Customer reviews changed to national instead of global
I am devasted that Amazon has changed customer reviews from global to national. So my UK customer reviews are no longer counted in the rest of Europe or the USA. How does Amazon do this without warning or consultation with sellers?
0 replies
Seller_yG3G9C3Th3h0Z
We have exact same problem with one of the old product, seems amazon is separating markets
Seller_HJJJNbO7upP7N
I have just noticed this change and I am also completely devastated.
I began my life as an Amazon seller on the UK marketplace only, and I have worked very hard to build a large library of reviews/ratings in this marketplace. It was the fact that these reviews could be shared across the Pan EU marketplaces that recently encouraged me to invest in expanding my business into these marketplaces, which is no mean feat post-brexit.
I have this year invested huge amounts of capital, time and effort into setting up new logistics and supply networks to ship my products to these marketplaces and store them in the EU, (as well as tax registrations, VAT advice, legal fees etc.). No sooner do I get up and running on the other European marketplaces and this happens, completely pulling the rug out from under everything I’ve done.
My Pan EU business and the plans I had for it have been completely decimated. I have emailed my Pan EU account manager and I will update here if I receive a meaningful response, but I have little hope in receiving one.
Yours in solidarity with all in the same position
Seller_ljsxMboVK56IQ
I wish you luck and appreciate any update in the future.
Plus, I completely sympathize with you because I am in a similar situation. My last ticket answer from Amazon was:
Please note that Global Reviews Sharing (GRS) is no longer automatically enabled on all ASINs. We have added additional criteria for non-media and non-digital (i.e., softlines, hardlines, consumables, etc.) ASINs to qualify for GRS. Specifically, we are checking if an ASIN is adequately protected across marketplaces against abuse by bad actors.
We implemented these changes because during 2020 we have seen a surge in abuse where bad actors were “hi-jacking” ASINs in order to benefit from globally submitted reviews. This had an impact to Customer Trust around Customer Reviews as Customers saw reviews that described unrelated products (i.e., a review describing a t-shirt on an ASIN advertising a coffee mug).
Currently, only ASINs that are enrolled into Brand Registry and that have the same Brand ID across all marketplaces qualify for GRS, in addition to other criteria.
Just because an ASIN doesn’t qualify for GRS doesn’t mean that the Selling Partner who created or is currently listing on the ASIN is a bad actor, it just means that the ASIN may be targeted by a bad actor and therefore it isn’t safe to share global reviews.
We are currently re-evaluating all ASINs that we previously enabled for GRS against the new criteria and are disabling GRS on any ASINs that are not adequately protected (ECD 30-Jun-2021). If you or the Selling Partner noticed that global reviews recently disappeared, then it likely didn’t meet the additional GRS criteria.
Please refer to the following documents for more information:
GRS FAQs (specifically #11 and #12):
Seller_aPtk6TuGYV313
And here I was thinking I was the only one. This policy or whatever you want to call it makes absolutely no sense and we never would of took on the additional overhead of expansion. Has anyone been able to resolve this issue? Its not applied consistently for all sellers and even then product detail pages still say global rating count while only actually listing or giving credit to the individual marketplace such as Amazon.fr etc.
Seller_HJJJNbO7upP7N
Sadly, as expected, our Pan EU account manager was no help at all. I was given some fob off about Brexit being the reason behind this, but from Da_Dude we know this is simply untrue.
I’m now liquidating our EU inventory and we won’t be restocking unless the reviews change back. Even then I will have to think twice, given the propensity for Amazon to introduce measures such as these with no warning, information or consideration.
Seller_I3u5KnN8QhIvo
What an absolute shower. I have wasted days of my life and amazons staffs time trying to resolve this.
Seller_Y0ydmxdE8ED0y
Like you all, I was also horrified to discover my reviews plummet from 1000+ to under 100. My sales have dropped considerably. This is after having invested in a lot more stock due to the increase in sales I’ve had since they introduced GRS a year or so ago.
Has anyone else got some global reviews but not all? My products show a small (half a dozen or so) random selection of them.
Seller_ljsxMboVK56IQ
I am still trying to get my GRS restored. I haven’t given up because I can see that many of my main competitors have had their GRS restored. So there must be a way!
Seller_Y0ydmxdE8ED0y
I thought I’d get myself wound up by contacting Seller Support today. Total waste of time as you’d expect, including their denial that anyone else has the same problem.
Extracts from the chat:
Acy Allana:Thank you for patiently waiting.
Amazon shares reviews written by verified purchasers of the same product in other countries. These reviews are shown in the section “Top reviews from other countries” below the local reviews section on the detail page. The review mentions the country where the review was originally written. Reviews may not be shared if they do not meet the internal Amazon policy guidelines.
Me:What are those policy guidelines?
Acy Allana:Unfortunately we cannot provide the exact statement as it is only accessible for the internal team.
Me:Furthermore, on the main product detail page on the UK site it shows 7 reviews. 2 from the UK and 5 from the US. When you then click “see all reviews” it shows the same 2 UK reviews, but only 3 US reviews, all of which are different to the original 5 shown. So where have the missing 5 gone?
Acy Allana:I see, again reviews may not be shared if they do not meet the internal Amazon policy guidelines.
Me:That appears like a technical issue.
Acy Allana:I see, reviews gets audited periodically. The system updates it in accordance to Amazon’s policy and guidelines
I really do apologize about this, however it is all based on the system and Amazon guidelines
I checked on this again for you but I am getting the same results.
Me:That still doesn’t make any sense. I am not talking about at different times, I’m talking about clicking from one page to the next and the information changing.
Acy Allana:Yes, it is just based on the system. There are currently no reports of any error on this.
Me:So the system decides only 5 of 70+ verified reviews meet policy guidelines, but click to read them in full and it changes its mind and thinks those 5 no longer meet policy guidelines, but 3 other ones do.
Meaning 5 reviews meet guidelines on the product detail page, and 3 different reviews meet guidelines on the product reviews page.
Acy Allana:Again, we do not have further information on this as it is all based on the system.
There are no reports of errors on this.
I have run the diagnostic as well and I am just getting the same results
Me:I know there’s a number of other sellers who have complained about this same problem and for all of us it has had a very detrimental effect on our sales figures. Surely someone in Seller Support should have referred this for someone who does know the system to look at it?
Yes, you are getting the same results - and surely you can see they are not making sense. So I would imagine you have the ability to refer the problem to the relevant department.
Acy Allana:I will be happy to take note of this feedback.
Unfortunately, since it is not an ongoing issue and there are no other reports of the same issues, we cannot initiate an investigation for this.
Acy Allana:I do understand where you are coming from but I checked on it on our tools but what I have mentioned earlier is what I have gotten over and over
We have certain guidelines to follow and this is something that we cannot grant as of the moment
Me:What has my issue been logged as? I will advise the other sellers to ensure there’s is logged as the same.
Acy Allana:It is regarding Global Reviews Sharing
Seller_ljsxMboVK56IQ
I have complete sympathy for your attempts.
Personally, I have always found that Amazon Chat Support offers support at a low level. They are hardly ever able to fix anything unless it is quite simple.
The best support I have ever achieved is by calling Amazon by telephone, and requesting to put through to the “Captive Retail Team” Then is pot luck that you get somebody knowledgeable - the first sign of this if the person speaks to is any good is if they speak with a Western English Accent.
Don’t give up! Because I track my competitors and every week one are two are regaining their Global Review Score - so there must be a way!
