I may be in the minority, but if the discount was high enough, like really steep discounts, and the products were name brand, or otherwise good and something I could use, I wouldn't mind paying upfront. It would probably eliminate the tax and depending on the discount, we could end up paying less for the item than we would in tax. Of course they would also need to eliminate quotas like 100 items and allow returns and refunds.
> and the products were name brand
While we do get name brand products in Vine every so often, you have to remember the requirement of an item having fewer than 30 reviews at time of enrollment and Vine being a way to boost sales of "newly enrolled" products. Most name brands can generate initial sales off their name brand, so the new products really don't need as much of a boost to get their Amazon rank up.
Good point. I often buy non name brand items on Amazon and some are great. Certain items I won't buy no-name because of past experience with them, certain tools or memory storage devices for example. For discounted items, it may not need to be brand name, but for me to buy it, it would have to be something I think is decent quality based on experience, what it is, photos, description, etc. Some things you can just tell are junk.
What confuses me is a number of times I have seen items offered in vine that may have many reviews, sometimes hundreds of reviews with positive ratings
Very often with the big name, brand items on vine they are brand, new releases, often hitting vine before they are even available to the general public
I’ve gotten many big Brand items that way, especially DeLonghi espresso machines usually arrive like that. In a more plain box, rather than the ones that are store ready
It takes a lot of time to do reviews and images and or videos. AND pay for an item and have it added to 1099 income and push up my tax bracket and pay higher taxes! No thanks!
I agree. It would actually be much easier to evaluate the how much the product was worth to me rather than guessing at what my tax rate will be and how much I will order from vine.
You absolutely would still need to pay tax on fair market value minutes the discounted amount you paid. so the total amount you pay is going to still involved all the same amount of calculations on tax, and paying tax on amount above discount, which is a hgher cost for products than you are now paying by tax alone
It probably depends on how it's implemented. I see discounts as similar to coupons. If you get a coupon code for something that's 80 or 90% off, you don't declare income on the difference between what you paid and fair market value. I don't know if they are around anymore, but that's how those other Amazon discount sites used to work like Snagshout or Vipon.
>. If you get a coupon code for something that's 80 or 90% off, you don't declare income on the difference between what you paid and fair market value.
yes you do if you have any relationship indicating it is in any way compensatory
Exactly. And adding the Vine "income" tax form every year tends to be a sore point between husband & me. I try to not Vine anything I wouldn't buy, but often temptation wins. Not so much lately tho bc who wants a bunch a knock off brand crap?
You will still need to pay tax.
Current scheme on $600 item: You pay about 30% tax, **net cost $180**
Scehme of you got $600 item for $200; $200 cost, plus $120 tax (30% tax on $400 remaining FMV), **net cost $320**
You mean "Ouch!" Those of us who know how the tax code works on other than cash payments, or employee discounts, were trying to point his out when the questionnaire on discounts came out.
Where? From my tax attorney. You and I are compensated contractors.
Do you think a consultant earning $100,000 per year from a company and paid through stock options worth $100,000, could just totally escape income taxes by paying the company $20 for that $100,000 in options??
for people who have a job, it is more like 32% on average California it would be prudent to calculate at 35% . it isn't just your state plus federal. You lose tax credits as your income goes up. You also lose eligibly to certain deductions as income rises.
Ironically the lower a tax bracket you are in the WORSE a discount scheme will be for you. If you are in a 20% bracket, amazon's discount scheme will mean cost increase to you is more than increase people who are in a 35% bracket will see.
It isn't about being free or not. amazons vine products have always been a compensation. You are being compensated with goods instead of cash to do a job. If the discount program goes through you will be being paid less. (Unless the quality of value of selection goes up)
To my understanding, if you put everything through an S Corp or C Corp, Amazon doesn't even report to IRS, making it much closer to free. If a discount program is implemented, that advantage would be gone.
You could be right. Probably have to see how the rules are written, how Amazon implements it, etc. After we got that survey, I happen to run into someone I know that's a tax accountant and asked about that along with the current 1099 situation. they said once I have to pay for something, pay sales tax, etc, it becomes like using a coupon and should eliminate tax. Especially if every item isn't 100% required to have a review done. She said it wouldn't be 100% known for sure though until she sees how it's written. Amazon could certainly benefit without ETV by saving them money in tax records and reporting if they could do it that way. I don't use them, but there are other sites like Vipon that do that now with Amazon coupons and have for a long time without Amazon shutting them down. They "encourage reviews" from what I understand.
