As you already know, you want great reviews; every online seller does because it’s our only way to truly convey how good our businesses are to a stranger who has no way of touching, holding or trying on our merchandise.

However, asking for good reviews is considered such an “internet crime” that sites like Amazon and even GOOGLE will close your account over it! So here’s how to ASK for reviews without having to worry about your account being shut down:

Get yourself some awesomely cheap custom printed Comment Cards. Sites like VistaPrint already have the comment card designed for you, all you do is type the info you want it to say which allows any business to have totally professional looking order inserts.  ((BEFORE YOU BUY ANYTHING, MAKE SURE YOU JOIN MR. REBATES BECAUSE YOU GET 4% - 25% CASH BACK ON VISTA PRINT!!!!)

On the card, you want to include your contact information just in case someone isn’t happy. If you sell on a marketplace, direct the person to contact you through the marketplace but MAKE SURE THEY KNOW YOUR COMPANY NAME / SCREEN ID! People often buy a lot of similar things so it is easy to forget which company is which!  Additionally, if the card just says "Thanks for your purchase, Love Samantha" - as famous as you may be in Idaho, someone in New York doesn't know which Amazon profile is Samantha (unless your Amazon ID literally is "Samantha").  

I have personally found that it works best to include a line that says something like "Have questions? Contact us: Support@BigBrandWholesale.com or text us (734) 707-9878" because you are letting the buyer know that it's OK to reach out to you, even if all they want to know is if you have the same item in a different color. 

WHAT YOU CAN and CAN'T SAY

You CAN put an image of 5-stars. You CAN put an image of a happy emoji. You CAN say things like “We want you to be a repeat buyer!” or "We Value Your Business!" what you can NOT do is say “Please leave us a positive review” or “Be sure to rate this purchase 5-stars”.

ANOTHER MAJOR MISTAKE

This is not only a great way to have your account banned but to also piss off buyers: “Leave a 5-star review and we’ll give you ____ for free!”. I have learned that offering free things in exchange for reviews, even if your intentions are totally pure and you're NOT asking for a 5-star makes people really upset because they feel tricked into buying your merchandise based on all the good reviews they saw prior to buying it… now they see those reviews could all be fake. Not cool!

WHAT WORKS BEST, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION

I once received an online order and the insert card had this beautiful photo of a young Asian couple with their adorable little fluffy dog that the male was holding.  They had perfect smiles and looked so happy.  They looked like people I was happy to support.  The card simply said “thanks for your purchase. If you have questions here’s our contact info” as well as “Please leave us a review on Amazon”. I fell in love with the beautiful card with such a cute photo; at that moment I knew I needed to do the same so I created one of our cards:

And since that time we have received more reviews than we had previously when we were offering a coupon code. I firmly believe that when people see YOU are a real person they feel inclined to help their fellow man and they do leave the review without any dangling carrot to convince them.