It’s not always a straight road when you have a business – there will be good and bad days. A bad review can hurt your Etsy business in some way. It might cause you to lose some clarity on your goals for your shop and put you back mentally.

In this blog post, we will discuss how to handle bad reviews as a shop owner, ways to resolve them and learn from them.

Etsy reviews are based on a star rating – 1 star as the lowest and 5 stars as the highest.

Can You Remove a Bad Review from Etsy?

Some of you may not know this, but you can reach out to Etsy and ask for the removal of a negative review. However, you have to have a valid and concrete reason.

You can request to remove a negative review for the following reasons:

• It contains private or personal information.
• It mentions violence or any act of violence.
• It is racist.
• It can be proved as a shilling.
• It is threatening.
• If another shop owner purchased from your store and left a bad review just to hurt your shop.
• If it is incorrectly directed at your shop.

Should You Respond to a Negative Review?

Never respond right away to a bad review that you just read. What you need to do is go away from the computer or your smartphone and try to be calm, have a cup of coffee, go outside for fresh air and think about what to do next.

First, you have to look for ways that you can resolve the problem with less hassle. Think of ways to please your customer without feeling that you have lost too much.

• Use a private message to respond to your customer who gave a bad review.
• Never air your displeasure in public.
• You can also contact the customer via email.
• Keep your responses cheerful and light.

Can You Ask the Customer to Change Their Review Once the Issue is Solved?

When you were able to solve the issue and your customer seems happy, you can now ask them to change their negative review.

However, you have to understand that they’re under no obligation to do so. But there is no harm in trying, right?