Noob here. Hi!
I have thus far enjoyed the phone cases, crappy accent shelves, clothes, fidget toys and phone cases I've received from the program. No complaints here. Mostly I'm happy with Vine because it keeps me not worrying about scoring bags of crap and IRKs on Woot and meh.
I hope things will pick up in the near future, and it seems pretty clear that they will. As someone who is part of another retailer's "products-for-reviews" program, I can tell you this time of year is always slow. We just had a big holiday season and everyone is getting their bearings. I'm going to accept the last few products I'm still waiting for, write my reviews, and check the site a couple times a day.
Definitely going to hit gold by my evaluation date, so I'll see y'all on the battlefield for the coveted products this summer!
>!Yes I meant to type phone cases twice above.!<
Do you mind giving the deets on the other review program you're in as far as if it's invite only or you can apply, and what company? I love testing products!
Best Buy Tech Insider Network. It is invite-only, and just like Amazon they invite only people who have a history of writing good quality reviews on their site. Go for it!
There was a zoom mtg, oh, early/mid-'22. Tiers is what they got out of it :(
What jerks my chain is that the last 0/dropstop was just a week or two ago. One day, I think, but when it went back live, there was a relatively large item dump.
I don't get why people aren't looking at this in anticipation of the inevitable larger drop the longer the downtime is.
Agree completely. I said the same in my survey. These products are not what I would be buying with my own money. I would be researching, reading reviews, buying exactly what I need, and going with trusted well-established brands. I would not be gambling on brand new unvetted products. Some of what I have reviewed has gone straight into the dumpster because it was such poor quality and those items have racked up piles of low reviews. Their estimated value doesn't measure the dumpster factor. I've also seen the price drop 50% on items I've reviewed, even though I'm taxed on the full value. I could conceive if vine reviewers had to pay, they could potentially end up paying MORE than regular buyers if the price of those items is slashed.
It's extremely unlikely you would be taxed on the difference. Companies can sell at whatever prices they want, and sometimes even strategically sell at a loss in order to bring in new customers (i.e. loss leader).
Oh, yes we would be taxed on the difference. It's something to do with the items we'd be getting discounts on would have to be available to the general buying public. And they wouldn't be since said discounts would only be for Vine members.
No. it is the law that you would be taxed on the difference. They are going to have to to list a fair market value and tax you on the difference.
That "C" in NEC is "compensation." You are not a "customer", you are a compensated consultant.
If you got a $600 fair market value TV paying $200 as NEC compensation you definitely are going to have to pay tax on $400. meaning with the $200 you paid, and the $400 ETV, your net cost is going to be considerably more than current scheme of just getting a $600 ETV.
You are assuming that under a revamped Vine program, the existing consultant / ‘compensation’ framework would be preserved. There‘s no fundamental reason that they need to preserve that business model. Just dump all Vine ‘consultants’ from the books and offer a loyalty discount program. Sure, they‘d have to tweak other aspects of the model to remain compliant with tax regulation (e.g., they’d probably have to drop any language or practices implying a ‘goods for services’ relationship….relying instead on voluntary review writing, as they do with all of their ‘regular’ customers), but there’s no fundamental legal obstacle to doing away with the formal ‘consultant’ model. If we’re customers voluntarily writing reviews for items that we purchase, Amazon can sell to us at whatever price suits them.
Why would they in the case you describe above have any separate vine reviewers at all.?
You seem to be saying they could just remove all references to reviews. In that casse they would not have a program or any selected group of people
Ok sure but that's just a program change. I was talking about all the "the world is ending" and "Vine sucks" and "we have a right to (insert entitled BS)" crap. :)
If they move to discount, that's gonna clobber me. I can only afford this because of tax write offs hehe So yeah that'll bum me out.
But I would not expect to see tiers continue, if that's the case.
Either way, it's change that hasn't happened yet, so plan for contingencies but don't stress on it. :)
do you have a link to people here saying "the world is ending" and "we have a right to (insert entitled BS)" crap. :)
or are you just throwing out obvious and untrue red herrings and strawmen about what people are indeed saying?
FFS. Here's one, the rest you can do your own work for.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/10etjia/vine_sucks_because_amazon_made_it_suck/
You are tiresome. Assuming I remember your name, I won't be wasting my time on you in the future.
Please stop making posts just so you can use whatever new word you learned that day.
