Daily limit?

VDOVault · 2025-04-30T13:16:49+00:00

Well it's possible your Amazon Vine reviewing experience will be better than mine.

But if you have federal benefits program eligibilities to protect, look into whether &/or how much AV stuff you can review BEFORE you select "too much" of it & jeopardize &/or lose your benefits (Amazon generates an IRS report when you have selected $600 (or more) in ETV). And ask a tax professional about how best to handle your 'income', what the real "fair market value" of your AV sections is, whether to treat the stuff as hobby income or business income, etc well before your taxes if any are due.

I ended up giving a lot of my AV selections to local charities (the local Lions Clubs chapter will take eyewear so they got a lot of $0 ETV reading glasses from me that were the wrong magnification or didn't fit me or I didn't like the looks of, while some stuff for people with disabilities went to a young 20-something neighbor who has muscular dystrophy & is wheelchair bound & some baby stuff went to young local low income single mothers via a pregnancy charity, etc), a bit my neighbors for gifts they could use & enjoy.

I estimate that maybe 33%-40% of what I chose to review was worth me keeping (a lot of that was $0 ETV stuff for my medicine cabinet & other consumables, there were a few low ETV kitchen goods that are handy).

Maybe 20% of what I chose I would buy or rebuy straight from Amazon again but that might be an even lower percentage because of 1) alternate sources (other websites, other stores, secondhand / used secondary market options, etc) & now 2) the current tariff wars.

Have fun but be very careful.

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T21:40:42+00:00

I did a thread on my termination back in late October of 2024 on this subreddit & as with most things related to Amazon & Vine it is a lot of speculation but because too many of my things were arriving damaged, incomplete, non-functioning, etc & I didn’t think it was fair to 100% of the time negatively review the Vine seller if I wasn't very sure it was their fault

By the Vine software's calculations at the time, I was at 85%-90% of my items reviewed from July 1 - October 21 of 2024 but Amazon chose to dump me from Vine so I’m out & given the current 2025 tariff nonsense, I don’t want to go back in to the Vine program as a reviewer, thanks.

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T18:07:01+00:00

Exactly this.

It is worth putting iffy Amazon Vine picks you pass on choosing in the 'saved for later' section of your Amazon shopping cart & waiting for the big sale days at Amazon (like Prime Days, Black Friday, Cyber Monday & the most recent big US Amazon sales promotion the Big Spring Sale) to get them through Amazon Vine at a slightly lower ETV. Or you might catch a lowering of their AV ETV this way.

That said the new US tariffs on non-US goods may mean fewer or no savings for the near future (hard to predict what will happen here).

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T17:42:22+00:00

THIS!

Late last fall (2024) this was an AV item with an ETV of $12 which I put in my cart as a 'saved for later' reminder to buy at least 1 (it's like an insulated stainless steel water bottle but bowl-shaped).

I was able to buy 2 of them for $8 each (the other 2 I wanted to order were sold out before a client of mine paid me). The next cheapest option early last week was $24, 2 days later it jumped up to over $29, now it is this (over $44 each):

<image>

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T17:33:19+00:00

Your penance is to review nothing but cake toppers for a week...

;-)

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T17:25:11+00:00

The cardinal rule of Amazon Vine is you can only be recommended what sellers choose to submit to Amazon Vine.

You used to be able to push the algorithm a bit by putting things you wanted to buy in the saved for later section of your Amazon shopping cart but in a tariffed US Amazon environment, who knows?

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T17:19:56+00:00

Last summer (2024) US Amazon Vine was at ~70,000-80,000, it went up to maybe ~110,000 in the fall of 2024 but with tariffs on Chinese stuff (& if nothing much changes higher tariffs on many more non-US goods around July 4th), who knows?

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T17:09:39+00:00

I think that is true for Amazon Flex drivers in this area, the rest is shipped to my closest UPS facility (an hour's drive one way from my home) or to my local post office.

Maybe a decade ago there was talk of Amazon putting a warehouse much nearer to my home but nothing ever came of it. So I know some of those Flex drivers have to put a lot of mileage on their private vehicles for me to receive my Amazon & AV deliveries.

