Amazon seller guide

How to remove negative seller feedback on Amazon

Q: Can Amazon remove negative seller feedback?

Yes, in three cases. Amazon states it will remove feedback when the feedback contains obscene language, when it contains seller-specific personally identifiable information, or when the feedback is entirely a product review. Two further cases are struck through rather than removed: a comment entirely about the delivery experience on an order fulfilled by Amazon, and a comment solely about a delayed or undelivered order that was shipped on time using Buy Shipping.

Q: How long do I have to request feedback removal?

90 days from the feedback submission. Amazon states that removal requests must be made within 90 days of the feedback submission and that the system will prevent feedback removals after 90 days. Separately, buyers have 90 days to leave feedback and 60 days to remove it themselves.

Q: Can I ask a buyer to remove their negative feedback?

No. Amazon states that you are not permitted to ask the buyer to remove their negative feedback, and that you cannot offer compensation or other incentives to a buyer to either give positive feedback or remove negative feedback. You may contact the buyer about the order or a customer service question, and a buyer who removes the feedback of their own accord is fine, but asking is not.

Q: Why does my feedback percentage not match my Order Defect Rate?

Because the two are measured on different dates. Amazon states that the Negative Feedback Rate is order-correlated, meaning it looks at the date of the order rather than the date the feedback was received, while the percentage buyers see is calculated on when the feedback was received. A single old order can therefore move your ODR without changing what shoppers see today.

Sources last verified 27 August 2026 · every rule below is quoted from a document Amazon publishes itself and linked to source

Short answer: seller feedback can be removed — a product review almost never can. They are two different things, and most sellers searching for this are looking at the removable one without realising it. Amazon publishes three criteria for removal, strikes through two further cases, and gives you a hard 90-day window to ask.

Amazon removes seller feedback when it is obscene, when it contains seller-specific personal information, or when it is entirely a product review. It strikes through (rather than removes) comments that are entirely about the delivery experience on an FBA order, or solely about a late or undelivered order you shipped on time using Buy Shipping. Everything else stays.

Ask through Feedback Manager and nowhere else. Amazon says using any other channel "may potentially result in the deactivation of your selling account."

First: feedback and reviews are not the same thing

This is the single most expensive confusion on the topic, because the two have completely different removal odds and completely different consequences.

Seller feedback rates you — the service on that order. It has a published removal process with three stated criteria, and it feeds your Order Defect Rate, which is what can cost you the account.
A product review rates the item. It does not touch your Order Defect Rate, and it comes off only for breaching the community guidelines. Our guide to negative reviews covers that side.

If the 1-star you are staring at appeared under your seller name rather than on the product page, it is feedback — and this page is the one you want.

"Buyers can submit only one star-rating and/or feedback comment per order." The link to leave it is "available to buyers 3 days after the order has been confirmed", and "Buyers have 90 days to leave feedback and 60 days to remove it."

— Amazon, About Feedback Manager

On the scale Amazon uses, negative is narrower than it feels: "Positive feedback: 5 or 4 stars · Neutral feedback: 3 stars · Negative feedback: 2 stars or 1 star". A 3-star does not count against you in the Negative Feedback Rate — it just dilutes your percentage.

The three criteria Amazon removes feedback for

"In general, Amazon will remove feedback when it meets the following criteria specified in our policy:"

"The feedback contains obscene language."
"The feedback contains seller-specific personally identifiable information."
"The feedback is entirely a product review."

— Amazon, When buyers want to remove feedback

The load-bearing word is entirely. A buyer who writes the blender broke in a week has left a product review in the feedback box, and it qualifies. A buyer who writes the blender broke in a week and the seller ignored my email has not — half of it is about your service, so it stays. Amazon spells this out:

"If the comment contains both a product review and feedback about your service, it won't qualify for removal."

— Josh_Amazon (Amazon forum moderator), Feedback removal request guidelines. An official Amazon post, but a moderator explainer rather than the policy text itself

What gets struck through instead of removed

Two more cases do not disappear — the comment stays visible with a line through it and a note from Amazon, and stops counting against you. This is the part sellers most often do not know exists.