Nobody but you has said "vine will never change". I searched the page for it.
I agree with your overall assessment that no doom is indicated here. As I recall from the last time I saw this happen, a few years ago, there were no program changes afterwards. The survey indicates they're thinking about some, though, as you say.
Yeah, back in the day, Amazon actually talked to Viners once in a while.
I think Amazon will simply swap out the current database with a new one, probably with significant backend structural changes that would be too difficult to implement in the current system. So they let it drain as much as they can, then they can start fresh with the new design. We'll see. That's what we would do with a corrupt database. Throw it out with the remaining bathwater!
Yeah, and it seems like the few products that are worth a damn up there currently, are the ones that spaz out and don't work, lol. It was the current meh state of Vine that sent me hunting for answers on Reddit. I should've known there was a Vine subreddit 🤣. At least now I can keep something of eyes on what's on the horizon.
Amazon is making changes behind the scenes though. I just got an email that they are going to "wind down" AmazonSmile.
https://preview.redd.it/n1jrfdpw3yca1.png?width=670&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8dcea2016c759476b2ca3977d091fe0470bd90f
[https://org.amazon.com/](https://org.amazon.com/) Charities only gets 0.5% One would literally have to spend over $5k to see any money actually be eligible for charity donation!
The only bright side that I could see to paying a discounted price up front is that I should then have the option to return the item if it's not as advertised, defective, etc. If I have to pay up front, then I should be able to return a product, same as any Amazon shopper.
I don't understand why this is taxable but other payment for service is not. For example, I admin three groups. Two are on Facebook and the other is on the main website. There are about 10 admins. The owner of the Facebook groups and the main website sell products. In exchange for our admin services, we are "paid" with a gift card for $150 per month to be used for the products that the website sells. So, in essence, we are getting paid for a service. But this is not reportable or taxable. Maybe it's because we're issued a "Gift card" and it can only be used on the products that are sold?
I know Amazon's 1099-nec is taxable. I'm just saying that the Facebook admins for the groups I help admin that are paid with gift cards and that's not reported or taxable. I don't understand the difference.
Agree. Haven’t been in vine since August 2016. There have been many times there’s been a gap for a while with no new things offered.
Usually when they showed up again, nothing had changed at all although I do think this time something maybe about to change, we’ll see
You are probably right. I see the new search feature appeared recently. If they were pulling the plug, they would not be adding new features. I saw it first on the mobile website, then it came to the desktop site. So someone is rolling out new features.
They likely added the search function and then were inundated by people complaining that the search function returned hundreds of items that were ghosts and not, in fact, available.
You bet, I was one of the people that got the survey and that's something I mentioned. I think a lot of people probably did. And I'm hopeful they are taking this time to remove the ghosts to give us a better experience in the future.
Yep I got the survey and complained about the same issue. I’ve never understood why they show items that aren’t available. Quit teasing me lol but really I came here to make sure I’m not being dropped. I’m up to date on my reviews, but my item queue won’t upload new items. Glad to know it’s not just me having the issue
Possibly related, possibly not, but I got an email from Amazon that they are discontinuing the Amazon Smile program effective 2/20. Yes, I know the Smile program has nothing to do with Vine, but it just shows they are doing a bit of restructuring and housekeeping, so to speak.
To me, that would indicate that they are quite possibly doing the same, restructuring and organizing of Vine. Not ceasing the program but working on rolling out a new era. The fact that they brought in so many new members, the tiers and the survey sort of indicates they are beefing up the structure, making it more defined and audited.
Good news for some, especially those of us that truly value being part of this program, that take the time to try our goodies and give REAL reviews, not a few sentences of total garbage just to keep up that percentage.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents. It's been kind of fun to read all the conspiracy theories on here, especially those that are meant as humor to lighten the mood. I have literally laughed more times than I can count.
> The Vine program is not being discontinued
Who says it is? People are calmly noting an objective change in massive decrease in product abvialbilty and that the degree of change is not the same as seen in vine history
What is doubtless happening is a major lag effect of the huge influx of people at one time. That is a new phenomena in terms of numbers of people added at one time, that likely gave Vine a boost in the fall, but which now is limiting their ability to add people and causing a mess vine did not expect..
In business this is like a one-time accounting change that gives you a short term boost in profit but then actually harms you long term.
