Bad reviews on Amazon have a significant impact on sellers’ businesses and the traction and momentum they want to build for future growth. 

The impact of negative or bad reviews is multifarious; it can result in loss of revenue, undermine the business reputation and drive customers away. 

In this article, we’ll show you how you can avoid bad reviews and take advantage of the feedback you’ve received from your buyers on Amazon.

The Impact of Bad Reviews on Amazon

According to the latest available estimates, Amazon has 9.7 million sellers worldwide. Out of these 9.7 million, 1.9 million actively sell on the marketplace.

Data shows that consecutive bad reviews can cause an irreparable dent in a business prospect. For instance, having one bad review can result in losing 22% of the prospective sale, or approximately 30 customers. 

Three negative reviews can drive away 59.2% of customers, while more than four bad reviews can result in a 70% loss of customers. Consecutive negative reviews also lower the search engine ranking and decrease profitability. 

With so much at stake, it is of utmost importance that sellers know how to handle bad reviews on Amazon. Here, in this article, we offer you a detailed route map of how to deal with negative reviews by finding them and removing them from the scope of your product or storefront. 

How to Find Bad Reviews on Amazon?

Before you start locating bad reviews on Amazon, it is crucial to know what makes it a valid ground for review removal. 

Amazon has review guidelines for both buyers and sellers. The purpose of these guidelines is to protect stakeholders at both ends of the purchase cycle.

These guidelines ensure that the stakeholders of a sale don’t have to face harassment, intimidation, or malicious or fraudulent manipulation of any sort. 

Following are the grounds considered valid for review removal:

• It uses profanity and obscene language.
• Intends to directly attack the seller. 
• Divulges personal information, such as names, email addresses, or contact numbers.
• Reviewer confusing seller feedback for product reviews.
• The same customer posts multiple bad reviews for a single product. 
• A competitor of the product or the seller submits a review.
• Comprises external or promotional links or comments about other sellers.
• Comes with images that are sexual, indecent, or inappropriate. 

How to Be on Top of Bad Reviews

A quick and easy way to find bad reviews on Amazon would be to get alerts. However, Amazon does not notify sellers of any new reviews. 

Once a review is posted on Amazon, it stays there as long as the product listing exists. 

However, there could be cases of review removal, even when the seller is not removing it. The review may conflict with Amazon’s community guidelines – as cited above – or the reviewer may choose to remove it. Except for these two scenarios, there could be other causes. 

For instance, Amazon might discover that multiple products have incorrect listings as the same product. In that case, Amazon would separate the reviews when it separates the products. 

The other case could be where Amazon detects unusual review behaviour or has decided to not accept or display reviews that go beyond the ambit of Amazon Verified Purchase reviews. 

If none of these review removal actions is applicable, then comes the scope of the seller removing bad reviews on Amazon. 

Watch this video to learn more:

How to Remove Bad Reviews on Amazon?

Here we come to the central question of how to deal with bad reviews on Amazon. There are several ways. 

Let us look at each of them one by one:

1. Ask Amazon Directly

You can go to your Amazon product details page and click ‘report abuse’ for the review you find questionable. Or you can choose to send an email to [email protected]. Here, you will have to cite your product ASIN in this mail, the date and time of the review, the name or pseudonym of the reviewer, and a link to the review. 

Amazon only deletes reviews on your request if it finds it to go against its guidelines. Therefore, try to detail the ways you think the review violates user guidelines. Also, choose not to report all your bad reviews in one go.  

2. Get a Strike-Through from Amazon on Your Negative Review

Sometimes, Amazon chooses to strike through bad reviews instead of removing them. The strikethrough may happen under two conditions: 

1. Amazon finds the whole comment is related to service and fulfillment for an order fulfilled by Amazon. 
2. The entire comment relates to an undelivered or delayed order. One that you had shipped on time using Buy Shipping Services. 

There are other scenarios where you can choose to ask for a strikethrough: 

In some instances, the customer receives a damaged box instead of a brand-new boxed item you had sent. Here, Amazon takes the responsibility for the damaged goods delivered and for cases where a different product variant gets delivered rather than the one you had offered. 

3. Write a Public Response to the Negative Review

This is not an exact way to remove bad reviews on Amazon. 

However, you can always choose to write a prompt and public reply. This helps show your company in a positive light as one that cares about its customers’ opinions and deals with them sensitively and professionally. 

All you need to do is the following:

1. Find the bad review.
2. Click on the ‘Actions’ link and choose the option of ‘Post a Public Reply.’ 
3. Once you’ve written your reply, hit the submit button. 

4. Contact the Buyer Directly

If you fail to convince Amazon that the review you are talking about is violative of its guidelines and does not qualify for a strikethrough either, the way is to contact buyers directly. 

Get in touch with the buyer and choose to deal with the problem the way you find best. Amazon has a policy that stops sellers from incentivizing or creating pressure on a buyer to amend or remove a bad review. 

The best alternative is to apologize if you – as a seller – are at fault. 

You can also offer a refund. Amazon encourages sellers to resolve the concerns of the buyers before reaching out to Amazon. 

Final Thoughts

While it is crucial to be aware of all available avenues to remove bad reviews on Amazon, you must also aspire and work for more positive reviews. 

This will help you improve your overall rating and get the positive ones back at the top of your product review zone. 

Also, negative reviews are amazing avenues to learn about your product, especially the aspects that need improvement since it helps locate if there is an unmet need in the market for you to work and develop on.  

Although, none of these can offset the toll subsequent negative reviews take on the seller’s reputation and sales potential by leveraging expert services to bounce back.

About AMZ Advisers

AMZ Advisers is an eCommerce and digital marketing agency focused on the Amazon platform. We help brands and manufacturers strategize, plan, and execute growth strategies for the Amazon platform. Our team manages the full Amazon life-cycle including product research, listing optimization, inventory optimization, advertising management, competitor benchmarking, and performance reporting.