Amazon Seller Beginner Mistakes #6: Not Listening to Customer Feedback

In this series, we will cover some very common, but easy to avoid mistakes that many brands make when selling on Amazon. We call these “beginner mistakes”, but even some longer-term sellers make many of these beginner mistakes as well.

By learning to avoid these mistakes in advance, you can put your brand in the best possible position to success on Amazon.

Amazon Seller Beginner Mistakes #6: Not Listening to Customer Feedback

Selling on Amazon is a huge opportunity, but it can also be a big risk. Everyone wants to believe that they have the best product on the market, but you can never know for sure until real customers start to buy your products.

If everything goes to plan, customer will love your product and the 5-star reviews will pour in. However, sometimes the customer does not get what they expect, and this can lead to returns, refunds, and bad reviews.

Getting bad reviews on Amazon can be disappointing and feel like a failure, but we see this as an opportunity to make some changes early on in the process before too much damage is caused to your brand and its reputation.

If you can identify issues early on and fix them, you still can have a successful Amazon business in the long run. On the other hand, ignoring feedback from customers can cause your entire business to fail.​

Why do products get negative customer feedback on Amazon?

There are many reasons that customers may be unhappy after buying your product on Amazon. Below I have outlined the 4 most common problems we have seen and how to fix them, starting with the easiest to fix and moving on to the most difficult to fix.

1. The customer didn’t get what they expected

One of the most common issues we see with products on Amazon is that the customer doesn’t get what they expect. For example, they may think they are buying a product that can solve their particular problem, but when they get it, they realize it doesn’t.

This confusion is most commonly caused by listing pages that don’t clearly communicate the product features to the customers. A customer may think they are getting a different size, quantity, color, or product feature that doesn’t match your actual product. These problems can lead to angry customers, refund, and bad reviews.

The Solution: Read product reviews closely to understand exactly what customers are getting confused about. Even better, contact your customers directly to really try to understand where your listing page content is confusing or misrepresenting what your product actually delivers. Redesign your listing page to more clearly communicate the most confusing points. Put this clearer information in the first bullet point, title, or in your first supporting listing image to increase the chances a customer will read the information.

There are many reasons that customers may be unhappy after buying your product on Amazon. Here are the most common problems and how to fix them, starting with the easiest to fix and moving on to the most difficult to fix.

2. Product setup or assembly is too confusing for some customers

Another common issue we see that leads to negative customer feedback is when customers are unable to set up or assemble their purchase correctly. These issues often lead to the angriest reviews, as these customers rarely blame themselves for being unable to use the product.

These issues pop up most often with products that have apps that need to be setup to use the product. We also see these issues with any product that requires customers to follow steps to activate or use the product correctly.

The Solution: Talk directly with customers to understand exactly why they are not able to follow instruction for setup. Try to make these instructions clearer and make them very easy to find in the packaging. Consider filming a video that the customer can watch step by step. If a 5-year-old can’t follow the instructions, then they are probably too complicated.

Also, consider providing phone support so that someone can call and speak to a live person that can walk them through the setup process. A little bit of effort goes a long way to prevent those angry 1-star reviews.

3. Your product has a major design flaw

While the issues above are quick and inexpensive to fix, finding out that the product you spent so much time and money designing has major issues can be heartbreaking.

The Solution: When you come to this realization, it’s important to have some deep conversations with your customers to find out where your product is coming up short. You will probably have to pull your remaining inventory from Amazon FBA and fix the issues with your product design.

Once you fix these issues, you probably will want to relaunch your product fresh with a new ASIN and UPC barcode, so that the negative reviews don’t follow the redesigned product.

It’s important to act fast, so that you don’t do lasting harm to your brand reputation. Pull down your listings, fix the problems, and relaunch with a product that meets or exceeds your customers' expectations.

4. Competitor brands are review bombing your listing pages with fake negative reviews

One thing we hear but have never actually seen in practice is a competitor trying to sink your product by posting a bunch of fake reviews. Many brands assume this is the issue before even considering the other possibilities I mentioned above.

While it is possible a competitor is review-bombing you, it is extremely unlikely. It’s possible that one or two negative reviews are fake, but if you are seeing a lot of negative reviews, and they are all complaining about the same problem, then it’s probably something you are doing wrong.

The Solution: This is probably not something you need to worry about. If you’re a new or smaller brand, no competitors are even going to notice you until you start selling a meaningful number of units on Amazon. No successful competitor is going to put their Amazon Seller account at risk of suspension just to mess with a product that isn’t really even competitive yet.

Summary

While negative customer feedback, refunds, and bad reviews are frustrating, they should be seen as an opportunity to better communicate with shoppers and to make sure your product is meeting their expectations.

It can also be an opportunity to talk directly with your customers, provide exceptional customer service, and earn a loyal customer for life through high level of customer service.

Don’t stick your head in the sand and blame your customers or anyone else for negative feedback. Learn from it and get better and you’ll be back on track for success on Amazon.