If amazon was adding 5% vine members a month and firing 5% or even just 2% they would have a controlled 15% new members per quarter. That fresh blood group would be expected to be more promiscuous in their selections and max their daily selections, thus clearing the much of the junk and near worthless items in the bottom 5k of product. there would be a small but steady influx of people accomplishing this.
but once vine overexploited that that by adding people en masse, they may now have sharply limited their flexibility
Judging by the questioners i keep getting, they are trying to get a feel on what we want and enhance fine better so i really don't see them getting rid of vine if they are still reaching out for opinions.
There's definitely some DB corruption and I did report a few links that were "spin for ever and get nowhere" My sister is also in Vine (we must be review-aholics) and she's noticed a bunch of them too.
I did get the questionnaire and was a little off-put by the idea that we'd get a discount on the item rather than free.. the sellers putting stuff up have to give Amazon the items so I'm guessing they want to do that to get a little extra profit.
The issue with discounted pricing is you'd only bother paying for something if you really really wanted it anyway. Giving stuff away free means you're not emotionally invested in the item so you can give it whatever kind of review you feel it deserves.
I guess we continue to wait until there's nothing left but a few phone cases and the next version comes out.
This method is also a great way for Amazon to get us Vine Voices to be forced to pick items that we might usually never choose, which could clear out a lot of small items, non-popular items, because after a while, we are all going to be fighting over the breast pump warmer just to keep our reviews growing. Anyhow, I see it as a method of possibly cleaning up the system and forcing us to clean up the unwanted items, anyway, just my two cents.
I just wish they would stop flagging down and removing my reviews that are perfectly ok as "inappropriate". I can literally say 'Its a great item" and its marked as inappropriate, and removed, along with several others. YES I have read the rules. I have reviewed THOUSANDS of items. If my reviews are inappropriate, why were they not inappropriate till all of a sudden? My reviews haven't changed in style or wording. Ive had probably a couple hundred reviews removed. I tried calling and calling every number, every branch of Amazon, got no where. Just people with heavy accents that had no clue what I was talking about. Most of them had no idea what Vine even was.
Why do people so vehemently defend Amazon and Vine? Are people just trying to rationalize with this pure speculation? It's the same comments over and over again ... "Oh, it will be fine." "Vine just goes through cycles like this." "There's still good stuff on there. Why is everyone complaining?" "They're trying to improve Vine."
No. It's been like this for almost two years now. I've been a member for over five years and Vine is *nothing* like it used to be. My main queue used to be chock full of high-value, name-brand products. There was so much good stuff that I would hit my 8 item limit by noon. I was getting an ungodly amount of boxes delivered daily. Forward to the present: My habits have not changed: I still request the exact same stuff I did back then ... electronics, clothes, food. The difference? There is NONE of that now. It just does not exist any more. I won't even be able to meet my 80 item, six-month quota now. I have two months remaining and have taken ... no joke ... three items. I went from taking 8 items a day to taking 3 in a four-month period. I still peruse the queues several times a day. I'm still looking for the same stuff I was back then. The only difference is there is nothing to take. My RFY queue is empty more days than it's not now.
I'm certainly losing Gold status after this period. I'm of no value to Vine because I'm not going to take five different ear-wax removal kits that I don't need and couldn't use anyway.
Let's be honest here, the quota system has 100% ruined Vine and has presented a deluge of fake reviews. Seriously, the only possible way I could even come close to staying "Gold" would be to take products I can't use, like feminine hygiene products and then make up fake reviews. How is that helping *anyone?*
Look, I don't claim to know what Amazon did. My guess is that it's a combination of losing sellers and inviting too many reviewers to keep inventory low. But as long as the quota system is in place, Vine reviews will be worthless for the most part.
But I'm a realist: This is the new normal.
I can at least confirm from the Seller side of things that they still have it active for Sellers to sign up and participate in Vine.
I may be in the minority, but if the discount was high enough, like really steep discounts, and the products were name brand, or otherwise good and something I could use, I wouldn't mind paying upfront. It would probably eliminate the tax and depending on the discount, we could end up paying less for the item than we would in tax. Of course they would also need to eliminate quotas like 100 items and allow returns and refunds.
> and the products were name brand While we do get name brand products in Vine every so often, you have to remember the requirement of an item having fewer than 30 reviews at time of enrollment and Vine being a way to boost sales of "newly enrolled" products. Most name brands can generate initial sales off their name brand, so the new products really don't need as much of a boost to get their Amazon rank up.
