It’s astonishing how terrible and grossly unfair the review process is. Shopkeepers get a poor review that has, literally, nothing to do with us. And it remains for all to see, falsely blaming the shopkeeper for the problem and hurting our business. Evidently, reviews cannot be removed due to laws and yet, no one knows what those laws are.
There is an online company that has been around forever. It is notorious for treating sellers poorly. But even they remove blatantly unfair reviews AND they give the seller a chance to respond to the customer. Perhaps this company is unaware of the laws that prevent the removal of reviews.
What laws prevent the removal of reviews? Does anyone know?
Zazzle, please re-evaluate the horrible review policy. At the very least, give shopkeepers a chance to respond. We need to inform the customer that we are not responsible for manufacturing, printing or shipping the products and to give Zazzle’s contact information.
The current review policy is stunningly unfair to shopkeepers.
I did before. i have had a problem with the review process for a long time. Now, it’s much worse because they refuse to delete grossly unfair reviews because there are laws preventing them. I would like to know what laws, but no one seems to know.
At the least, Zazzle needs to give us a chance to respond publicly. It is atrociously unfair for sellers to have negative reviews in their shops when we have absolutely nothing - nothing - to do with the problem.
Here’s Googles AI response to this question about Zazzle removing negative reviews given one of their Creators for something out of the Creators control, such as printing, shipping, product quality, etc and are there any laws preventing Zazzle from doing so? Google AI summary answer: No, there is no specific law preventing Zazzle from deleting negative reviews of their sellers, but they are restricted from doing so in a way that is deceptive or suppresses honest feedback. Federal law prohibits businesses from removing negative reviews based on their sentiment, but they can remove reviews that are defamatory, fake, violate the site’s terms, or contain false information.
What Zazzle can remove:
Reviews that violate the platform’s terms of service.
Fake or misleading reviews.
Reviews that are harassing, abusive, obscene, or contain private information.
Reviews that are clearly false or misleading.
What Zazzle cannot legally remove:
Honest, negative reviews based solely on their negative sentiment.
Using deceptive practices like suppressing negative reviews while misrepresenting that the reviews on its site are all or most of the reviews submitted.
What this boils down to is Zazzle cannot legally delete a review where someone is just saying, “I hate Zazzle printing,” because that is expressing a sentiment opinion about the company. Now negative reviews given a Creator Seller with a Zazzle store for anything like failing to ship in a timely manner or poor product quality or printing errors or anything that Zazzle is responsible for, that review is a false accusation against the Creator-Seller who has no control over such things—these reviews Zazzle can legally do something about because they are a false charge against the Creator Seller and it is misleading because it makes them responsible for things they are not. It is not honest feedback about the Creator-Seller. Also hurts the reputation of the Creator Seller. It’s a fine line, But a store owner ought to be able to report a negative review that blames them for things Zazzle’s responsible for and Zazzle could simply move the review from the Creator Sellers store to a different feedback location, since the complaint is probably legit against Zazzle, for Zazzle staff to consider and address.
Thank you. This is exactly what I’ve been saying - reviews that are misleading, i.e. blaming the shopkeeper for things they have NOTHING to do with - Zazzle can and should remove the review. The policy to not remove any review needs to be changed. It is grossly and breathtakingly unfair to the seller. We work extremely hard and long hours on this site. And, yet, we have to endure false charges that hurt our businesses. What’s especially egregious is that Zazzle is not even giving the seller the chance to respond to the review. We should be given a chance to respond directly under the review at the very least. Frankly, the review simply should be removed.
YES! Thank you for bringing this up. I have also complained about this in the past. If they dont want to delete the reviews at least remove them from the artist’s page and star rankings if it has nothing to do with our work. “the order was late, one star.” HOW IS THAT ON MY RATING? Totally unfair. Customers are already mistakenly messaging us as the first line to deal with issues out of our control, and we also have to accept the burdens of their reviews for these matters? Nonsensical.
I think people mistake us for Etsy. I once had a customer sending messages each on getting more angry because I was asleep and not working 24/7 to answer the messages they were sending and it was something I could not even fix because they wanted me to ship it to a different address they had listed when they ordered and we as just the artists do not know the customers address nor so we handle the shipping of the products. So then they go and leave a one star review on the product
Nonsensical and profoundly unjust. Simply horrendous to allow these negative reviews that have NOTHING to do with the seller to be on our page and star rankings. It is egregious and unjustifiable.
