Etsy Feedback / Reviews Heads -Up

[kmmcrafts]

Back in the spring / summer Etsy implemented that star seller program. They mentioned in the future that holding a star level seller could possibly effect how your products rank in the searches. Anyway without getting into all the detail garbage about this and how it can effect a seller negatively I just wanted to point out a somewhat new customer scam..

Customers are getting shops to give out huge discounts and even free items based on this feature and bribery. What happens is they make a purchase and when it comes time to leave feedback customer leaves a low star rating like a 1-2 star.. sometimes saying simple non-derogatory things like " beautiful" or "looks great" etc etc.. so to say they like it BUT. Sellers reach out to customer to say hey.. what was the issue you leave a poor star rating but say it's beautiful or something.. Then customer responds with too high priced for item I got etc.. and if it were $*.** I would have left a 5 star or whatever the case.. you get the idea.. I haven't had this happen to me but have been reading about it in some of the seller groups.. There are a large amount of sellers more worried about loosing star seller status and handle this type of bribe wrong by giving the discount and or refunding the whole price just to keep star status and not loose their search ranking with etsy.. 

There are good sellers and bad sellers on any platform out there whether it be Etsy, Ebay, or Amazon it really doesn't matter.. same goes for shoppers / customers. I'll gladly take a bad review over giving one of these customers the gratitude of winning one over on me.. The issue is this is happening more and more because some sellers are giving in and letting said customer win. Then they think they have the power to do that to all sellers so hence it's going to get worse before it gets better in my opinion. I always give sellers the option to return a item if it isn't what they had expected.. I have heard that these customers don't want to return it they want it lower priced..so they leave the bad review without returning.. in a bribe.. so there is no good option but to take the bad review.. Just My Opinion.. They won't be winning one over on me..

On a side note about reviews.. and what reminded me of this issue since I read about these issues back in the summer.. I had a customer do just that a couple days ago. She left a 1 star... and commented "Beautiful!!!" I thought I was about to get my first hand experience with this.. I reached out to her and said something along the lines of " Thank you for utilizing the Etsy feedback system.. was there and issue with your order? I see you only left a 1 star review but you mentioned the item was beautiful so I wanted to be sure you was satisfied with your purchase. Since you mentioned it was beautiful I'm wondering if you accidently left a 1 star and meant to leave a higher rating. If there was an issue you should message me about a return as I'd gladly accept returns as I strive to have 100% customer satisfaction if possible.. IF it was a accidental 1 star there is a option to edit your review and then I gave instructions on how to do that."  She messaged back shortly and said OH NO! that was a mistake.. I'll go try to figure out how to change it. I responded.. " I appreciate it if you can but if you cannot figure it out no worries, I was more concerned about your satisfaction than the review itself.. " She shortly had it changed to a 5 star review.. 

I'm just giving some suggestion here that.. IF you receive less than the usual 5 star.. IF customer is using a phone to leave the review.. some phones do not show the 5th star on the screen.. "Usually Android Phones".. I don't say anything about 4 star reviews to a customer because some people will always say there was room for improvement.. I don't expect every one to be a 5 star even though I strive for that.. I think I do well enough customer service that I should never receive a 1-3 star because I care and work for more than that.. and I'll message like I did above if there is an issue or it was mistake.. Mistakes happen quite a lot when leaving the review from a handheld device and many times reaching out will resolve a poor rating most times. 

Anyway, I just wanted to give a heads up about this review scam going into the holidays.. I intended to do this when I first heard but got side tracked and forgot until my mistake review fro yesterday.. 

Hope you all are as busy as you want to be selling your products!