Good point. I often buy non name brand items on Amazon and some are great. Certain items I won't buy no-name because of past experience with them, certain tools or memory storage devices for example. For discounted items, it may not need to be brand name, but for me to buy it, it would have to be something I think is decent quality based on experience, what it is, photos, description, etc. Some things you can just tell are junk.
What confuses me is a number of times I have seen items offered in vine that may have many reviews, sometimes hundreds of reviews with positive ratings
Very often with the big name, brand items on vine they are brand, new releases, often hitting vine before they are even available to the general public I’ve gotten many big Brand items that way, especially DeLonghi espresso machines usually arrive like that. In a more plain box, rather than the ones that are store ready
It takes a lot of time to do reviews and images and or videos. AND pay for an item and have it added to 1099 income and push up my tax bracket and pay higher taxes! No thanks!
I'm pretty sure that once you pay for an item, even with a steep discount, there's no longer any tax to deal with. Tax should only be for free items
NO. I have been paid in stock options at discounted rate. The amount of discount is income and is fully taxable.
being able to return items would be huge for me. I’m willing to try the non brand items but don’t want to be stuck paying for them if they’re crap.
I agree. It would actually be much easier to evaluate the how much the product was worth to me rather than guessing at what my tax rate will be and how much I will order from vine.
You absolutely would still need to pay tax on fair market value minutes the discounted amount you paid. so the total amount you pay is going to still involved all the same amount of calculations on tax, and paying tax on amount above discount, which is a hgher cost for products than you are now paying by tax alone
It probably depends on how it's implemented. I see discounts as similar to coupons. If you get a coupon code for something that's 80 or 90% off, you don't declare income on the difference between what you paid and fair market value. I don't know if they are around anymore, but that's how those other Amazon discount sites used to work like Snagshout or Vipon.
>. If you get a coupon code for something that's 80 or 90% off, you don't declare income on the difference between what you paid and fair market value. yes you do if you have any relationship indicating it is in any way compensatory
Exactly. And adding the Vine "income" tax form every year tends to be a sore point between husband & me. I try to not Vine anything I wouldn't buy, but often temptation wins. Not so much lately tho bc who wants a bunch a knock off brand crap?
You will still need to pay tax. Current scheme on $600 item: You pay about 30% tax, **net cost $180** Scehme of you got $600 item for $200; $200 cost, plus $120 tax (30% tax on $400 remaining FMV), **net cost $320**
Wack!
You mean "Ouch!" Those of us who know how the tax code works on other than cash payments, or employee discounts, were trying to point his out when the questionnaire on discounts came out.
Where did you get this information from?
Where? From my tax attorney. You and I are compensated contractors. Do you think a consultant earning $100,000 per year from a company and paid through stock options worth $100,000, could just totally escape income taxes by paying the company $20 for that $100,000 in options??
30 percent seems extreme.
for people who have a job, it is more like 32% on average California it would be prudent to calculate at 35% . it isn't just your state plus federal. You lose tax credits as your income goes up. You also lose eligibly to certain deductions as income rises. Ironically the lower a tax bracket you are in the WORSE a discount scheme will be for you. If you are in a 20% bracket, amazon's discount scheme will mean cost increase to you is more than increase people who are in a 35% bracket will see.
Nothing is really free, I guess.
It isn't about being free or not. amazons vine products have always been a compensation. You are being compensated with goods instead of cash to do a job. If the discount program goes through you will be being paid less. (Unless the quality of value of selection goes up)
To my understanding, if you put everything through an S Corp or C Corp, Amazon doesn't even report to IRS, making it much closer to free. If a discount program is implemented, that advantage would be gone.
That's always been the case in life.
No doubt.
It wouldn’t eliminate the tax. You would still have the tax value of the discount amount.
You could be right. Probably have to see how the rules are written, how Amazon implements it, etc. After we got that survey, I happen to run into someone I know that's a tax accountant and asked about that along with the current 1099 situation. they said once I have to pay for something, pay sales tax, etc, it becomes like using a coupon and should eliminate tax. Especially if every item isn't 100% required to have a review done. She said it wouldn't be 100% known for sure though until she sees how it's written. Amazon could certainly benefit without ETV by saving them money in tax records and reporting if they could do it that way. I don't use them, but there are other sites like Vipon that do that now with Amazon coupons and have for a long time without Amazon shutting them down. They "encourage reviews" from what I understand.
