Amazon Brings Back Star Only Ratings - Sellers Still Hate It

UPDATE: Amazon is feeling the heat from sellers on star-only ratings and while they aren't backing down, they have issued a "clarification" to try to help smooth things over.

Thank you all for your questions and comments. We've been working with the responsible teams to address your feedback, and are working to update the article to provide you with more clarity on the launch. In the meantime, though, I wanted to share some of the latest information we have available regarding this launch:

On August 4, we’ll launch a simplified experience for customers to provide feedback on you as a seller. Customers can now provide star-only ratings without written feedback— in addition to the option to provide written feedback if they choose.

Our preliminary tests show that this simpler process helps sellers collect more ratings faster. We also found in our tests that many of these star-only ratings come from customers who have had positive order experiences but previously did not provide written feedback, which in turn may lead to an increase in the average seller ratings for many selling partners.

Customers will be required to select a reason before they can submit any rating below four stars. We’ll review this reason to ensure it meets the seller feedback eligibility criteria. For example, if a customer leaves a low rating because they are dissatisfied with a product, we'll automatically omit it because it is not relevant to your performance as a seller.

We’ve also implemented solutions that allow us to automatically detect and remove abusive feedback, without any action required from you. If you believe a rating (with or without feedback) is abusive, you can request additional review through Report a violation.

Amazon has announced starting August 4th, buyers will be allowed to leave star only ratings with no feedback comments for their purchases - and sellers are not happy.

Update to seller feedback experience: Introducing star-only ratings

On August 4, 2025, we’ll launch a simplified seller feedback submission experience, so customers can give a star-only rating with optional written feedback. This simplified review experience can help you receive more seller ratings faster.

Honest and authentic star ratings are an important way for customers to know how past order experiences were perceived by other customers. To make it easier for customers to submit ratings, we’re making written feedback optional, which will help increase rating submissions and give customers more information to confidently make purchase decisions.

When customers submit seller feedback with or without text, we automatically look for signs of abuse and evaluate them against our community guidelines. When there is no text, the feedback appeal feature in Feedback Manager will be disabled for all star-only rating reviews. If you believe the star-only rating violates our community guidelines, you can request additional review through Report a violation.

If that sounds familiar, it's because Amazon already tried this idea in 2023 and eventually reversed course after massive seller backlash.

Amazon Launches Star-Only Feedback, Sellers Cannot Request Removal

Amazon allows buyers to leave star-only feedback without comment, sellers upset they will not be able to request removal.

Value Added ResourceLiz Morton

Much of the pushback at that time came from the fact that there was no option to request removal.

In this new iteration, the feedback appeal feature in Feedback Manager will be disabled for all star-only rating reviews, but sellers can request additional review through "report a violation" if they believe the star-only feedback violates Amazon's community guidelines.

However, that is little comfort for sellers, since almost every point in the community guidelines relates to comments/content (ie. repetitive text/spam, private information, profanity or harassment, hate speech etc.) that would not be present in a star-only rating by the very nature of the fact that these ratings don't include anything written comments - a point that was called out be some sellers in the response to the above Amazon community post.

This is absurd. If there's no text, how will we know if the star-only rating violates community guidelines?

What if they're giving a 1-star without any text for a shipping problem when it's an FBA order and so Amazon's fault?

What if they're giving a 1-star but they're giving it to a different seller than they're thinking of?

WITHOUT TEXT, WE HAVE NO IDEA AS TO THE REASON AND CAN'T APPEAL IT WHEN IT'S IN ERROR. PLEASE RECONSIDER THIS TERRIBLE IDEA.

Just about the only section of the guidelines that might apply to star-only reviews would be the prohibition on compensation for reviews, but it would be very difficult to prove any particular star-only rating was given as the result of a promise of compensation.

In 2023, the company caved to pressure after Amazon Sellers Group ASGTG started a petition campaign - but will seller outrage be enough to prevail again this time?

Stay tuned for updates in this developing story and let us know in the comments below what you think of Amazon introducing star-only ratings!