Customers leave bad reviews when they can’t reach customer support to resolve issues

[misook]

So how about this solution…

Could Zazzle request private feedback from customers about any issues before allowing them to leave a public review? This way, customers are given the opportunity to resolve any lingering issues before they leave mostly unfair public reviews for designers. Most bad reviews are related to poor quality issues, missing items, shipping issues, and other problems that should be resolved by Zazzle Customer Support and are not the fault of the designers. Customers leave a one star review to get attention when they can’t get customer service. I understand it gets busy and some customers may be impatient, but asking for a public review before ensuring their issues have been addressed is just asking for an angry review from unsatisfied customers. If Zazzle is addressing these issues after seeing the bad reviews, it doesn’t do the designers any good since the reviews remain and reduce our store rating.

Zazzle is not like Etsy or Amazon where the store owner has a lot of control over what the customer gets so the review request process should be different.

Zazzle needs to do more to make it clear that the designers are NOT fulfilling the orders. In a one star review caused by not receiving her order, a customer went as far as to say that she believes this issue is more the individual and not Zazzle because she doesn’t know that the individual store owners have nothing to do with fulfilling her orders and that it’s 100% Zazzle’s responsibility. Obviously this review blaming me for not receiving her order is completely misguided and unfair but the review still appears in public attached to me with no option to clear things up with the customer which Zazzle should have done.

It’s been disheartening to see one bad review after another because of Zazzle issues (which I understand may be disheartening for Zazzle because of some makers who seem to have zero quality control which make me upset too). 2024-2025 have been the worst for bad reviews which indicates it’s getting worse. Most issues could have been addressed by Zazzle if the customers were given the opportunity to get them resolved before being given the opportunity to leave bad reviews that hurt designers more than anything when it’s not our fault at all.

[Fiona]

I will pass this along now, thank you!

[kills]

Don't pass it on. FIX IT thank you

[BevStuff]

Red Flag the pass along as being a priority issue please.

[Deb]

4 months later .. its still there .. will zazzle please remove it? 

[orientcourt]

Absolutely right misook ,designers have a lot to navigate, let alone being blamed for issues not caused by them ! Bad reviews mean less sales for the company!   

[Nicole]

I also had the exact same thing happen. I received lots of 1 star reviews on my designer account over the holidays and each one is a shipping issue, item arrived damaged, item never arrived, didn't arrive on time, and popular reason is that they ordered a certain number of cards/envelopes and the order was short 3-5 cards and/or envelopes. Because of all these bad reviews which none were related to my designs my collection star review shown on my cross promotion collections shows 1 star for me next to my picture. I am a good designer and create excellent products with correct template fields, print well, are on trend. Its not fair to me to have a 1 star showing when all the reviews are for zazzle quality issues. I propose that Zazzle allow designers to email in and have the reviews removed that are because of Zazzle quality or shipping issues. That would help our star reviews go back up. 

[AlyssaErnst]

We really do need a way to filter out bad reviews that have nothing to do with our design. I have mostly 5-star reviews but just got another 1-star rating for a product that was damaged in shipping...which is not my fault. This reflects poorly on my shop and I don't want to be the scape goat for a problem I didn't create.

[Deb]

I completely agree .. I get tired of getting bad reviews due to lack of quality control.. ie: I got the bad review and it had nothing to do with me.. Id really like zazzle to remove it 

AND while we’re on the subject.. did you know some people are getting also paid to give reviews? THAT is , in my opinion, is seriously unfair .. talk about swing the pendulum.. it could either make or break a designer .. not cool zazzle, not cool at all 

https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/25534893678103-Overview-of-the-Zazzle-Reviews-Program

[AirTwin]

When I post it might seem like I'm complaining, with this topic the tone comes from the helpless nature of I cannot QC products like I did when selling at Etsy.

I had a buyer with a white line on the finial print, I have no idea how to fix that on my end .. that was a final product issue. Products break easy, I cannot control the produce source. It upsets me I cannot help.

Also. The fact that employees can ding a designers rating is very unsettling.

[Phrosne_Ras_Des]

Thank you for those screenshots, Deb. I actually can’t believe this. 

This program should not be visible on the designers profiles - this is for Zazzle’s quality control (and maybe market) research. There could even be other reasons for bad reviews, other than quality, but not design..Bad reviews can hardly come down to the design - because the bride (if it’s a wedding invitation) already loved and chose the design. If the product is in the customer’s cart - you can’t change your design. So from loving and choosing it - nothing changes from the designers’ side. 

