Q&A: Why does Amazon buyer feedback often critique the book, not the seller?

QUESTION: I’ve been selling books on eBay and Half.com for five years with 100 percent positive buyer feedback, and have only recently started to sell on Amazon.

Feedback is important to me is because it lets me know I’m grading my books correctly and meeting a buyer’s service and quality expectation. But something is driving me nuts on Amazon: Many of the feedbacks I’ve received are mini book reviews that have absolutely nothing to do with the transaction. For example, two out of the three most recent feedbacks I’ve received went like this:

5 out of 5: “Clear, concise, practical, funny, personal. I couldn’t put it down!”
(RE: Idiot’s Guide to Toltec Wisdom)

4 out of 5: “This book was fascinating at first, but was too long and became predictable. It was an interesting read for the most part.”
(RE: The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue)

I have received thousands of feedbacks on the eBay sites, and no one has ever assumed I was responsible for a book’s content. Why are book buyers on Amazon so confused? Do they think they are buying a book directly from the author or publisher? What should I do when I receive negative feedback based on the buyer’s dislike for the book’s content?

I have concluded feedback is not as important on Amazon as it is on the eBay sites — mainly because the average buyer is not as sophisticated as the average eBay buyer, and because if a buyer leaves a poor, mindless, or ridiculous rating on eBay there is no real consequence for doing so.

ANSWER: I agree, Amazon buyers are much less aware of the purpose of feedback. Some of them don’t have the foggiest idea that they’re buying from a third party instead of Amazon itself.

I read a lot of the customer book reviews on Amazon, where people are supposed to critique the book, and several of them say stuff like, “Thanks for the fast shipping.”

Jeez, how did these people ever get a credit card?

No, seriously, I think there’s more to this. I’m not sure the eBay buyer is more sophisticated. It’s a different culture. Amazon buyers are driven more by convenience, and don’t give much thought to feedback. On eBay, lots of buyers (maybe most?) have been on the seller’s side of a transaction, so they understand feedback. On Amazon, I’d bet that less than 5 percent of buyers have ever sold something online.

The bad news: We have to deal with some clueless customers. The good news: This shows that our business is growing. People who never thought of buying from an “online seller” are buying our books. Lots of these people have never been on eBay, and perhaps never even bought a used book before.

You’re right, feedback is much less important to buyers on Amazon. However, I think it’s essential to your business to keep your feedback average as high as possible. Because feedback does matter to buyers of expensive books.

The best we can do is to clean up after the mishaps. Just as on eBay, Amazon allows buyers to delete feedback, and I think it’s worth the effort for us to educate them. Hopefully this prevents inappropriate feedback for another poor seller!

Here’s a post where I give instructions for feedback removal. On eBay, the equivalent is mutual feedback withdrawal.

I guess the additional challenge in the type of case you mention is to e-mail the buyer and educate them — within a sentence or two — that the purpose of feedback is to rate the seller, not the product. I think you need to be very brief when you ask a buyer to delete feedback. If they were careless enough to leave silly feedback, they aren’t going to care enough to read an e-mail from a seller that drones on for several paragraphs. As far as they’re concerned, the transaction is done.

Does anyone out there have a diplomatic way of saying this?

Related posts:

1. Q&A: Should I ask buyers for feedback?
2. Amazon buyer asks, ‘Who polices online seller-scammers?’