That's actually a fair review, and they gave it 4 stars anyways. They received a product that didn't work, reached out to the manufacturer with no response, so are turning to the retailer they bought it from for help. Totally reasonable. They are not giving you a bad review. That Zazzle figures review scores in to ranking Collections, that's messed up but is none of the customer's concern. Ordering issues, shipping delays, product & print quality - none of that has to do with the designer but it's standard things people mention in reviews. If you think about it, there's really nothing of importance they can say about the design itself. "I didn't like this design"? Then why did they order it? "I love this design"? Of course they do, that's why they ordered it. Unless you were communicating behind the scenes to make them a custom design or something, there's really nothing meaningful they can say about the design/designer. So it is totally unfair that Zazzle factors reviews that generally aren't ever going to reflect on the individual designer into their Collection scores. It does however go both ways. This is a 5-star Zippo review as example:
"Zippo works great .always have a lighter for around the house ... Custom so never gets borrowed lol... and easy to refill... Came out good for such a small item.... Print is durable so far."
None of that has anything to do with the design/designer either, but it factors into the designer's Collection score (4.8) too.
On Amazon, they want reviews to be only about the product itself. Mention issues with shipping or the seller, that'll usually get your review denied. They have separate places to report/rate on those things. Zazzle's review form used to have distinctly different fields prompting for feedback on Product and Printing. Last I did a review, there was only one field to enter your thoughts in, and a box to check as to whether it shipped on time and another I think for whether you'd recommend it. Even if Z implemented a review form with different sections that could be individually rated and included one specifically for design/Designer, see above ... what could people say there that would be meaningful or helpful to other shoppers? You either like a design or you don't, if you don't than you wouldn't have ordered it.
I don't know what the answer is here but 1) I think Z def needs to abandon the practice of ranking collections based on individual product reviews as that's not sensible or fair and 2) Z should publish responses to reviews like the one you posted, saying "we got you covered, will send replacement, do refund ..." Whatever the wording. Just so other shoppers scrolling reviews can see that Z steps-up to make things right when there is an issue.
It doesn't seem fair at all. Three 1-star reviews from the same person for an item never delivered is a problem. I’ve never seen those reviews before—they just appeared out of nowhere a few weeks ago, and as a result, my collection rating dropped to 2.8.