FBA orders: "If the entire comment relates to the delivery experience for an order fulfilled by Amazon, it will be struck through with the note: 'This item was fulfilled by Amazon, and we take responsibility for this fulfilment experience.'"

Buy Shipping orders: "If the comment is solely about a delayed or undelivered order that you shipped on time using Buy Shipping services, it will be struck through with: 'The fulfilment issues associated with this order were not due to the seller.'"

— Josh_Amazon (Amazon forum moderator), Feedback removal request guidelines

Note the practical consequence of the Buy Shipping clause: shipping merchant-fulfilled orders through Buy Shipping is not just a rate-shopping convenience, it is what makes a late-delivery complaint strikeable. Ship the same order with a label you bought elsewhere and the same complaint sticks.

How to ask — and the mistake that can cost you the account

"1. Go to the Feedback Manager. 2. In the Recent Feedback table, next to the specific Order ID, select Request removal under the Actions column."

— Amazon, Request removal of feedback

This is the sentence to remember.

"Requests for feedback removal can only be made via Feedback Manager, and usage of any other channel to request the same may potentially result in the deactivation of your selling account. Removal requests must be made within 90 days of the feedback submission. The system will prevent feedback removals after 90 days."

— Amazon, Request removal of feedback

Opening a Seller Support case to plead for a removal, or chasing it through an account manager, is "any other channel". Plenty of advice online suggests exactly that. Amazon has written down what it thinks of it.

The 90 days is a system limit, not a guideline — after that the button does nothing for you. If you check Feedback Manager quarterly, you will spend part of the year unable to act on anything you find.

Star-only ratings: why the Request removal button is gone

Since 11 August 2025, buyers can leave a star rating with no comment at all, and the appeal path for those changed at the same time. If the button is missing, nothing is broken:

"Star-only Rating Feedback (effective August 11, 2025) — While there are no changes in feedback removal eligibility criteria for reviews with written feedback, star-only feedback will be eligible for removal in only the following cases:"

"The rating is confirmed abusive."
"The order was fulfilled by Amazon or the order was shipped using the Buy Shipping service."

"...the 'Request Removal' feature in Feedback Manager will be disabled for all star-only rating reviews, since no action is required from you."

— Amazon, Request removal of feedback

Amazon assesses those automatically on submission. The one route left to you is a different door:

"If you believe the review (with or without comment) is abusive, you can request additional review through Report a violation."

— Amazon, Request removal of feedback

Worth being clear-eyed about what this change did: a star-only 1-star carries no text, so it can never be "entirely a product review" and can never be obscene. Two of the three removal criteria are unreachable by construction. For merchant-fulfilled orders shipped without Buy Shipping, a silent 1-star is close to unappealable.

What you are not allowed to do

"You are not permitted to ask the buyer to remove their negative feedback."

"You cannot offer compensation or other incentives to a buyer to either give positive feedback or remove negative feedback."

— Amazon, When buyers want to remove feedback

"Any attempt to manipulate ratings, feedback, or reviews is prohibited. ... You can request feedback from a buyer, but you cannot pay or offer any incentive to a buyer for either providing or removing feedback."

— Amazon, Prohibited Seller Activities and Actions

You may contact the buyer about the order or a customer service question, through Feedback Manager or Buyer-Seller Messaging. The line is thin but real: fix the problem, do not mention the feedback. A buyer who then removes it themselves is entirely fine — Amazon gives them 60 days and the removal is at their discretion. What is prohibited is asking, and what is prohibited twice over is paying. If you need the exact wording rules for that message, see buyer-seller messaging.

Why your feedback percentage and your ODR disagree

Sellers regularly report that a removal changed the public percentage but not the account health number, or the reverse. That is not a bug, and the reason is written down:

"This metric is order-correlated, meaning we look at the date of the order (not the date on which the feedback was received) when computing the rate. The Negative Feedback Rate might not match the feedback that buyers see, which is calculated based on when the feedback was received instead of when the order was placed."

— Amazon, Order Defect Rate

So a 1-star left today on an order placed 70 days ago lands outside the 60-day ODR window entirely, while still dragging the percentage buyers see. And when a buyer does withdraw one: "If a buyer withdraws negative feedback, it is not counted as part of ODR. However, it might take up to 48 hours after a buyer has removed it to disappear from the metric."