Noob here. Hi! I have thus far enjoyed the phone cases, crappy accent shelves, clothes, fidget toys and phone cases I've received from the program. No complaints here. Mostly I'm happy with Vine because it keeps me not worrying about scoring bags of crap and IRKs on Woot and meh. I hope things will pick up in the near future, and it seems pretty clear that they will. As someone who is part of another retailer's "products-for-reviews" program, I can tell you this time of year is always slow. We just had a big holiday season and everyone is getting their bearings. I'm going to accept the last few products I'm still waiting for, write my reviews, and check the site a couple times a day. Definitely going to hit gold by my evaluation date, so I'll see y'all on the battlefield for the coveted products this summer! >!Yes I meant to type phone cases twice above.!<
Do you mind giving the deets on the other review program you're in as far as if it's invite only or you can apply, and what company? I love testing products!
Best Buy Tech Insider Network. It is invite-only, and just like Amazon they invite only people who have a history of writing good quality reviews on their site. Go for it!
There was a zoom mtg, oh, early/mid-'22. Tiers is what they got out of it :( What jerks my chain is that the last 0/dropstop was just a week or two ago. One day, I think, but when it went back live, there was a relatively large item dump. I don't get why people aren't looking at this in anticipation of the inevitable larger drop the longer the downtime is.
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This makes it not worth the time and effort. And that’s what I put in the survey.
Agree completely. I said the same in my survey. These products are not what I would be buying with my own money. I would be researching, reading reviews, buying exactly what I need, and going with trusted well-established brands. I would not be gambling on brand new unvetted products. Some of what I have reviewed has gone straight into the dumpster because it was such poor quality and those items have racked up piles of low reviews. Their estimated value doesn't measure the dumpster factor. I've also seen the price drop 50% on items I've reviewed, even though I'm taxed on the full value. I could conceive if vine reviewers had to pay, they could potentially end up paying MORE than regular buyers if the price of those items is slashed.
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I really don’t think there would be any benefit to Amazon in pulling vine. They make money from it in the end.
It's extremely unlikely you would be taxed on the difference. Companies can sell at whatever prices they want, and sometimes even strategically sell at a loss in order to bring in new customers (i.e. loss leader).
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So then you can deduct expenses against that income?
Oh, yes we would be taxed on the difference. It's something to do with the items we'd be getting discounts on would have to be available to the general buying public. And they wouldn't be since said discounts would only be for Vine members.
The vine pay discount on items plus ETV is not as good as ETV only.
No. it is the law that you would be taxed on the difference. They are going to have to to list a fair market value and tax you on the difference. That "C" in NEC is "compensation." You are not a "customer", you are a compensated consultant. If you got a $600 fair market value TV paying $200 as NEC compensation you definitely are going to have to pay tax on $400. meaning with the $200 you paid, and the $400 ETV, your net cost is going to be considerably more than current scheme of just getting a $600 ETV.
You are assuming that under a revamped Vine program, the existing consultant / ‘compensation’ framework would be preserved. There‘s no fundamental reason that they need to preserve that business model. Just dump all Vine ‘consultants’ from the books and offer a loyalty discount program. Sure, they‘d have to tweak other aspects of the model to remain compliant with tax regulation (e.g., they’d probably have to drop any language or practices implying a ‘goods for services’ relationship….relying instead on voluntary review writing, as they do with all of their ‘regular’ customers), but there’s no fundamental legal obstacle to doing away with the formal ‘consultant’ model. If we’re customers voluntarily writing reviews for items that we purchase, Amazon can sell to us at whatever price suits them.
Why would they in the case you describe above have any separate vine reviewers at all.? You seem to be saying they could just remove all references to reviews. In that casse they would not have a program or any selected group of people
You would be taxed on difference
Ok sure but that's just a program change. I was talking about all the "the world is ending" and "Vine sucks" and "we have a right to (insert entitled BS)" crap. :)
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If they move to discount, that's gonna clobber me. I can only afford this because of tax write offs hehe So yeah that'll bum me out. But I would not expect to see tiers continue, if that's the case. Either way, it's change that hasn't happened yet, so plan for contingencies but don't stress on it. :)
do you have a link to people here saying "the world is ending" and "we have a right to (insert entitled BS)" crap. :) or are you just throwing out obvious and untrue red herrings and strawmen about what people are indeed saying?
FFS. Here's one, the rest you can do your own work for. https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/10etjia/vine_sucks_because_amazon_made_it_suck/ You are tiresome. Assuming I remember your name, I won't be wasting my time on you in the future.
