Amazon Handmade: What to Do When You Receive a Bad Review

When you get a bad review on Amazon Handmade it can be nerve-wracking and upsetting, but I’ve helped hundreds of sellers change their mindset when it comes to bad reviews. It’s tough to do, we put our hearts into our handmade items so it can feel a little personal when someone leaves a bad review.

1. DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY

I know it is easier said than done, but my best advice is to not take any bad review personally. They aren’t reviewing you or possibly even your work, they might just be reviewing as an Amazon consumer. Amazon customers tend to write brutally honest reviews, whether we agree with their opinions or not, you can’t take them personally or soon enough you’ll lose your joy in your creative process. Don’t let one or two bad reviews get you down. It happens to everyone at some point in their e-commerce business.

2. MAKE SURE THERE ISN’T ANYTHING YOU COULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY

Once you stop thinking about the review personally, it’s important to look at the review and feedback as an outside person. Does the review have any truth to it? Is there something you could do to make your listing information more clear to future customers? Try to use the feedback to your advantage and use it as a learning lesson.

3. SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE

Another important lesson that can be learned through bad reviews is that you can’t please everyone. Sometimes there wasn’t anything you could have done differently to avoid the review, and the issue lies with the customer’s expectations or assumptions. Just accept this and move on to focus on your business in other ways.

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Another important tip when it comes specifically to Amazon Handmade – there are 2 different types of feedback/reviews on the platform. One is Seller Feedback, which is left on your shop as a whole and should be about customer service, shipping, and other order only processes. Seller Feedback is not to be left about the product, so if your bad review is in the form of Seller Feedback and mentions the actual product, you can request for Amazon to remove this from your selling account.

Product Reviews, however, are left on each product listing and in 99% of cases, Amazon will not remove these removes unless they have cuss words, mention illegal activities or have private information included, such as addresses. It’s important to remember that on Amazon, a 3-star product review is considered good or average. It can be worrying if you are coming from Etsy where the majority of satisfied customers are leaving all 5-star reviews, but on Amazon, 3 or 4 stars is still not bad.

Selling on Amazon Handmade does have certain challenges that you may not face on other online selling platforms, but the amount of sales and revenue makes it worth dealing with the odd little challenges that you might face on the platform. For the most part, these challenges aren’t real challenges and just require a bit of a mindset shift.

Tara Reid

Tara Reid is a multi-passionate business and marketing strategist for introverted entrepreneurs who want to grow without relying on hustle culture or social media. With 18+ years of online business experience, she helps course creators, service providers, and digital product sellers build sustainable businesses through evergreen marketing, blogging, SEO, Pinterest, and email.

As the founder of the Introvertpreneur Club, Tara’s mission is to show heart-centered entrepreneurs that you don’t have to be loud to be successful. You just need the right strategies that fit your personality.

When she’s not supporting clients or creating new resources, you can find her at home in Canada with her three rescue dogs, a cup of coffee in hand, dreaming up her next project.

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