If you haven’t been attacked by “Online Seller Haters” or the “Reseller Hate Mob”, you just haven’t sold online long enough because nobody (and I truly mean NOBODY) is off limits! And for those of you who haven’t yet encountered these lovely, kind and sophisticated people (*SARCASM!*), let me explain what they are and what they do then we’ll discuss how to deal with them:

WHAT THE HECK IS AN “ONLINE SELLER HATER”? It’s usually people who have chosen to follow you on social media or on the site(s) where you sell; someone who has chosen to utterly despise you / your business for literally no reason. You may know the person in real life, but often you have never met. They proceed to harass you by:

• flagging your listings
• disliking your content
• posting rotten comments on your timeline
• posting mean replies on everything you post
• leaving bad (fake) reviews 
• and overall just trying to ruin your day (and if they can destroy your business, that’s the icing on the cake for them). 

Here's an example of one of our reseller haters:

Some of these haters are batsh*t crazy enough to make fake profiles then also use those to harass you, so you *think* 10 people are attacking you when, it reality, it's just one loser on their cell phone, logging in-and-out of a bunch of different accounts. Other haters will encourage their miserable friends to help them harass you, hence the “Reseller Hate Mob”.  (If you are currently dealing with bad FAKE reviews, check out the solution)

If you haven’t been victim of an Online Seller Hater, you likely cannot comprehend how frustrating it can be to post a piece of content (or listing), then, within 8 minutes of it going live, it has 10 dislikes, 30 nasty comments from 10 Hate Mobster profiles and has already been flagged 10 times. Then, while you're still reading the mean comments, you get a notification from the website host that your content has been removed due to “policy violations”... but you never violated any policy. Now, instead of being able to list another item, you have to deal with the bogus policy violation and try to get your account back to perfect standing, where it belongs. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but it IS when this is your life and online selling IS your job.

There’s also Online Seller Haters that don’t go this far. They instead choose to follow you on social media then complain about everything you post. You post a photo of your family and they complain you shouldn’t be posting personal things on your business account or ridicule your outfit, your kids hair or your vehicle. You post a picture of a sweater you’re selling and they say “Nobody is going to buy that ugly thing!”, you have great sales one day and celebrate and they slam you for “bragging”, you offer a coupon and they say “Ha! You have to offer a coupon because nobody wants that ugly crap!”. Heck, when we send out email blasts for our company we have haters (who have never bought through us, yet love to stay up-to-date with our company) that take the time to provide their commentary on the email: 

• “This is sloppy!”
• “Why don’t you hire a marketing team like a REAL BUSINESS?”
• “Why didn’t you take the time to format the headers? So unprofessional!”
• “Why would you use an emoji? Why is the background YELLOW?! Your business is a joke!”
• “You won’t be in business long!”
• “And THIS is why females shouldn’t own businesses!” 
• “Wow. You really look bad! Put down the hamburger, fatty! How could you let yourself go like this?!?”

After over decade-and-a-half of Online Seller Haters, I wanted to learn WHY these people do this. So I started researching and I have come to these 7 conclusions:

1. These typically are not very intelligent people. I say this because common sense is that you will get way further in life making as many allies as possible than burning as many bridges as possible. An Army of 3,000 is stronger than an Army of 2. The more allies you have, the more opportunities you get in life. The more enemies you have, the fewer the opportunities. This is a very simple concept.

2. A lot of the hate you receive as an online seller is coming completely from the feeling of jealousy from the Hater. The Hater sees you as successful and meanwhile, they feel inferior. The Hater wishes they could own their own business or be a stay-at-home parent who sells online. The Hater wants what you have but doesn’t have the skillset or drive to work for it, so they boil in envy. Instead of asking you for advice regarding how you got started selling online, they want to take away what you have built. It is easier to tear someone down than to TRY to be successful and risk failure. Success and happiness is their ultimate enemy because it seems so far out of reach for them.

3. Haters are rarely ever successful, and usually flat broke. Why? Because if you spend all day focused on you; you wake up, you take your product photos, you list, you ship, you order more inventory, you respond to customers, you generated $300 today…. Meanwhile the hater wakes up, hops on social media and spends their day flagging, disliking, posting mean things, making fake accounts, flagging more; at the end of the day they have generated $0. I tell my sons, “If you focus on you and the hater focuses on you; who is going to get further in life?”

4. You’ll live longer. I guess, in a morbid way, you get the “Last Laugh”. Yeah, it is really mean, but it’s true. According to the a University of Kentucky study, people who are full of hate live, on average, 9 years less than happy people. And, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences happy people had almost a 40% LESS chance of early death! Some studies put the average at 12+ years! That's over 10% LONGER life! Imagine what you can do with an additional DECADE!

5. Haters are usually lonely in general. Think about it; if you have real friends and/or good family, children you love who adore you, a relationship with your soulmate or even a pet you cherish, you would choose to spend time with those you have a strong bond with instead of spending your free time trying to hurt a random persons feelings or destroy a strangers business. I always think of haters like mosquitos; they’re just buzzing around while I am enjoying a BBQ with my family; we aren’t stopping the BBQ because of the mosquito; just smack them and keep grilling! Mmmmmm… steak!

6. People who enjoy seeing other peoples pain usually come from pain themselves, which is often a result of lack-of-attention, lack of appreciation or lack of respect as a child or in their youth. Instead of addressing their pain or grievances they have chosen to use hurting others as a form of therapy. Some people turn to drugs, others turn to alcohol, yoga, the gym or a psychologist. But haters get a dopamine rush when they get attention from their actions; the attention could be getting a response from you, getting others to pile on you or seeing that your hard work was removed. The problem is that the hater goes through their life never getting past their pain. In fact, the problems they face continue to compile because it is only a matter of time before they pick on the wrong person and end up defending themselves in an expensive court case.

7. And lastly, they have nothing to add to the conversation. Because they spend their day trolling and stalking, they gain no new knowledge and, as you know, it is impossible to have a successful online business while devoting time to picking fights. So, instead of chiming in with useful content, they spew totally irrelevant hate.  Essentially, it's a sign of immaturity; their maturity level is that of a 12-year-old, or perhaps they literally are 12. 

I often think, "if the haters spent 10% of the time they spend harassing others on themselves; creating a business, making real friends, learning a skill, starting a hobby... think of how much more successful (and happy) they would be!"   

It’s usually just as easy to post something nice as it is to post something mean, so it’s not like there is any added “work” in being kind and building bridges. NEXT: Read 28 Hilarious Ways to Reply to Online Haters