Author Topic: Any good secret shop or review sites?  (Read 2407 times)

DeniseNJ

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Any good secret shop or review sites?
« on: January 31, 2020, 10:03:15 AM »
I know you can get free stuff in exchange for a review.  Does anybody know of a good legit site for this?  I need a new computer.

bbates728

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2020, 01:15:49 PM »
I don't have any help for you but if you find something let us know!

seattlecyclone

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2020, 02:09:00 PM »
Get a pretty high rank reviewing stuff on Amazon and you might get invited to their Vine program. Once you're in it's a pretty sweet gravy train of free-ish stuff. I say "free-ish" because they send members a 1099 each year with the total estimated resale value of the stuff they took.

Case

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2020, 02:49:48 PM »
Get a pretty high rank reviewing stuff on Amazon and you might get invited to their Vine program. Once you're in it's a pretty sweet gravy train of free-ish stuff. I say "free-ish" because they send members a 1099 each year with the total estimated resale value of the stuff they took.

This sounds particularly non-mustachian.  Get some additional taxable income in exchange for consumer crap you don't actually need anyways?  Plus you have to sink time into it?  Sounds lose-lose to me.

DeniseNJ

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2020, 03:43:47 PM »
Get a pretty high rank reviewing stuff on Amazon and you might get invited to their Vine program. Once you're in it's a pretty sweet gravy train of free-ish stuff. I say "free-ish" because they send members a 1099 each year with the total estimated resale value of the stuff they took.

This sounds particularly non-mustachian.  Get some additional taxable income in exchange for consumer crap you don't actually need anyways?  Plus you have to sink time into it?  Sounds lose-lose to me.

Getting free stuff that u want sounds great. Selling stuff you got for free sounds even better. I didn’t know about vine.

seattlecyclone

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2020, 08:30:40 PM »
Get a pretty high rank reviewing stuff on Amazon and you might get invited to their Vine program. Once you're in it's a pretty sweet gravy train of free-ish stuff. I say "free-ish" because they send members a 1099 each year with the total estimated resale value of the stuff they took.

This sounds particularly non-mustachian.  Get some additional taxable income in exchange for consumer crap you don't actually need anyways?  Plus you have to sink time into it?  Sounds lose-lose to me.

I've been a member for several years. Members are presented with a list of products Amazon has available for reviewing, and may choose as many or as few as they like. If you choose to select and be taxed on a bunch of stuff you don't need, that's your problem.

I'd say it's definitely been a money-saver for me. I'm sitting here typing this on my Vine smartphone, transmitting the post via my Vine WiFi router. My feet are resting on a Vine area rug. The room is illuminated by Vine light bulbs. I'm wearing a Vine wristwatch. When I wake up tomorrow I might use my Vine tea kettle to heat some water for a pot of white chai tea that I got from Vine, or make some eggs on my small cost iron skillet from Vine, flavored with some seasonings I got from Vine.

DeniseNJ

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #6 on: February 04, 2020, 09:11:01 PM »
About how many reviews and how extensive do they have to be to get on vine?  I just joined rebatest. I'll let you know how that goes.

MrUpwardlyMobile

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #7 on: February 04, 2020, 09:20:41 PM »
Get a pretty high rank reviewing stuff on Amazon and you might get invited to their Vine program. Once you're in it's a pretty sweet gravy train of free-ish stuff. I say "free-ish" because they send members a 1099 each year with the total estimated resale value of the stuff they took.

This sounds particularly non-mustachian.  Get some additional taxable income in exchange for consumer crap you don't actually need anyways?  Plus you have to sink time into it?  Sounds lose-lose to me.

I've been a member for several years. Members are presented with a list of products Amazon has available for reviewing, and may choose as many or as few as they like. If you choose to select and be taxed on a bunch of stuff you don't need, that's your problem.

I'd say it's definitely been a money-saver for me. I'm sitting here typing this on my Vine smartphone, transmitting the post via my Vine WiFi router. My feet are resting on a Vine area rug. The room is illuminated by Vine light bulbs. I'm wearing a Vine wristwatch. When I wake up tomorrow I might use my Vine tea kettle to heat some water for a pot of white chai tea that I got from Vine, or make some eggs on my small cost iron skillet from Vine, flavored with some seasonings I got from Vine.

What is your reviewer rank? After 100 reviews and 29 helpful votes and only 1 follower, I’m above 600,000 still.

seattlecyclone

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #8 on: February 04, 2020, 10:36:33 PM »
What is your reviewer rank? After 100 reviews and 29 helpful votes and only 1 follower, I’m above 600,000 still.

Right now I'm around 250,000. I have been higher in the past. My understanding is that the ranking formula gives higher weight to more recent reviews and helpful votes. To that end I went on something of a reviewing binge years ago, boosted my rank up to about 8,000 or so, and that seems to have been sufficient to get into Vine. My rank has mostly gone downhill from there.

