Answers
How do you check reviews and reputation before buying an ecommerce store?
Short answer: Read the store's reviews on every channel it sells on, sorted by newest, and search the brand name with words like scam, refund and complaint. Ask for the marketplace account health page, any policy warnings, and the support inbox volume. A falling rating, unanswered complaints or account warnings are reasons to dig further, hold back part of the price or walk away.
Where should you look?
- Every channel the store sells on. The store's own site, any marketplace listings, and independent review sites. Sort by newest, not by most helpful, so you see the current state.
- Search results for the brand name together with words like scam, refund, complaint and review, and on social media and forums.
- The marketplace account health page, policy warnings and any listing suppressions, shared live on a call or by screenshots you can check against the account.
- The support inbox: how many tickets a month, the most common reasons, and how long replies take.
What should the seller share?
Ask for the rating history over the last 12 months, not just today's average, and the reasons for returns. Ask whether the store has ever paid for reviews, offered rewards for reviews, or only asked happy customers to leave one. Those practices can break marketplace rules and the reviews can disappear after you buy. Ask too for any open disputes or complaints with consumer bodies.
What are the red flags?
- A rating that is falling month by month, even if the average still looks fine.
- Many recent complaints about the same thing, such as late delivery or a product defect, which points to a supplier or quality problem; see supplier dependence.
- Bursts of short five-star reviews posted close together.
- Account health warnings or suppressed listings that the seller did not mention.
- Refund requests answered outside the platform, which can hide unhappy customers from the numbers; see refunds and chargebacks.
What does a composite check look like?
This is a composite example, not a real deal. A store lists $6,000 a month in profit, asking $150,000. Its average rating is 4.4, but the newest three months average 3.8, mostly about a zipper that breaks, and the marketplace shows one policy warning. The buyer gets a quote for a fixed product run, assumes sales fall by a fifth until ratings recover, restates profit at about $4,800 a month and offers about $120,000, with part of the price held back until the warning is cleared.
Run the listing through the free red-flag checker first, then work through the ecommerce due diligence checklist.
Frequently asked questions
Do reviews transfer when you buy a store?
Reviews attached to product listings usually stay with those listings when the account or listings transfer. Reviews on the store's own site move with the site. Check the platform's own rules for your case before closing.
How far back should I read?
Read every review from the last three to six months and sample the year before. The trend matters more than the average.
Can a bad reputation be fixed after I buy?
Often, if the cause is clear and fixable, such as one supplier or one product defect. Price the time it takes to recover, since ratings and sales usually lag the fix.
Sources
- FirstPass Memo, red-flag checker rules, our own rules, published as /rules.json
- FirstPass Memo, seller question bank, October 2026 (general checklist), our own questions
- FirstPass Memo, free buyer calculators, our own calculators; the formulas are on each page
Related
- Free red-flag checker
- Ecommerce due diligence checklist
- Red flags when buying an FBA business
- How to check refunds and chargebacks
- How to check supplier dependence
- How to value a Shopify store
- Red flag: revenue declining
- Red flag: depends on one platform
- Glossary of listing terms
- More questions buyers ask
Get the 72-hour vetting plan: day-by-day steps after you spot a listing
Enter your email and the next page gives you the 72-hour vetting plan (web page and PDF) straight away, no waiting, along with the other free files: 11 seller question checklists (151 questions across eleven business types), the 72-hour vetting plan and a 14-column deal-tracker spreadsheet. We also email you the links so you have them later.
No newsletter: we send one email with your links,. Reply "stop" to hello@firstpassmemo.com to be removed. Looking at a live listing priced $10k–150k? Get a full memo: $79, pay after delivery instead; its confirmation page has the same downloads.
Composite examples are invented and labelled. Figures from other sites are quoted with a link and the date we read them; FirstPass figures are asking prices and seller-stated profit, not sale prices. Informational screening only, not investment, legal or tax advice.