Legal requirements

The FTC enforces laws that prohibit deceptive advertising and marketing. It has determined that soliciting online ratings, reviews, and endorsements can be deceptive and has issued guidance for marketers to avoid this. The FTC can sue and fine companies that do not comply. Any third party that posts reviews, especially if it seeks to solicit reviews by running a sampling campaign, must comply with the FTC’s Endorsement Guides, FTC staff guidance on ratings and reviews, and FTC staff guidance on endorsements (see Resources).  The list below provides the legal requirements for all online reviews:

• Do not ask people who haven’t used or experienced the product or service to provide reviews.
• Do not ask your staff to write reviews of your business.
• Do not ask for reviews only from customers you think will leave positive ones.
• Do not ask family and friends for reviews.
• Do not pay customers to post reviews.
• Do not suppress negative reviews – even if you think they are unfair or inaccurate.

If you provide product samples through a Walmart-approved product review sampling vendor:

• The review must clearly and prominently disclose that the review is “compensated.”

• If you use Walmart-approved product review sampling vendors, the system automatically provides the required disclosure statement in the review.

• Never condition the offer of a free sample for a review, explicitly or implicitly, on the reviewer posting a positive review.

Walmart requirements

All incentivized sampling campaigns must be run through one of Walmart’s approved product review sampling vendors. The current list of approved vendors includes:

• Influenster by Bazaarvoice
  • Private Brands
  • National Brands
• Field Agent
• Home Tester Club
• PowerReviews Product Sampling

Sellers cannot use Walmart branding when soliciting reviews. 

Consequences for violating requirements

Best practices

Focus sampling efforts on new product launches and/or seasonal items – to ensure that there are reviews in place when the items sales go live. Allow 8 weeks’ turnaround time for reviews to go live – this includes time for potential troubleshooting of technical issues that could prevent your reviews from displaying, or legal review.

Samples should be the same as the items that would be purchased in the store. Trial sizes or test packets are discouraged. 

Set your demographic target to be as broad as possible to ensure adequate participation from within the sampling community.

Resources

Terminology

• Third parties – A group that is outside of your organization that are involved in reviews. This includes, but is not limited to brands, vendors, suppliers, and advertising agencies. 
• Sample – Any product sent to a consumer for the purpose of soliciting an authentic product review. Samples can be incentivized or non-incentivized. 
• Incentivized – Reviews where the consumer receives something of monetary value in exchange for leaving an authentic review. This includes, but is not limited to complimentary product(s), coupon(s), loyalty reward points, gift cards, and exclusive discounts.