[BevStuff]

😯😡
Ew. Definitely that Zazzle would allow their designers take the flack for printing fails or product quality issues or delivery issue that are entirely Zazzle's responsibility if a HUGE FAIL on their part!!!  

[AirTwin]

I noticed this about Zazzle wanting so badly to be Etsy or trick people that they are Etsy.

[Ellvineblue]

I agree with the comments above. I propose Zazzle to erase the bad reviews after a year. Give a chance to the shop to do and to look better. Carrying  bad reviews months after months, it is like we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Especially when the reviews are about missing items or badly printed.

[AirTwin]

Especially if a product becomes discontinued with no hope of a brand change or auto transfer. 

[sanainvi]

Yeah , I got a 1 star review for one of my product because of late shipping and it drastically effect my sales . My sales got down more than 50%

[cationa]

Same here, I got 1 star review yesterday due to the costumer received broken mug and the Zazzle CS team didn't reply anything to their email. And today my sales decrease drastically. I hope there will be a solution for this.

[SORS]

Two recent customer reviews have me extremely concerned:

• Year of death printed as 1015 instead of 2025. They said they were furious. 
• Date of birth printed incorrectly on the back, though correct on the front — customer called it humiliating at the memorial service.

These were personalized memorial products, and the errors are devastating for the families. My templates are correct, and customers would have seen accurate dates in the preview. This seems like a possible system or production glitch.

Has anyone else experienced date fields printing differently than what appeared in the customer’s customization preview? This needs urgent investigation — the impact on grieving customers is serious. 

[jophb]

I just had a recent one on a photo collage item that said the photos were all wrong and the name field was completely missing.  And a recent message from another that had a date field wrong where it had both the correct date and the placeholder info still on it (to be fair on this one, that could have been a user error).

[Phrosne_Ras_Des]

Thank you Misook for this post. Thank you for those screenshots, Deb. I actually can’t believe this. 

This program should not be visible on the designers profiles - this is for Zazzle’s quality control (and maybe market) research. 

There could even be other reasons for bad reviews, other than quality, but not design…

Bad reviews can hardly come down to the design - because the bride (if it’s a wedding invitation) already loved and chose the design. If the product is in the customer’s cart - you can’t change your design. So from loving and choosing it - nothing changes from the designers’ side. 

[HeatherMarie]

I have had more and more bad reviews lately and the buyer is blaming me because they think I had printed the product and sent it to them. There needs to be a way to inform people beforehand that the designers do not print or ship. This will hurt sales for the design when it has nothing to do with the design at all. I'm just baffled by this honestly. How may years has it been and nothing has ever been solved? Instead, Zazzle has just been focusing on ways to make more money. Please get your priorities straight, Zazzle, and take care of the customers before they take it out in the reviews which hurts the designer and hurts Zazzle's business.

[HeatherMarie]

Designer reviews and product reviews need to be separated somehow. There has to be an easy solution to this. I get so many messages as well by people thinking that I am printing the product or shipping it. It's exhausting. If you want to pay me a salary to be a customer service rep, then I will gladly do so. If not, please solve this issue.

[jophb]

I've been getting a lot of messages lately that clearly indicate customers think WE are the ones handling the entire order process (like they think this is Etsy). And yes, 99% of the bad reviews are things I cannot control. : (

[AirTwin]

That's the problem with looking like Etsy, using certain maker terms used there like "digital downloads" that are not, modeling their emails exactly like Etsy right down to colors, subject line, and the way they are laid out.

It's only going to get worse with ai, with people getting older, they won't be able to tell who they are buying from and yes it will hurt everything.

I do not shop Etsy for many reason, mostly because I know how they operate.

[BevStuff]

Companies holding customer reviews to check prior to public view is pretty standard practice. Amazon & Google both do that as do many other companies I've left product reviews with do so. So this is a reasonable suggestion for Zazzle.

Also Designers ought to have the privilege of being able to do something with a bad review on topics like printing quality or shipping delays and other similar things only Zazzle can control--either a way to forward such things to Zazzle customer service to respond to and also block from view or just a method for designers to block such stuff or even remove. Zazzle needs to step up on this matter.