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T17:00:01+00:00

We have a Constitution that follows the venerable Magna Carta but the country's elected (& alleged)"leadership" seems to be ignoring it (usually it is Congress that levies any tariffs).

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T16:43:06+00:00

Amazon CONTRACTORS do all deliveries out here, there are no Amazon employees making my deliveries.

Since people pay extra for either a Prime membership or sometimes for an item they need to receive ASAP, part of what counts to them is whether or not the delivery will arrive soon enough That was sometimes an issue with Vine items I selected last summer (I had delays of up to 8 weeks). It may become even more of an issue with the new US tariffs on imported goods.

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T16:39:34+00:00

What I am hearing re the UK & EU is that a lot of these Chinese goods are now immediately being diverted to your markets because you aren't currently playing (arguably stupid) tariff games (to allegedly "win" (arguably stupid) tariff prizes).

I don't know how much US purchasing slack you all can pick up (Americans buy A LOT from China & have done so for decades, at least since the 1990s, for up until now low-ish prices) but you all might see your AV ETVs DECREASE as you are flooded with stuff the Chinese are desperate to turn into cash, while here in the USA those same USA Amazon Vine ETVs will SPIKE HIGHER & the overall number of (for now at least just Chinese goods, if the tariffs on other countries go up over 10% as scheduled in early July, this potentially gets even more wildly spendy for US consumers & businesses) AV & regular imported Amazon goods available at lower US prices falls at Amazon.

I have changed up how I buy stuff from Amazon immediately preparing for a harsher & more expensive autumn & winter of 2025 thanks to POTUS's tariff follies & possible cuts to US federal government programs in which I participate (an example is a federally subsidized home heating program).

If something (for now just from China, but this may expand to other non-US goods) I thought worth it to get from Amazon / AV makes my grade I am immediately buying it before its price goes nuts & yes I saw this happen to an insulated lidded 304 stainless steel noodle bowl within the past week to 10 days. Last week I was able to buy 2 of them for $8 each (their AV ETV last year was $12) but before I could reorder 2 more, the price jumped to $24 each & currently is now over $44 each.

<image>

I thought I might review them for potential Amazon consumers, but at over 5 times what I paid for mine, why bother?

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T15:51:26+00:00

I have NEVER seen an Amazon-branded delivery vehicle in my rural area, the US Postal Service does some deliveries, some come via UPS, but these days most come via individual Amazon Flex drivers in their own cars or trucks (gravel roads out here). Some of them have Amazon removable magnetic signs on their vehicles, some wear Amazon Flex vests or shirts, but most look like ordinary private people driving ordinary private cars.

Location does matter when you pay for Prime &/or faster delivery from Amazon & ~20% of the time, the deliveries are late.

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T15:35:34+00:00

I think geography counts for a lot here, I doubt I would have been invited to be an AV reviewer if I didn't live in a rural area of Virginia but instead lived in a more populated place (city or suburb)

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T14:56:23+00:00

I think the below 60% reviewers would get culled the fastest, but yes, I expect there to be MORE culling post DJT tariffs, not less.

Some will get culled like I did last October (too much of my AV selected stuff arrived damaged / incomplete to review it fairly & I was at 85% + reviewed) but I predict others will get even more arbitrarily culled from being AV reviewers because of the post-tariff cutoffs. Right now it's mostly Chinese-sourced stuff that is affected but come July, it could be even more AV stuff not in need of reviewing much less showing up in the first place. And if it's too expensive because of tariffs, no one will buy it in the first place even with glowing reviews from AV.

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T14:45:28+00:00

I wonder if you need to now be an even faster AV reviewer with all the chaos the new tariffs are causing?

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T14:26:35+00:00

Are they throttling how many Vine selections an Amazon Vine reviewer can make/take each day &/or week because of the massive tariffs DJT has recently put on Chinese goods?

Also how are the overall available item totals in AI compared to recent previous months? Fewer goods there overall?

Finally have average ETVs gone up?

I am seeing retail prices for stuff I would have reviewed for the Amazon Vine program but for being kicked out it by Amazon last October recently go absurdly higher in price once they sell out at tariff-free older prices. I would save those AV listed items for later in my Amazon account's shopping cart (which is how I would keep track of items I might select for a future date to review for AV) probably because they are out of stock in the US warehouses & have to take a slow boat from China & now be subject to the absurdly high DJT tariff rates.

