Seller beware! 9 reasons that violate the buyer’s product review policy!

9 violations of buyer's product review policy for sellers to be aware of

Before the peak season, many sellers were caught and held accountable by Amazon for their past behaviors. They received a warning letter from Amazon, which explicitly stated one of the sellers’ “guilt”: violating the buyer’s product review policy.

“Why did I receive this email?

All Amazon sellers should comply with Amazon’s sales policies and seller code of conduct. Any behavior that provides compensation in exchange for buyer reviews violates our buyer product review policy. This violation will have a negative impact on your account status; if not resolved, it may result in account suspension. Sellers must not manipulate buyer reviews or ratings. This Amazon policy prohibits the following activities:

— Providing third parties with financial rewards, discounts, free products, or other compensation in exchange for reviews of their own or their competitors’ products. This includes using services for selling buyer reviews, websites or social media groups.

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— Providing refunds or compensation after the buyer has posted a review (including compensation through non-Amazon payment methods). This refund or compensation may be completed through Amazon’s buyer and seller messaging services, direct contact with the buyer, or the use of third-party services, websites, or social media groups.

— Using third-party services related to reviews that offer free or discounted products, such as asking buyers to register their Amazon public profile for review clubs that sellers monitor. “

Once a seller receives such a “violation of the buyer’s product review policy” warning, Amazon will require them to appeal within 72 hours (3 days), otherwise their account will be suspended!!!

It’s already 2023, and Amazon’s platform rules are only getting stricter. Once there is any violation, the seller will be punished by Amazon’s platform! Behaviors such as manipulating reviews and giving buyers cash, discounts, gift cards, free products, etc. in exchange for positive reviews will all be caught by Amazon’s system, and Amazon will record such violations by the seller, and will “settle accounts” with the seller at any time.

Recently, many sellers have come to us at Wuyou Creative for help, saying that they have received warning letters from Amazon, stating that they have violated the product review policy for buyers, but the sellers do not know what specific mistakes they have made. So today, we will analyze the 9 main reasons that will cause Amazon to determine that the seller has violated the product review policy for buyers:

➤1, Sellers use family members, company employees, etc. to post reviews of their own products or competitor’s products (making fun of competitors).

➤2, Sellers post reviews of their own products or competitor’s products (making fun of competitors), which Amazon absolutely will not tolerate. Sellers must find their own position, because Amazon only allows real buyers to comment.

➤3, When buyers post reviews that are not favorable to the seller’s product (review rating is less than three stars), the seller uses returning or compensating the buyer with some other product in exchange for the buyer deleting or modifying the review.

➤4, In order to increase the number of product reviews or delete negative reviews, the seller contacts the buyer and requires the buyer to write a review or delete the review in exchange for a refund or return of the product.

➤5, In order to increase the number of product reviews, the seller violates the rules by combining different products into a product variant to aggregate the reviews of two products and improve the star rating of the product.

➤6、 Sellers send negative feedback that is detrimental to their store to themselves or to different feedback mechanisms, while sending positive feedback to Amazon in an attempt to deceive.

➤7、 In order to obtain more reviews and increase positive reviews for their products, sellers insert requests or rewards, such as postcards, gift cards, cash vouchers, and improper after-sales cards, into the packaging or shipping boxes of their products to request buyers to give positive reviews.

➤8、 Sellers log in to buyers’ accounts through improper means and post or modify reviews for their own products or for competitors’ products, known as “account hijacking.”

➤9、 Sellers provide gifts, discounts, coupons, or economic incentives to third parties such as buyers or influential people like social media influencers, in exchange for reviews of their own or competitors’ products. This includes the use of social media, websites, and services that sell buyer reviews.

All these behaviors listed above violate Amazon’s buyer review policy, but not limited to these. Any manipulation of reviews through improper means is not allowed by the Amazon platform and will be deemed a violation.

After violating Amazon’s buyer review policy, Amazon will impose severe punishments, such as permanently revoking a seller’s sales authorization on the Amazon platform, withholding funds, removing all product reviews, preventing future product reviews, permanently delisting products, taking legal action against sellers, and other measures.

Of course, there are many legitimate ways for sellers to increase product reviews, such as ensuring product quality, compliant review solicitation, and increasing product sales. Only by compliantly operating an Amazon store can it be run for a longer period of time~~~

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