Amazon review rules for Indian sellers

Amazon doesn’t allow a review in exchange for any compensation, and Vine is the only way a reviewer may get a free product. In India, ASCI’s disclosure rules and the Consumer Protection Act sit on top of that. Each is quoted and linked below, so you can check it yourself.

This is general information for sellers, not legal advice.

Amazon’s own guidelines

Amazon’s Community Guidelines say:

“You are not allowed to create, edit, or remove a review in exchange for any compensation, including cash payments, refunds, free or discounted products, gift cards, warranties, services, or other incentives. This policy applies even if a seller offers a refund to remove or change a negative review. Reviews influenced by compensation through any channel, including social media sites, violate our guidelines and may be removed.”

You may ask. Amazon lists as acceptable: “Post a product review, if a seller encourages you to leave unbiased, un-incentivized review”, with the example “Please share your honest experience with our product by leaving a review!”

Conflicts of interest are out. “We don’t allow reviews written as a form of promotion. For example, we remove reviews posted by someone with a direct or indirect financial interest in the product, or any other conflict of interest.”

Vine is the exception. “You can only receive free products through official Vine program offers. Accepting free products or compensation directly from sellers or brands in exchange for reviews is strictly prohibited.”

What happens if you break them is in the Anti-Manipulation Policy: Amazon “may immediately suspend or terminate your Amazon privileges, remove reviews, and delist related products”, and where an account was used for review manipulation, “remittances and payments may be withheld or forfeited”.

Policies change. The version that binds you is the one in Seller Central today, so read it there.

ASCI, for anything on a creator’s channel

Content on a creator’s own Instagram or YouTube isn’t a marketplace review. It’s advertising, and ASCI’s Guidelines for Influencer Advertising in Digital Media apply.

What triggers disclosure is a material connection: “Material connection is not limited to monetary compensation. Disclosure is required if there is anything of value given to mention or talk about the advertiser’s product or service.” A purchase the brand pays back counts, so the content gets disclosed.

ASCI is specific about how:

• “Disclosure must be upfront and prominent so that it is not missed by an average consumer.”
• Disclosures “are likely to be missed if they appear only on an ABOUT ME or profile page, or bios, at the end of posts or videos, or anywhere that requires a person to click MORE”, and “should not be buried in a group of hashtags or links.”
• On video, the label must stay on screen for at least 3 seconds if the video is 15 seconds or less, for a third of the length if it runs between 15 seconds and 2 minutes, and for the whole section that mentions the brand if it’s 2 minutes or longer.
• Live streams and audio need a spoken announcement at the start and the end.

ASCI’s own report found that 76% of the top 100 digital stars failed to meet disclosure norms in posts from 1 March to 15 July 2025, up from 69% the year before. The format-by-format detail is in what counts as a disclosed collaboration under ASCI.

Consumer protection

The Consumer Protection Act, 2019, section 21 lets the Central Authority penalize a manufacturer or an endorser for a false or misleading advertisement: up to ten lakh rupees, and up to fifty lakh for every subsequent contravention. These are civil penalties. Section 21(5) gives the endorser a defence if they “exercised due diligence to verify the veracity of the claims made in the advertisement”. A creator who bought and used the product is better placed there than one reading a script.

IS 19000:2022, the BIS standard on online consumer reviews, is voluntary. Its clause 5.6.2 lets a review administrator, meaning the platform, reward a review only if the reward doesn’t depend on what the review says and a visible mark tells the reader. That binds platforms, not sellers, and Amazon offers sellers no such mechanism. So rewarded reviews on Amazon aren’t an available route, whatever a vendor tells you.

We don’t quote Flipkart’s seller policy here. Read it in your seller account.

What’s left open to you

You can’t pay for, arrange or broker reviews on a marketplace listing. You can ask shoppers for an honest review with nothing attached, and you can pay a creator for disclosed content on their own channel.

Hypedrive works on the second of those. A creator buys your product with their own money, uploads the order receipt, shares content on their own channel with disclosure, and gets the money back plus a bonus once you approve the content. If you reject the content, you don’t pay for it. They’re paid for the content, never for a review, and you can’t tie payment to a favorable opinion.

See how a campaign runs for brands.

Not legal advice. Hypedrive isn’t affiliated with Amazon, Flipkart or any other marketplace.