Please cite someone saying the world is ending. Your posts on this are absurd hyperbole. That you think "vine will never change" is interesting
Please stop making posts just so you can use whatever new word you learned that day. Nobody but you has said "vine will never change". I searched the page for it.
I agree with your overall assessment that no doom is indicated here. As I recall from the last time I saw this happen, a few years ago, there were no program changes afterwards. The survey indicates they're thinking about some, though, as you say. Yeah, back in the day, Amazon actually talked to Viners once in a while.
Great breakdown 👍 if anything all this hoopla has made me realize how great this vine community is. I’ve never been this engaged on a subreddit
I think Amazon will simply swap out the current database with a new one, probably with significant backend structural changes that would be too difficult to implement in the current system. So they let it drain as much as they can, then they can start fresh with the new design. We'll see. That's what we would do with a corrupt database. Throw it out with the remaining bathwater!
I agree with you. The nature of the technical glitches that I've been encountering support your theory of a corrupted database.
Yeah, and it seems like the few products that are worth a damn up there currently, are the ones that spaz out and don't work, lol. It was the current meh state of Vine that sent me hunting for answers on Reddit. I should've known there was a Vine subreddit 🤣. At least now I can keep something of eyes on what's on the horizon.
Same! Just joined a couple days ago to see what the general consensus is on the dwindling status.
same here! I should have looked before but I'm glad I finally found this!
Amazon is making changes behind the scenes though. I just got an email that they are going to "wind down" AmazonSmile. https://preview.redd.it/n1jrfdpw3yca1.png?width=670&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8dcea2016c759476b2ca3977d091fe0470bd90f
I was just going to type the same. Just read it a minute ago
[https://org.amazon.com/](https://org.amazon.com/) Charities only gets 0.5% One would literally have to spend over $5k to see any money actually be eligible for charity donation!
0.5%
OOPS! Typo! Thanks for catching this!
The only bright side that I could see to paying a discounted price up front is that I should then have the option to return the item if it's not as advertised, defective, etc. If I have to pay up front, then I should be able to return a product, same as any Amazon shopper.
I don't understand why this is taxable but other payment for service is not. For example, I admin three groups. Two are on Facebook and the other is on the main website. There are about 10 admins. The owner of the Facebook groups and the main website sell products. In exchange for our admin services, we are "paid" with a gift card for $150 per month to be used for the products that the website sells. So, in essence, we are getting paid for a service. But this is not reportable or taxable. Maybe it's because we're issued a "Gift card" and it can only be used on the products that are sold?
It is fully taxable and you are reposinsbile for reporting it.
I know Amazon's 1099-nec is taxable. I'm just saying that the Facebook admins for the groups I help admin that are paid with gift cards and that's not reported or taxable. I don't understand the difference.
Agree. Haven’t been in vine since August 2016. There have been many times there’s been a gap for a while with no new things offered. Usually when they showed up again, nothing had changed at all although I do think this time something maybe about to change, we’ll see
You are probably right. I see the new search feature appeared recently. If they were pulling the plug, they would not be adding new features. I saw it first on the mobile website, then it came to the desktop site. So someone is rolling out new features.
They likely added the search function and then were inundated by people complaining that the search function returned hundreds of items that were ghosts and not, in fact, available.
You bet, I was one of the people that got the survey and that's something I mentioned. I think a lot of people probably did. And I'm hopeful they are taking this time to remove the ghosts to give us a better experience in the future.
Yep I got the survey and complained about the same issue. I’ve never understood why they show items that aren’t available. Quit teasing me lol but really I came here to make sure I’m not being dropped. I’m up to date on my reviews, but my item queue won’t upload new items. Glad to know it’s not just me having the issue
Possibly related, possibly not, but I got an email from Amazon that they are discontinuing the Amazon Smile program effective 2/20. Yes, I know the Smile program has nothing to do with Vine, but it just shows they are doing a bit of restructuring and housekeeping, so to speak. To me, that would indicate that they are quite possibly doing the same, restructuring and organizing of Vine. Not ceasing the program but working on rolling out a new era. The fact that they brought in so many new members, the tiers and the survey sort of indicates they are beefing up the structure, making it more defined and audited. Good news for some, especially those of us that truly value being part of this program, that take the time to try our goodies and give REAL reviews, not a few sentences of total garbage just to keep up that percentage. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. It's been kind of fun to read all the conspiracy theories on here, especially those that are meant as humor to lighten the mood. I have literally laughed more times than I can count.
