This post discusses Amazon product review guidelines and answers frequently asked questions around Amazon product reviews. We outline the questions, guidelines, and best practices related to interacting with product reviews as a seller on Amazon. If you are interested in learning more about improving the quantity and quality of product reviews on Amazon, read our article How to Get Product Reviews on Amazon. It is important to ensure you are always acting within Amazon Guidelines when it comes to reviews, so you do not jeopardize your ability to sell on Amazon Seller Central.
What is the Difference Between Seller Feedback, Product Ratings vs. Product Reviews?
As we discuss this topic it is important to make a distinction between Product Reviews, Product Ratings and Seller Feedback. Product Reviews are at a product level, this is what can be seen by scrolling further down a product listing page. Product Reviews include actual text and sometimes photos. Product reviews are reviews left on the product detail page that relate to the actual product.
Product Ratings are similar and also at the product level. Ratings are the customer’s star rating of the product out of 5 stars. Product Ratings do not require the customer to leave a text response, and customers can leave a rating without leaving a review.
On the other hand, Seller Feedback is feedback at the account level. This feedback is for your actual selling account, rather than an actual product. This feedback displays on your seller info page, which can be accessed by customers if they click on the blue "Your Selling Name" in the buy box on a product listing. This type of feedback usually mainly pertains to merchant fulfillment or any customer service interactions. If you use FBA exclusivity, the majority of bad Seller Feedback should be mitigated, as Amazon will remove any feedback that is strictly about FBA shipment issues. Knowing the difference between these 3 will be helpful as we discuss the questions below.
Can I Publicly Respond to a Review?
Amazon has removed the ability for sellers to publicly respond to a review. However, it’s possible you can still contact the customer privately to discuss something that was left in their review. All contact with a customer should be done through Amazon’s Buyer-Seller Messaging Service. According to Amazon, the Buyer-Seller Messaging service is the only approved method for communicating with buyers on Amazon. Contacting customers outside of Amazon is against their Communication Guidelines. To contact a buyer using the Buyer-Seller Messaging service is simple. Go to the Orders tab on Amazon Seller Central and select Manage Orders. Locate the Order that you want to contact a buyer about, in the Order details column you are able to click on the name of the buyer which will open the Contact Buyer Page. From this page, you are able to select the reason for contact and complete your message and send. It is important to note that you cannot explicitly ask a customer to remove their review. We suggest if they have a problem, to try to mediate their problem through the messaging platform, it is then up to them if they will remove a negative review after their experience has been remedied. Amazon has more information on sending buyer messages here. While you are not able to respond to Product Reviews, you can respond to Seller Feedback. If you are brand registered, you are able to post a public reply to Seller Feedback from the feedback manager page, using the drop-down under "actions" on the far right.
Can I set up Notifications for new reviews?
As a seller, you are interested in knowing what kind of reviews and feedback you are getting, as soon as it happens. A question we get a lot is “How can I set up a notification for new product reviews?”. Currently, Amazon currently does not have a setting or feature for the notification of new reviews or feedback. The best practice here is to frequently check the product detail pages of your products or the Customer Reviews tab if you are brand registered. You can see any new Product Reviews by checking the detail pages and the "Customer Reviews" tab in the Amazon dashboard. You can see recent Seller Feedback, in the Feedback Manager.
I Have a Good Product Review, Can I Use it in Advertising or On My Own Website?
Unfortunately, probably not. Something important to note is that per Amazon policy, we "cannot use any customer feedback or reviews on your website or elsewhere unless we have permission to share and use it from the Amazon Customer who wrote it." That policy can be found here. If there is certain feedback you want to use elsewhere, you must reply to it asking the review writer permission to use it. However, responding to Product Reviews is no longer an option on Amazon, so this can only be done with Seller Feedback.
I Got a Bad Product Review, What Can I Do?
If you got a product review that is bad and you believe to be untrue, first review Amazon’s Community guidelines and ask yourself, does this review violate these guidelines? If you determine the review to be in violation of these guidelines, you can report the abuse. In some instances you will find a "Report abuse" link near the review content, however, we are seeing increasingly less of these. If there is no button, you can email community-help@amazon.com, with the location and content of the review and the reason you believe it violates these Guidelines. An example of a situation in which this is the right measure to take, is if it appears someone left a review for the wrong product. In this case, the review violated guidelines by not being “Be Helpful and Relevant” in which case you can explain in your email to Amazon Support that “This review is not Helpful and Relevant, as it references a different product or claims that were never made on the detail page and are not relevant to the product”.
If there is a theme in negative reviews that you are receiving, such as the product is being used incorrectly, or the customer's expectation for the product is incorrect, you may want to take some action. Consider updating the bullet points, product description, or A+ Content to include additional instructions on how the product should be used or what it can do to reduce negative reviews in the future. Another way to mitigate negative reviews that could come from a misunderstanding is to include Seller Central Support contact information in the review insert to help direct the customer to contact you instead of posting a negative customer review.
To conclude, it is always important to consider Amazon’s Guidelines when it comes to Product Reviews. This post outlined what is and isn't possible when it comes to using reviews, replying to reviews, messaging customers, and other actions you can take related to reviews that are within guidelines. Appropriately interacting with reviews will improve the selling experience on Amazon for both yourself and your customers. Take action to mediate a problem or report fraudulent activity when you receive a negative review, but ensure it is within guidelines, like the methods outlined above. If you have any questions about reviews please click the contact us button below.