What Amazon's seller rules ban
Amazon's seller code of conduct lets you ask your own customers for reviews "in a neutral manner", and bans four things:
- Paying for or offering an incentive, such as coupons or free products, for writing or removing a review.
- Asking customers to write only positive reviews, or to remove or change one.
- Asking only the customers who had a good experience.
- Reviewing your own products or a competitor's.
Source: Amazon Seller Central, Selling policies and seller code of conduct
- Breaking the code can cost you your listings, your payments or your selling account.
Report a review only when it breaks the rules
- Every review on Amazon has a Report button next to it. Use it on a review that breaks Amazon's rules, such as one from a competitor or from someone paid to write it.
- Never pay anyone to report your bad reviews for you. Amazon sued the people behind Buyvotesforonlinecontest.com for selling exactly that:
“This fraudulent service consisted of defendants clicking on the “Report” button next to negative product reviews on a bad actor’s product listing page in an attempt to have the reviews taken down”
What buying good reviews cost one supplement seller
- In 2019 the FTC brought its first case over fake paid reviews on an independent retail site, against Cure Encapsulations and its owner, Naftula Jacobowitz.
- They paid amazonverifiedreviews.com to write and post Amazon reviews of their garcinia cambogia weight loss pills. The FTC says Jacobowitz told the site the product needed an average of 4.3 out of 5 stars to sell, and wrote "Please make my product … stay a five star."
- The order: a $12.8 million judgment, suspended once they paid $50,000 and some unpaid income tax, an email to every buyer about the FTC's claims, and a list for Amazon of every review they bought.
Source: Federal Trade Commission, February 26, 2019
Free product for reviews goes through Vine only
- On October 3, 2016, Amazon banned reviews written in exchange for free or discounted products, unless they come through its Amazon Vine program. Books kept their advance review copies.
- In Vine, Amazon picks and invites the reviewers. Chee Chew, then Amazon's VP of Customer Experience:
“We do not incentivize positive star ratings, attempt to influence the content of reviews, or even require a review to be written”
- Send a creator free product for a video, and never ask for an Amazon review in return.
When the same complaint keeps coming
- Answer one angry buyer through Buyer-Seller Messaging, the only channel Amazon allows for messages to customers, and leave the review out of it.
- When the same complaint shows up in review after review, fix the product and say what you're fixing where buyers will see it.
“something that helps any company turn it around when there is a problem is transparency that's the biggest thing”
What Is Crisis PR? Top Tips for Handling Any PR Crisis, June 2024
- Schubert's example: Slack's app crashed for around 5 hours on a Tuesday in 2022, and Slack kept users in the know about what it was doing to fix it.
- When the complaint reaches a creator's video, it's bigger than one buyer. Here's what to watch every week, and how to handle backlash from a creator.
- Google's rules are different. Here's what a brand can do about Google reviews.