New relief for negative Amazon feedback? An untested theory.

Q: Is Amazon giving us another way to have feedback removed? A: Maybe, maybe not.

Amazon has been slow to act on many key issues that affect sellers, a couple of them being feedback-related.

Most recently, after no less than a million cries of protest from Amazon sellers, Amazon finally began removing negative feedback in which customers complained about the price. (Seriously, buyers used to be able to leave bad feedback for something costing more than they wanted to pay, and Amazon wouldn’t remove it.)

Now there may be even more relief, though it’s purely a theory at this point.

Amazon‘s makes a subtle but important change to textbook listings

Recently, Amazon added this disclaimer to textbook product pages:

(I should say here that I’m not the most observant, and this disclaimer may not be that new, but it’s new to me.)

Admit it, you’ve had this happen to you…

A lot of us who have sold more than a few textbooks know what this means, because it’s bound to happen eventually: Sell a textbook, and the buyer leaves negative feedback because a certain Infotrac card or access number was missing.

It can be very difficult to know when a textbook is supposed to contain such a card, placing a heavy burden on Amazon sellers to either be psychic, or put an undue amount of research into each textbook to guarantee it didn’t originally include a crucial insert.

What this (might) mean for Amazon sellers

Does this new disclaimer mean that Amazon will now remove feedback left by buyers who didn’t heed this warning?

Or, is Amazon just trying to buffer itself against a negative user experience from the rare person who will read this fine print and decide not to buy (or at least not be upset when they don’t receive an Infotrac card)?

I would love to test this, but I haven’t received this kind of bad feedback in some time.

Let us know if this works

So I’m going to throw this out to you: If you’ve received bad feedback on Amazon for missing access cards or inserts, contact Seller Support and request a removal, citing this disclaimer.

Then report back with your results.

Remember, it’s only a theory, but it just might work…

Unnecessary PS

PS: Naturally this is an appropriate place to mention my complete guide to repairing your Amazon feedback: Feedback Mastery.