There are times when even after having purchased a product and posted your review, you still don’t get the Verified Purchase badge. How do you fix this issue, and why does this badge matter so much in the first place? Let’s dive into why some purchases aren’t verified, and what you can do.
Why Verified Purchase Reviews Are Important
Let’s backtrack a moment. What is an Amazon Verified Purchase review, and why is it so important?
Take it right from their definition: The buyer has used or bought the product via Amazon, and they’ve paid a price that is “available to most Amazon shoppers”.
Being a Verified Purchase matters a lot. It’s confirmation that the buyer has actually bought the product, and Amazon treats these reviews with greater significance. When looking at reviews, they’ll let you filter to just Verified Purchases. They carry greater weight on Amazon algorithms. Getting a positive Verified Purchase review on a product can make or break a product’s performance. And on the reviewer’s end, it means that Amazon treats your purchases with importance.
With all that said, it’s all the more jarring to not get it.
Why Reviews Don’t Get Verified
Okay, so you’ve bought something on Amazon, you have it in your hand, you post a review. Despite this, you still don’t get the Verified Purchase badge on the review. What happened?
Amazon doesn’t post your review instantly, which you may already have noticed. The usual hold period is 72 hours while they look into it, and in some cases, this could take up to 14 days. But it’s still possible to get through the holding period and yet come out without a Verified Purchase sticker.
There are a few reasons Amazon might not put the badge on. They may have flagged your account for suspicious activity, or it might be a technical issue on their end that rendered them unable to connect your review to your transaction. These, you can still try and resolve with Amazon.
Sale Price
Remember the second qualifier for a Verified Purchase: that you bought the product at a price “available to most Amazon shoppers”. That carries a lot more weight than the words normally indicate.
Put simply, you need to have bought the product at its regular price, or very close to it. This means you should be careful about using discount coupons and Amazon gift cards. Using a discount coupon to take off more than 15% or 20% of the price disqualifies your review from Verified Purchase status. Using Amazon gift cards is even worse, since any amount at all paid with a gift card disqualifies the purchase.
However, it also works on the seller’s end of the purchase. If you purchase the product while it’s at a discounted price, that is also likely disqualifying. Small discounts may still let you have the Verified Purchase badge, but to be on the safe side, best to wait until the item is at regular price before you buy it if you want to have the badge on your review. Be careful how you buy.
Amazon Vine
If you’re an Amazon Vine participant, there’s another possibility: You may have too many reviews in a week. You can do up to five unverified reviews per week, resetting every Sunday.
The thing is that reviews made through the Vine portal count toward this limit. Thus, if you do more than five Vine reviews and then review a non-Vine purchase before the limit resets, you’ll get an error saying that you’ve submitted the maximum number of non-Amazon Verified Purchase reviews for the week. In this case, the solution is simple; wait until Sunday. You’ll be able to submit normal Verified Purchase reviews afterward.
How To Get The Verified Purchase Badge Back
Resolving the issue and putting the label back on your review may be possible, depending on the cause. If it’s your Vine reviews, just wait until Sunday for your limit to refresh, and make sure to do normal Amazon reviews first. If it’s a matter of discounts, you’re out of luck – try to get it at regular price next time. But if it’s neither of those, there’s still a chance to put the Verified Purchase badge back on your review. Contact Amazon support and see if they might be able to help you out.
Conclusion
Amazon Verified Purchase reviews make a lot of difference to both sellers and buyers because these reviews are considered more reliable, so finding out that your review doesn’t have the badge can be a daunting situation. Fortunately, there are ways to fix it.
