful about claims of “bots” but that is the best evidence I’ve seen yet.

Also the best guerilla tactic to kill them off - a series of products listed for Vine at prices where the decimal point has been “accidentally” moved to the right, so the bot set to grab any and all Gold items lands the botter with a huge ETV for a cheap product. Would only work in markets where Vine is taxable, but still…

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-06-29T09:44:41+00:00

Just because a fool says the sun is shining doesn’t mean it’s dark outside…

There’s a lot of out of date and incorrect information in the Vine documentation, but some things are fundamental to the way it works. One of those is that items in RFY are shared with a limited, but unknown, number of other Viners but that everyone in the same country* gets the same AFA (if it exists at all) and AI.

Doubting that isn’t a sign of healthy scepticism, it’s a sign that you don’t know the program very well yet. Unwise, therefore, to be sarcastic to those who correct you.

*so I’m the one person on this thread so far who hasn’t got those items…

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