This involves an explanation of why the vine program exists. This history is pieced together from information provided by old viners as understood by me.
In 2007 amazon launched vine voices, the purpose of this program was to give sellers a chance to get a leg up on getting (somewhat) guaranteed reviews for product.. Sellers live and die by reviews. Many people will not purchase products form listing without reviews (good or bad). Initially the program was vastly different from what it is today. Viners were hand picked based on the quality of their reviews. Emails were sent out 2 times a month with lists of products you could select. You chose a product and they sent it to them totally free. There were no tiers and it was basically first come first served.
Reviews were required to be done in 30 days. Amazon hosted an online discussion board. In 2015 the IRS decided that viners had to pay taxes on the items received. In 2016 the process changed to basically what it is now. The forums were shut down and moved elsewhere (more later). In or around 2023 the 30 day deadline went away, and the tier system was implemented. I do not know exactly when viners started being selected at random. If you think you were selected based on how well you wrote that last review, well you would be wrong.
In the early days of the program most if not all the products offered were established and well know name brands. At some point in the mid to late 2000 tons of word salad brands started appearing on amazon. This Article explains in more detail, but the TLDR is that amazon requires sellers to have a registered trademarked name chinese sellers don't give a shit about what names they use so that's why you will see all manner of strange meaningless and almost vulgar brands.
As amazon became flooded with these fly by night sellers and their sub standard products the quality of stuff showing up in vine plummeted. China is inundated with companies that make almost anything you want to whatever price point you want, and the chinese government helps them. Now don't get me wrong there are good quality products in vine, but it all depends on what you are looking for, what tier you are, and how fast you are in deciding to order.
Understand that selling on amazon is cut throat. Sellers use all manner of tactics against each other, and to game the system and promote their products.
Sellers buy each others products, and then leave 1 star reviews, they hire shills to purchase products, or bribe customers with gift cards that pay only after you leave a 5 star review. They have cronies leave unverified purchase 5 star reviews, and 1 star reviews. They report each other to amazon because amazon will shut them down or take down a product, and the process to get something back online is mired in poor customer support, bad communication, and computer/AI automation. So for sellers on amazon a total average review score of less than 4 stars is basically a death sentence for that product. If a seller has too many low star reviews then amazon will stop promoting the product or even take it down.
The main reason why most products are junk is that as I stated before chinese companies will make you a product as good, or as shitty as you will pay them to. Sellers list a product with a finite inventory, try to sell as much as fast as they can, while avoiding as many returns as they can, and then shutting down and never carrying that product again (under that brand name). If amazon cracks down on a seller, they just shutdown. change address, names, brands, and re-open as something new. We as reviewers and consumers pay the price for that.
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