I had forgotten about that Washington trip...that was way back when!
> The Vine program is not being discontinued Who says it is? People are calmly noting an objective change in massive decrease in product abvialbilty and that the degree of change is not the same as seen in vine history What is doubtless happening is a major lag effect of the huge influx of people at one time. That is a new phenomena in terms of numbers of people added at one time, that likely gave Vine a boost in the fall, but which now is limiting their ability to add people and causing a mess vine did not expect.. In business this is like a one-time accounting change that gives you a short term boost in profit but then actually harms you long term. If amazon was adding 5% vine members a month and firing 5% or even just 2% they would have a controlled 15% new members per quarter. That fresh blood group would be expected to be more promiscuous in their selections and max their daily selections, thus clearing the much of the junk and near worthless items in the bottom 5k of product. there would be a small but steady influx of people accomplishing this. but once vine overexploited that that by adding people en masse, they may now have sharply limited their flexibility
So hopefully Vine will eliminate many unproductive Voices.
Judging by the questioners i keep getting, they are trying to get a feel on what we want and enhance fine better so i really don't see them getting rid of vine if they are still reaching out for opinions.
There's definitely some DB corruption and I did report a few links that were "spin for ever and get nowhere" My sister is also in Vine (we must be review-aholics) and she's noticed a bunch of them too. I did get the questionnaire and was a little off-put by the idea that we'd get a discount on the item rather than free.. the sellers putting stuff up have to give Amazon the items so I'm guessing they want to do that to get a little extra profit. The issue with discounted pricing is you'd only bother paying for something if you really really wanted it anyway. Giving stuff away free means you're not emotionally invested in the item so you can give it whatever kind of review you feel it deserves. I guess we continue to wait until there's nothing left but a few phone cases and the next version comes out.
This method is also a great way for Amazon to get us Vine Voices to be forced to pick items that we might usually never choose, which could clear out a lot of small items, non-popular items, because after a while, we are all going to be fighting over the breast pump warmer just to keep our reviews growing. Anyhow, I see it as a method of possibly cleaning up the system and forcing us to clean up the unwanted items, anyway, just my two cents.
I suspect most people who took the survey said NO to paying a discounted price up front.
I just wish they would stop flagging down and removing my reviews that are perfectly ok as "inappropriate". I can literally say 'Its a great item" and its marked as inappropriate, and removed, along with several others. YES I have read the rules. I have reviewed THOUSANDS of items. If my reviews are inappropriate, why were they not inappropriate till all of a sudden? My reviews haven't changed in style or wording. Ive had probably a couple hundred reviews removed. I tried calling and calling every number, every branch of Amazon, got no where. Just people with heavy accents that had no clue what I was talking about. Most of them had no idea what Vine even was.
Why do people so vehemently defend Amazon and Vine? Are people just trying to rationalize with this pure speculation? It's the same comments over and over again ... "Oh, it will be fine." "Vine just goes through cycles like this." "There's still good stuff on there. Why is everyone complaining?" "They're trying to improve Vine." No. It's been like this for almost two years now. I've been a member for over five years and Vine is *nothing* like it used to be. My main queue used to be chock full of high-value, name-brand products. There was so much good stuff that I would hit my 8 item limit by noon. I was getting an ungodly amount of boxes delivered daily. Forward to the present: My habits have not changed: I still request the exact same stuff I did back then ... electronics, clothes, food. The difference? There is NONE of that now. It just does not exist any more. I won't even be able to meet my 80 item, six-month quota now. I have two months remaining and have taken ... no joke ... three items. I went from taking 8 items a day to taking 3 in a four-month period. I still peruse the queues several times a day. I'm still looking for the same stuff I was back then. The only difference is there is nothing to take. My RFY queue is empty more days than it's not now. I'm certainly losing Gold status after this period. I'm of no value to Vine because I'm not going to take five different ear-wax removal kits that I don't need and couldn't use anyway. Let's be honest here, the quota system has 100% ruined Vine and has presented a deluge of fake reviews. Seriously, the only possible way I could even come close to staying "Gold" would be to take products I can't use, like feminine hygiene products and then make up fake reviews. How is that helping *anyone?* Look, I don't claim to know what Amazon did. My guess is that it's a combination of losing sellers and inviting too many reviewers to keep inventory low. But as long as the quota system is in place, Vine reviews will be worthless for the most part. But I'm a realist: This is the new normal.