It's Time for Sellers to Protect Sellers – We Need a Buyer Reputation System
Every seller on Amazon is publicly evaluated.
Even when seller feedback is objectively false, if it does not meet Amazon's removal criteria, it can remain permanently visible and continue damaging a seller's reputation.
At the same time, sellers have no comparable way to protect themselves from buyers who repeatedly cause financial losses through abusive behavior.
Examples include:
- False "Item Not Received" claims
- Return fraud
- Item switching
- False return reasons
- Abusive A-to-z Guarantee claims
- Repeated policy abuse affecting multiple sellers
I am not suggesting reducing buyer protection.
Amazon is free to decide how much buyer protection it wishes to provide.
However, if sellers are expected to bear the financial risks created by that policy, sellers should also have the right to protect themselves.
Today, every seller fights these problems alone.
A buyer who causes losses to one seller can simply move on to another seller, who has no knowledge of that buyer's history.
This only benefits those who intentionally exploit the system.
Buyers can review seller feedback before making a purchasing decision.
Why shouldn't sellers have access to similar information before deciding whether to accept the business risk of a transaction?
I propose introducing a Seller-to-Seller Buyer Reputation System.
This would allow sellers to voluntarily share factual transaction experiences with other sellers, helping identify buyers who repeatedly engage in abusive conduct.
Each seller could then make their own business decisions based on that information.
This proposal is not intended to target honest buyers.
Its purpose is to help honest sellers protect themselves, reduce repeated losses, and create a fairer marketplace for everyone.
A healthy marketplace requires accountability on both sides—not only for sellers, but also for buyers.
Would a buyer reputation system help protect your business? I would like to hear your thoughts.
It's Time for Sellers to Protect Sellers – We Need a Buyer Reputation System
Every seller on Amazon is publicly evaluated.
Even when seller feedback is objectively false, if it does not meet Amazon's removal criteria, it can remain permanently visible and continue damaging a seller's reputation.
At the same time, sellers have no comparable way to protect themselves from buyers who repeatedly cause financial losses through abusive behavior.
Examples include:
- False "Item Not Received" claims
- Return fraud
- Item switching
- False return reasons
- Abusive A-to-z Guarantee claims
- Repeated policy abuse affecting multiple sellers
I am not suggesting reducing buyer protection.
Amazon is free to decide how much buyer protection it wishes to provide.
However, if sellers are expected to bear the financial risks created by that policy, sellers should also have the right to protect themselves.
Today, every seller fights these problems alone.
A buyer who causes losses to one seller can simply move on to another seller, who has no knowledge of that buyer's history.
This only benefits those who intentionally exploit the system.
Buyers can review seller feedback before making a purchasing decision.
Why shouldn't sellers have access to similar information before deciding whether to accept the business risk of a transaction?
I propose introducing a Seller-to-Seller Buyer Reputation System.
This would allow sellers to voluntarily share factual transaction experiences with other sellers, helping identify buyers who repeatedly engage in abusive conduct.
Each seller could then make their own business decisions based on that information.
This proposal is not intended to target honest buyers.
Its purpose is to help honest sellers protect themselves, reduce repeated losses, and create a fairer marketplace for everyone.
A healthy marketplace requires accountability on both sides—not only for sellers, but also for buyers.
Would a buyer reputation system help protect your business? I would like to hear your thoughts.
13 replies
Seller_xo4Akj7FBBnfC
I propose introducing a Seller-to-Seller Buyer Reputation System.
I've often thought about this sort of "buyer reporting" solution for our sales outside Amazon, too.
However, there are many challenges—from privacy concerns and dispute resolution to ongoing maintenance—that would make it a big undertaking. In effect, you're creating the equivalent of a consumer reporting agency, similar to how Equifax and Experian maintain credit histories.
Existing sites like the Bad Buyer List seem to do a terrible job of this, exposing personal information online for anyone to see in ways that don't appear to be well maintained.
For a system like this to succeed, it could probably be accessible only to subscribing sellers—similar to how credit reports are accessed—and require the seller to submit a buyer's identifying information (such as a name and street address, email address, or phone number) before any reports could be viewed.
Ideally, submissions could be mostly automated, so sellers would only need to check a few boxes or add some notes when a transaction involved fraud or abuse.
Seller_0EiTWTPC4Lbig
I understand the idea, but I don't think it's practical.
Amazon has a direct contractual relationship with the buyer and access to buyer information that sellers simply don't have. There are privacy laws, data protection regulations, and customer agreements that would almost certainly prevent Amazon from sharing buyer-specific reputation information with sellers.
I also think there is a risk that legitimate buyers could be unfairly labeled because of isolated disputes or differences in seller expectations.
A better solution would be for Amazon to continue improving its own internal buyer abuse detection systems. Amazon has far more data than any individual seller ever could and is in the best position to identify patterns of return fraud, item switching, excessive claims, or other abusive behavior across the entire marketplace.
I don't think a public buyer reputation system is likely to happen, but I do think continued investment in Amazon's internal fraud detection is both more realistic and more effective.
At the end of the day, these are all known risks of selling on Amazon. As sellers, we accept them as part of the price of admission to a marketplace serving hundreds of millions of active customer accounts worldwide. Amazon's customer-first approach is one of the primary reasons so many customers continue to shop there, and ultimately why sellers have access to such an enormous market. While we may not agree with every policy, understanding and pricing for those risks is part of building a successful Amazon business.
Seller_GYBivd6QH6hzX
Genuinely all I'd ask for -and have been asking for for the past ~15 years along with a long list of other long-time sellers- is the ability to block a buyer from my listings, like the Bay offers.
Seller-to-seller customer info sharing, eh... there's a lot of sellers here that I don't trust either, so wouldn't have any reason to trust them if they said they had a bad buyer. But the ability to block an abusive buyer from purchasing from me ever again, that would be golden.
Seller_Lg4mBXF35fU5u
Then the "someone else" will also block that buyer once the abusive behavior becomes known. And once enough sellers block the buyer, that abusive buyer will start to face difficulties and Amazon may also take notice of that buyer.
All it takes is one red flag of a buyer's abuse to block that buyer - you no longer have to deal with that buyer at that point. And it makes sense that the sellers should watch out for their own businesses.
This is why the ability to block the buyer is a better idea and doesn't have the downsides of this other proposal.