The stakes on the ODR side are the real reason any of this matters:

"Our policy is that sellers maintain an ODR under 1% in order to sell on Amazon. An ODR above 1% may result in account deactivation." The Negative Feedback Rate is one of its three components, alongside the A-to-z Guarantee Claim Rate and the Credit Card Chargeback Rate, and "One- and two-star ratings are considered negative."

— Amazon, Order Defect Rate

Do the arithmetic before you need it: at 1%, a seller doing 300 orders in a 60-day window is three negatives away from the line — and negative feedback is only one of the three ways to get there.

The part removal cannot fix

Removal only ever addresses feedback that should not have been there. The 1-stars that stick are the ones where something genuinely went wrong and the buyer had nowhere to say it. Aftermesh gives you a branded page your insert-card QR points to: every buyer gets the same neutral "how did it go?", the unhappy ones reach your support inbox instead of the feedback form, and you find out while it is still fixable.

Start free — 1 care link, forever

Frequently asked questions

Can Amazon remove negative seller feedback?

Yes, in three cases: the feedback contains obscene language, it contains seller-specific personally identifiable information, or it is entirely a product review. Two further cases are struck through rather than removed — a comment entirely about the delivery experience on an FBA order, and a comment solely about a late or undelivered order shipped on time using Buy Shipping.

What is the difference between Amazon seller feedback and a product review?

Seller feedback rates your service on the order and feeds the Negative Feedback Rate inside your Order Defect Rate. A product review rates the item and does not. Seller feedback has a defined removal process with three published criteria; product reviews come off only for breaching the community guidelines. Most sellers searching for how to remove negative feedback are looking at seller feedback — the more removable of the two.

How do I request removal of negative feedback on Amazon?

Go to Feedback Manager, and in the Recent Feedback table, next to the specific Order ID, select Request removal under the Actions column. Amazon states that requests can only be made via Feedback Manager, and that using any other channel to request the same may potentially result in the deactivation of your selling account.

How long do I have to request feedback removal?

90 days from the feedback submission — Amazon states the system will prevent feedback removals after that. Separately, buyers have 90 days to leave feedback and 60 days to remove it themselves.

Why is the Request removal button missing on a star-only rating?

It was disabled deliberately, effective 11 August 2025. Amazon assesses star-only ratings for removal automatically on submission, so the feature is disabled for all star-only rating reviews. They are eligible for removal only if confirmed abusive, or if the order was fulfilled by Amazon or shipped using Buy Shipping. If you believe a rating is abusive, the route is Report a violation.

Can I ask a buyer to remove their negative feedback?

No. Amazon states you are not permitted to ask the buyer to remove their negative feedback, and that you cannot offer compensation or other incentives to a buyer to either give positive feedback or remove negative feedback. You may contact them about the order or a customer service question, and a buyer who removes it of their own accord is fine — but asking is not.

Does negative seller feedback affect my Amazon account?

Yes. The Negative Feedback Rate is one of the three components of the Order Defect Rate, and Amazon states that sellers must maintain an ODR under 1% in order to sell on Amazon, and that an ODR above 1% may result in account deactivation. One- and two-star ratings count as negative.

Why does my feedback percentage not match my Order Defect Rate?

Because the two are measured on different dates. The Negative Feedback Rate is order-correlated — it looks at the date of the order, not the date the feedback arrived — while the percentage buyers see is calculated on when the feedback was received. A single old order can move your ODR without changing what shoppers see today.

This guide explains Amazon policy in plain English and is not legal advice. Every rule quoted here is sourced to a document Amazon publishes itself and linked so you can verify it. Where a passage comes from an Amazon forum moderator rather than the policy text, this page says so.

A note on freshness, since it matters here. The help-page PDFs linked above are Amazon exports whose filenames and content correspond to the 11 August 2025 revision; the authoritative versions are the Seller Central help pages (Can Amazon remove buyer feedback?), which require a Seller Central sign-in and could not be read without one. Amazon revises policies without notice. Check the current version before acting on a specific order. Sources last verified 27 August 2026.