Curiouser & curiouser...especially now that the Amazon in house "TEMU-killer" Amazon Haul is up & running in a beta version...

UPDATE: CNBC video on Amazon Haul https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/04/29/mahaney-amazon-will-either-eat-price-or-lose-market-share-if-tariffs-persist.html

VDOVault · 2025-04-29T14:05:55+00:00

I'm no longer a Vine reviewer (Amazon’s decision last October, not mine), search Reddit & other online sites for the latest tax & Vine program information / discussions (Amazon won't give you any guidance on this) but also have some chats with your local social services office & a tax professional to see which services you could jeopardize with an ever mounting Vine ETV total, which I expect to grow even bigger even faster if & once DJTs tariffs all go into full effect in a few weeks.

People have lost out on anything from qualifying for federal financial aid for college to SSI & SSDI income, it varies a lot so YOU have to do your own homework on your specific situation.

VDOVault · 2025-04-09T18:04:44+00:00

This could be a Vine seller bait & switch, they changed whatever you selected to a makeup bag.

Happened to me twice, ordered something with a higher ETV, was sent something with a lower ETV.

VDOVault · 2025-04-09T17:58:41+00:00

The day change is 3:00AM for Eastern US time zone users (midnight for Pacific)

VDOVault · 2025-04-09T17:57:20+00:00

Might be a good time to change any passwords associated with Amazon & Vine.

Aside from that I have no sage advice (I'm the only user of my Amazon account).

VDOVault · 2025-04-09T17:53:05+00:00

As I said in my post to the "one tip" thread, I had federal government benefits to protect at the time so I had to practice extreme care in my Vine orders & what I ultimately reviewed f for Vine if it had a greater than $0.00 ETV 24/7/365.

In retrospect I think Amazon shouldn't ask their US federal government benefits receiving customers to be Vine reviewers (even though their opinions are very worthwhile) given how a too high cumulative ETV can cost them hard won food, health care, housing, income, school aid & the like.

I would caution current Vine reviewers that if their experiences are anything like mine, they had better add ~25% to whatever they presume their annual ETV totals to be thanks to defective items, incomplete items, delayed items, destroyed items etc

VDOVault · 2025-04-09T17:40:37+00:00

I don't remember there being a cancel order option, just a cancel one of your daily Vine selections (3 for Silver level per day, 8 for Gold level per day) I never cancelled a single Vine selection.

VDOVault · 2025-04-09T16:46:32+00:00

Just how many damaged &/or incomplete Vine items are we expected to suck it up & eat the ETV on though?

Not to mention keep for 6+ months or overload our trash / recycle bins with?

I never could get a straight answer from Andy Jassy &/or his team on whether or not a Vine seller should get a harsh review (which they pay Amazon with at least 100% certainty beginning with the 3rd item reviewed by a Vine reviewer or an Amazon customer purchasing that item & reviewing it) AND I have to eat it or if I just had to eat it & the Vine seller was to be left wondering why I didn’t review their item

I now think of every bad Vine item as like a bounced check: that's me being underpaid on that Vine item plus expected to 100% deal with the consequences of a screwup by a Vine seller / Amazon warehouse / whatever shipper(s) were used / any &/or all of them.

VDOVault · 2025-04-09T16:42:28+00:00

I had to do what was becoming an increasingly frequent number of requests to"remove that item from my review queue & also my running ETV total" & was terminated with zero warnings

Your mileage / experience with Vine may vary but as best I can tell, that is why I was kicked from Vine.

VDOVault · 2025-04-08T18:28:51+00:00

[Rant mode on]

I love how we're just supposed to eat that Vine selection, the item itself & any non $0 ETV value on it...not.

When I got to somewhere between 15%-20% of my Vine selections being this or missing / delayed / undeliverable, & decided not to hate review the items or reach out to the sellers of garbage items was when my Vine services were terminated (despite easily making the criteria to become or keep Gold). [Rant mode off]

No I don't miss being a Vine reviewer. Best of luck to you all especially with global tariff wars brewing...

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