There will always be a desire to pay for reviews, since 70%-80% of shoppers check reviews before buying[0][1] (and growing[2]). Amazon could help fix this problem by creating "sponsored" reviews. This way a company can pay for reviews in a non-scummy way, a reviewer (and Amazon) gets paid, and a customer can tell whether the review was paid for or not. Or just pass laws to regulate reviews. 0. http://www.peopleclaim.…
I've been burned multiple times by this; the worst was a pair of remote control off-road trucks for my sons' Christmas presents. They had hundreds of 5-star reviews and both units worked for maybe 5 minutes each. Within days of Christmas, the listing was flooded with 1-star reviews from other conned parents with very similar stories. The number of products impacted must be far over the 1% claimed. There are whole cat…
The thing is, you really can't buy from anyone but Amazon directly anymore. The marketplace is flooded by chinese off brands that break the moment you touch them. At least that's the situation here in Europe.
Don't know which European country and which product category you're thinking of, but e.g. for tech that's not true. There are plenty of reputable tech online stores in Germany (e.g. Mindfactory, Alternate, Reichelt, Cyberport, Arlt in no particular order). I expect all of these to be able to ship to at least all of the continental EU.
"Our approximation is that less than 1 percent of reviews are inauthentic" Get the hell outta here. Look at literally any product and you'll see a plethora of obviously fake reviews. The worst I've noticed? Check out headphones. 500+ 5 star reviews for cheap Chinese products all over the place. In fact, anything that's around 500 5 star reviews is probably mostly fake reviews.
Lots of people hand out 5 star reviews too easily. They buy the cheapest headphones on Amazon, and if they make any sound at all it's five stars.
I just realized that I do that. It's just some misplaced pity from having worked in customer service where performance was tied into customer ratings.
I can handle getting some crappy set of headphones but a big let down for a child's Christmas is just so upsetting to a point that maybe I've got unaddressed issues. I have a toddler and I think I'll gladly pay the premium to buy Toys R Us stuff I can touch and play with in the store.
> Toys R Us Um, I have some bad news for you.
What I always disliked about toysrus was that no matter if you went at the quietest time you had to queue forever at the checkout. There'd be just the one till open and they'd only open a second one if people were getting restless.
Amazon accepts returns for 30 days and pays for shipping if you select "Item defective or doesn't work" for your return reason. However, that kind of con may still be very profitable for merchant since many buyers won't bother returning. 1. Pay for couple hundred 5-star reviews before Christmas 2. Get tens of thousands of orders 3. Send people cheap defective items that costs 1/10 of price to manufacture 4. Profit! E…
The seller can also just hit and run leaving Amazon with the losses.
"sellers", toy was comingled and Amazon doesnt track inventory source.
I've been using https://www.fakespot.com to flag bullshit reviews for a few months now. After many happy purchases informed by its review analysis, I believe it works.
I generally avoid looking at good reviews when shopping due to this. Instead I assume that whatever doohickey I want to buy works as advertised, and look for reasons not to buy. Bad reviews are much more helpful in this regard, as they pinpoint weaknesses or other issues.
It's also much easier to filter the bad reviews. There's fewer reviews to sort through, and you can dismiss the PEBKAC or DOA (except as a data point to see if there's a whole bunch of DOAs).
I'm honestly starting to believe that the "wisdom of the crowds" that so many startups and businesses rely on to reach "internet scale", is exactly the wrong approach. Between recommendation algorithms that can be gamed, content that can be paid for, and social media sentiment that can prove to be entirely manufactured, we need to come up with a new paradigm for our products (where "our" is the tech industry at large…
Interesting to ponder that half of the population is of below average intelligence, and that the other half is generally too busy to be writing reviews.
Does Amazon accept these faulty items back and refund the customers if they ask? Do they pay the return shipping cost? Assuming yes, surely this is costing them a lot as well.
Amazon accepts returns for 30 days and pays for shipping if you select "Item defective or doesn't work" for your return reason. However, that kind of con may still be very profitable for merchant since many buyers won't bother returning. 1. Pay for couple hundred 5-star reviews before Christmas 2. Get tens of thousands of orders 3. Send people cheap defective items that costs 1/10 of price to manufacture 4. Profit! E…
I guess that's the only legislation in place right now - that is, Amazon can't be sued / held liable for e.g. broken goods or false reviews if they offer a gratuitous return policy. Like how youtube can't be held liable for copyright infringement because they offer a gratuitous takedown procedure.
Not the OP, but this reminds me of a similar experience I had with a book called Space Opera a few months ago. Don't remember where I first heard of it, but it was being touted as comparable to the Hitchhiker's Guide. All the reviews on Amazon were 5 stars, and since the kindle version was only $5, I bought it without checking further. It turned out to be a pretty disappointing read, and nowhere near the caliber of a…
There are groups where ebook authors get together to essentially cross-review books of other members. I remember reading an exposé recently, which I suspect was posted here, but I can no longer find it. (An other dropped out of the group(s) due to ethical concerns.)
Self published ebooks also fall under the category where a high proportion of the reviews are likely to be useless for evaluating the quality of the book even when they're noncommercial and sincere, because the initial reviews all come from close friends and family who are impressed by how creative Jonny is or hardcore sub-subgenre enthusiasts, and unless the book sells really well or is utterly atrocious rather than merely a bit mediocre there will be comparatively few reviewers interested in contradicting them.