Definitely something needs to change. My latest ‘2-Star’ is from someone who thought the paper was too thin and glossy… hardly something I can control. Almost every negative review is related to something unrelated to us as designers. : (
This is what I’m talking about. The vast majority of negative reviews have ZERO to do with designers. ZERO. Yet, we have to endure them in our stores? Absolutely atrocious. False / misleading reviews can be taken off. The customer falsely believes the designer does the printing, manufacturing, choosing the papers (ertc), packing and shipping. Then, when the customer is dissatisfied, they leave a negative review in our stores, misleading the public that is it our fault.
I just got a one star review which was because the customer hadn’t received the product by a certain time. Is there any process where I can appeal for the review to be removed from my design? Thanks.
Please read the comments on some of my products, do you think I’m to blame?
About the Product I did not receive what I ordered, but instead the pages were of lips.
About the Product The cards were perfect. However, even though I paid $17.60 postage for 20 cards that cost $38 so that they would arrive by Dec 12, they did not arrive until Dec 18, a day too late for when I needed them. Thoroughly disappointed.
About the Product The product was exactly as described and would have been a spectacular addition to our themed 70th celebration. It was a catered, surprise affair and specifically ordered early enough. Promised on 12th, then a few days. Arrived 7 days after promised date. Totally unusable, after the fact!!!
I used to get really upset about poor reviews, which are always due to something out of my control. However, i recently realised that reviews are a customer’s feedback on their purchase, which includes all aspects of the sale.
Customers aren’t reviewing us or our designs, they’re reviewing the order they placed. So things like late delivery, printing or other quality issues, and customer service are all part and parcel of their order. Yes, it’s incredibly frustrating to get 1-star reviews for things that we can’t control, but it’s still a valid review of the customer’s experience ordering our products. Reviews really aren’t about our designs at all because the customer obviously liked it if they ordered it, so their reviews can only be about the quality of the end product, the delivery and customer service if they had to contact Zazzle. Yes, it is still frustrating to get 1-star reviews for our products, but it is fair. Zazzle apparently contacts customers who leave poor reviews, but it seems very few customers (if any) go back and change their review if their issue is resolved. Sadly that’s just human nature.
I’m sure manufacturers of products sold on Amazon are also frustrated when they get poor reviews on their products because Amazon delivered late or delivered the wrong product. But I think most customers are savvy enough to know that mistakes happen, so a single bad review about printing quality or late delivery isn’t likely to outweigh positive reviews in most cases. I have sold products after they received poor reviews, which can be explained in one of two ways: either the customer read the reviews and ordered anyway, or they didn’t read the reviews. Before Zazzle, I was a user experience consultant and I can tell you that most people don’t read reviews before buying. They may look at the overall star rating at the top under the product title, which is an average for all listings of that product type and thus usually high. I really don’t think bad reviews affect our sales as much as we think they do. If they did, we wouldn’t get any more sales on that product. Of course there isn’t any way to know how many people read the bad review and decided not to order because of it, but it’s unlikely to be a lot.
Zazzle removing bad reviews would create distrust. Someone who’s left a bad review and checks to make sure it was published would be all over social media and reddit saying Zazzle removes bad reviews so you can’t trust them. That’s far more likely to affect sales than one poor review.
Most reviews are positive, so I just ignore bad ones now.
I disagree. Customers are not savvy enough to realize those things are out of our control. That’s the problem. A further problem is that Zazzle believes in not deleting unfair reviews because of full transparency and giving the customers help both of which are quite laughable. Misleading the customer is not helping the customer. Having customers believe that it is the seller’s fault for things out of their control is not transparency by any stretch of the imagination. When it concerns the policy of reviews, we are living in opposite land.
Amazon has a separate spot for customers to review the packaging and shipments actually. Customers are not supposed to review in the product for that aspect, although some of course do make it there. Amazon will actually review and deny reviews for that reason. I’ve had it happen myself. You receive a message back that says ‘review not posted’ please review, edit and re-submit. Then it goes back into the review process.
I don’t think anyone is saying that reviews should not be published, but it seems like reviews should be attached to the overall item, aka ‘foam signs’, and not ‘this specific foam sign design’ when it is not related to the design. I can’t tell you how many messages I get every week that make me think customers do in fact think that we control everything.
Reviews do show specifically to your item when customers are looking at the reviews, your review shows at the top of the list. And if you google your store name, your overall ‘star rating’ shows directly under.
Either way, I still think the best way is to capture these customers before they even get to the ‘review this item’ button. If customers felt like they had a way to fix the problem first, I think it would reduce the number of bad reviews.
