7 min read

Your Amazon Business & Marketing Q&A #1

Your Amazon Business & Marketing Q&A #1

Welcome to the first edition of ‘Your Business & Marketing Questions & Answers.’ For the next 8 weeks, this is going to be a bi-weekly Q&A series where we answer questions from our Amazon sellers. If you have any specific biz question don't hesitate to write us at [email protected].

In this post we're going to answer:

So without further ado let’s jump straight into the first question.

How can you remove negative feedback on Amazon?

We've written how to request a removal of negative feedback, but read on for the big takeaways if you're time constrained.

Amazon themselves list 4 reasons why negative feedback can be removed. These are as follows:

  • Obscenity
  • Personal information
  • Product review
  • Fulfilled by Amazon sale

By the way, get notified immediately about negative feedback with Bindwise Alerts.

When appealing on each of the grounds above, it’s important to make it clear to Amazon as to WHY the feedback should be removed. You should be looking to cite each request using one of the reasons above.

For example, if a customer has left a review about the product and not the service you provided, tell them that! Use wording like ‘The customer’s negative opinion is based on the product and not the service we provide. Please remove this. Thanks.’ This clearly demonstrates the reason for the review to be removed and what action needs to be taken.

Also, make the series of events that occurred during the sale process clear to Amazon. For example, if a customer is complaining that they did not receive the delivery on time but you clearly shipped it during the time window advertised on the product listing, make this apparent to Amazon.

If what you’re saying is correct and it turns out the customer is not being entirely truthful, there will be grounds to remove the negative review.

This does not directly fall into the four reasons described above, meaning that Amazon will remove negative feedback for other reasons too.

These include:

  • Customers not being truthful in writing feedback
  • Showing that as a seller, you did everything you were supposed to do
  • Reviews that were made are completely irrelevant

The main point is that as long as you tell Amazon what and why negative feedback should be removed, they will listen. Just be clear, keep it concise and include an obvious call to action ie ‘Please remove the feedback.’

What is the link to send to buyers to revise negative feedback on Amazon?

A nice question. Shortly,

https://www.amazon.[COM, CO.UK, CA, etc.]/gp/your-account/order-details/?&orderID=ORDER_ID_NUMBER

By the way, here is the link that shows the 2-step process of how to revise or remove negative feedback.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201125570

A customer has 60 calendar days to revise the feedback so don’t send them the link too long after they have posted it.

Setup Bindwise alerts which automatically include this link to a notification:

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How can you win A-Z claims?

There is often a perception that ‘the customer always wins’ when it comes to settling A-Z claims. This does not have to be the case!

In fact, it’s entirely possible to win around 50% of all claims meaning that above statement would change to ‘the customer wins half’ of all A-Z claims.

A way to start winning these claims is by figuring out what you want to achieve.

Responding in a manner such as ‘we haven’t received the return so will not refund you’ is going straight for the knockout blow. You’re being clear that you cannot actually do anything.

There are times when you need to be more subtle with your action by using the paid-by-Amazon service. This can provide a good win as you can make it clear to the claimant that the situation has caused a lot of confusion. Amazon won’t be able to see who is in the wrong here and will intervene in order to please the customer. This occurs more often that you would probably think, they’re actually really good at this.

Keep in mind what approach you are going to take when responding to a claim.

Also, do not go into so much detail in the response. Only provide direct and informative information and if you believe you are correct, make it to them and be clear. Remember, this is your money they are trying to take!

The final thing to be wary of is Amazon’s terms and conditions around claims, returns and refunds. It’s going to be a lot harder to make your point if you send a faulty product out in the first place.

A customer claims not to have received a package? Tracking shows delivered.

If you ever happen to be in this situation then there are a couple of options that you can take.

First off, sometimes it could be the case that the product was delivered to a neighbour. It could be a good idea to ask the customer to check with neighbours that the product has been signed for by them. If this is the case, the delivery driver will usually leave a note to the customer informing them that the package is with someone else.

If the package was genuinely not delivered then you should be looking to contact the customer and discuss either giving them a full refund or a replacement product free of charge. Most customers are honest enough that they aren’t looking to scam you for a free product.

As the seller, you are responsible for the product getting delivered to the customer. You should be looking to take care of the customer as best as you can; you are going to want them to come back to your store in the future.

The longer you wait until to resolve the issue, it becomes increasingly likely that the seller will raise an A-z claim and leave negative feedback. Yes, you know how to deal with these as described above but if you can avoid avoid having to deal with it in the first place, you’ll be far better off.

What happens on Amazon when you change your product packaging? (Upgrading my packaging… does Amazon care? Does it change anything?)

All that matters when you launch a product is getting it to market.

So if you are launching your product and you’re just trying to get it to the market using a polybag is just okay.

The product has to be good of course, but the packaging doesn’t need to be the best it can be at this point. Having the product on the store and available to buy is all that matters.

However, here at Bindwise, we believe that Amazon is eventually going to probably do away with people launching products with polybags. Amazon is going to want it "retail ready". As of right now, that’s not the case.

Upgrading your packaging is mainly used as a marketing technique. It gives you the opportunity to advertise it as ‘new and improved’ or ‘now 10% smaller’ or anything along those sorts of lines. Eventually though, when a customer sees the item in the store, it will look the same. Customers will not even be able to tell that anything really changed after a while.

So yes, it is alright to change the packaging. At the end of the day, customers are not going to be bothered about the change and also Amazon aren’t going to care about it.

If packaging could play a part in perceived value of your product, it makes sense to go all in on the upgrade. For example, when you go out and buy a new mobile phone, you get the fancy, shiny box that the device comes in. But that’s not all. You also all these different bags that the earphones come in etc. It plays on the perception that the product is valuable.

Compare that to when you buy an oven or a couch, the only purpose of the packaging is that it doesn’t get damaged or broken. See where I’m going with this?

All this can be done on an existing listing meaning this won’t affect rankings or sales numbers or anything like that.

What does ‘Out for delivery’ actually mean?

In simple terms, the package has left the storage unit and is ready to be dropped off at the customer’s mailing address.

The process is as follows.

The package that was ordered is sent to the courier for delivery and placed in a storage area for them to collect it. As they pick it up to deliver to the customer, they will scan the package to let the seller and the customer know the package is ‘out for delivery’.

When the package is then brought to the customer, the deliverer should then scan the package again to say that the customer has received it. This is not always the case however.

Sometimes the deliverer may leave the package outside or just handed to somebody at the address without it being scanned. Other times the package may have to be returned to the storage facility to attempt to be delivered again on a different day, or even returned to the unit for the customer to pick up directly.

And that about wraps it up

I hope that these answers can help you and your business deal with some frequently asked questions and you can use the advice straight away.

Join us next week where you will find the second edition to our Q&A. Let us know if you have any questions of your own you would like answered by writing us at [email protected].


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