About how many reviews and how extensive do they have to be to get on vine?  I just joined rebatest. I'll let you know how that goes.

They don't publish exact criteria. People seem to be invited in batches as often as a few times per year. I got my invite after writing roughly 100 reviews and had a reviewer rank of roughly 8,000. That was years ago, and the internal criteria have likely changed. New members have been admitted with six-digit and seven-digit reviewer rankings in the past and nobody has found a real pattern yet. Perhaps they look at people who are more prolific reviewers of a certain category of product, or maybe they're looking for coverage in certain demographic groups. Nobody knows. Sometimes people miss the invitation email and find after logging into the site that they've had a pending invite for who knows how long. Might as well try it and see for yourself.

For most of the reviews I try to cover three main topics: what I liked about the product, what I didn't like about the product, and an overall verdict/recommendation. An average product each topic might get a paragraph of a few sentences each. A cheaper product like a light bulb or granola bar might get all three things lumped into one paragraph with a sentence or two each. For something more expensive like a smartphone I go into a bit more depth.

DeniseNJ

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #9 on: February 05, 2020, 02:34:02 PM »
So far I've found a site called rebatest that you buy stuff from amazon and they reimburse you.  Doesn't seem to have a wide selection but the more you do it the more options you get.  Another site that a friend told me about is savesoo.  This seems to have a bunch of stuff.  No laptops though. 

If you go through ebates/rakuten and use a card with cash back then you actually make a little money and get free stuff.  If you turn around and sell the stuff on ebay or craigslist--you don't even need to pay for new packaging--you'll make more money.  (I just want the free stuff so I'm not looking into selling.)  There's also a site that you upload receipts to that you can link to your amazon for points and credits.  So you can get something for free, earn three times on it, and even sell the item.

DeniseNJ

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #10 on: February 12, 2020, 11:23:05 AM »
OK, so far I've been on and gotten reimbursed from two sites where you buy stuff from Amazon, write a review, and get a rebate via paypal.  The stuff varies and I haven't found anything awesome like a TV or laptop, but Rebatest has losts of cords and cases, headphones, vacuum, and a bunch or other stuff.  Savesoo is the bigger site and has a bunch of stuff, not only stuff you are fully reimbursed for but also major discount codes.  My friend bought a queen mattress for 80 bucks.  They have pillows and really tons of free stuff.

You have to follow the steps, posting order number, etc.  I've ordered blutooth headphones, a splitter for an iphone, a broom and dustpan combo that is really neat, a can opener, a thing to groom my dog's feet which is also very nice, and I forget what else.  And I've been reimbursed. (Not tax though)

ETA: oooh, just saw a 4 slice toaster for free.

Here's my Rebatest link--no idea what I get for it what you would get for it.  Points?  Don't know for what though:
https://www.rebatest.com/Product?Uid=34164131&Rid=83584292

And this is for Savesoo--again I think I get some points for it but don't know what they are good for:
https://savesoo.com/bi/ac6b94d196

« Last Edit: February 12, 2020, 11:30:01 AM by DeniseNJ »

MrUpwardlyMobile

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Re: Any good secret shop or review sites?
« Reply #11 on: May 27, 2020, 11:21:32 PM »
What is your reviewer rank? After 100 reviews and 29 helpful votes and only 1 follower, I’m above 600,000 still.

Right now I'm around 250,000. I have been higher in the past. My understanding is that the ranking formula gives higher weight to more recent reviews and helpful votes. To that end I went on something of a reviewing binge years ago, boosted my rank up to about 8,000 or so, and that seems to have been sufficient to get into Vine. My rank has mostly gone downhill from there.

About how many reviews and how extensive do they have to be to get on vine?  I just joined rebatest. I'll let you know how that goes.

They don't publish exact criteria. People seem to be invited in batches as often as a few times per year. I got my invite after writing roughly 100 reviews and had a reviewer rank of roughly 8,000. That was years ago, and the internal criteria have likely changed. New members have been admitted with six-digit and seven-digit reviewer rankings in the past and nobody has found a real pattern yet. Perhaps they look at people who are more prolific reviewers of a certain category of product, or maybe they're looking for coverage in certain demographic groups. Nobody knows. Sometimes people miss the invitation email and find after logging into the site that they've had a pending invite for who knows how long. Might as well try it and see for yourself.

For most of the reviews I try to cover three main topics: what I liked about the product, what I didn't like about the product, and an overall verdict/recommendation. An average product each topic might get a paragraph of a few sentences each. A cheaper product like a light bulb or granola bar might get all three things lumped into one paragraph with a sentence or two each. For something more expensive like a smartphone I go into a bit more depth.

It seems like one needs like 400ish reviews and 400ish helpful votes to be in the top 50000.  I’m at 233,000 with 136 reviews and 96 helpful votes.