Originally published on November 7, 2017, updated March 8, 2023
Menu
Join Our Email List
- Receive our monthly newsletter.
- Stay up to date on Amazon policies.
- Get tips to grow your business.
If you sell a branded product on the Amazon marketplace, chances are that you're eager to get positive reviews. But have you considered what to do about negative product reviews?
Inevitably, there are going to be some buyers who leave negative ratings because they just don't like the item you're selling. However, other customers may leave negative reviews because they have tested the item and found real problems with it.
While this can bring down your product's rating for now, in the long run it can actually be a good thing.
If you have the right product review management plan, you can use those negative reviews to figure out which of your products are problematic and work to improve them.
If you have already automated your product review requests with FeedbackFive, well done. Consistent review requests will boost your review numbers, and with luck, most of those reviews will be positive ones. However, those inevitable negative reviews can be managed with FeedbackFive. The software's flexible product review management plans allow you to monitor your ASINs for both positive and negative reviews.
Tracking down reviews across different product pages can be time-consuming. FeedbackFive's Product Review Manager imports and organizes reviews for any ASINs you choose to track, displaying the ratings distribution in an at-a-glance dashboard.
You can also choose to monitor reviews through the daily summary email, which shows an overview of your product review and seller feedback ratings.
This allows you to easily track positive and negative reviews on all of your products over days, weeks, and months.
Negative product reviews are displayed in FeedbackFive with a direct link to the review on Amazon so that you can easily click to sign in to your Seller Central account.
While Amazon prohibits asking buyers to edit or remove a review, you can still report reviews that violate Amazon's Communication Guidelines. Until December 2020, commenting on negative reviews was considered a best practice. However, merchants no longer have the ability to comment on Amazon reviews. As of June 2021, sellers enrolled in Brand Registry can contact buyers about negative reviews on Amazon.
If a certain product receives a lot of negative reviews or has an obvious problem, you may want to have an improved version made or simply phase it out of your catalog. While you're working on this transition, you can use FeedbackFive's SKU exclusion feature to stop soliciting reviews for that item. This keeps your email strategy efficient and lessens the hassle of monitoring negative reviews on a product you already know is problematic.
You can export all product review data to a CSV file to quickly read through all of the reviews. This allows you to find consistent messaging that might indicate when a product improvement needs to be made.
Although it might be counter-intuitive, negative reviews actually help your brand. If you take the time to read the comments rather than simply look at the low-star ratings, you can see why buyers are unhappy and what you might do to address the cause.
Take the comments to heart, and do your best to improve the item so that you and your buyers can be satisfied. If it's something that can be corrected in your listing content (like an inaccurate color description), images, or video, make sure to do it right away. Over time, you'll see a "flywheel" effect as your positive reviews increase, leading to increased sales, which lead to increased reviews.
Negative product reviews are an invaluable source of information. If handled with the right tools and a customer-centric spirit, they can lead to a flourishing store and a successful brand.
Originally published on November 7, 2017, updated March 8, 2023
This post is accurate as of the date of publication. Some features and information may have changed due to product updates or Amazon policy changes.
These Stories on Feedback and Reviews
We Are Virtual!
But you can still send us mail:
14321 Winter Breeze Drive
Suite 121 Midlothian,
VA 23113
Call us: 800-757-6840
Copyright© 2007-2023 eComEngine, LLC. All Rights Reserved. eComEngine®, FeedbackFive®, and RestockPro® are trademarks or registered trademarks of eComEngine, LLC. Amazon's trademark is used under license from Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
No Comments Yet
Let us know what you think