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Amazon Dark Patterns

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Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#11

Post by gambiting »

Sharlin wrote: post #10
jxdxbx wrote: post #5

“Arrived damaged” could be borderline as it sounds like a review of the shipping process and not the product. Not sure what’s going on with that first one though.

Like it or not, people tend to review the whole purchase experience. And I can't really blame them.

I can't blame them either, but it doesn't change the fact that his review has nothing to do with the item. He wrote a review of item X and it had nothing to do with that item. It's like writing a review of a hotel resort and giving it a 1* because the flight there was cancelled. It's just not helpful at all.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#12

Post by Sharlin »

k__ wrote: post #2

I also had to implement this pattern for app reviews. Show a custom review dialog, if the user gives 4-5 stars send them to the app store for the real review, if not just say "thank you" and close the dialog. Repeat until one day they'll give you a good review.

I hope you at least anonymously reported that behavior to appropriate authorities. And started searching for a new job.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#13

Post by tobias3 »

Sharlin wrote: post #10
jxdxbx wrote: post #5

“Arrived damaged” could be borderline as it sounds like a review of the shipping process and not the product. Not sure what’s going on with that first one though.

Like it or not, people tend to review the whole purchase experience. And I can't really blame them.

They are kind of useless for other customers. The customer reading the review might get the product from another seller, shipped by another service (might depend on shipping address).

If you think it is the sellers fault, review the seller. If you think it's the parcel delivery service's fault send it back with that as reason. That is signal enough.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#14

Post by Sharlin »

tobias3 wrote: post #13
Sharlin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, people tend to review the whole purchase experience. And I can't really blame them.

They are kind of useless for other customers. The customer reading the review might get the product from another seller, shipped by another service (might depend on shipping address). If you think it is the sellers fault, review the seller. If you think it's the parcel delivery service's fault send it back with that as reason. That is signal enough.

Yes, agreed. But if Amazon only prompts you to give a single type of review (and makes reviewing the seller/delivery not nearly as discoverable), they shouldn't be surprised if people "misuse" the feature.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#15

Post by sigotirandolas »

rkachowski wrote: post #7

An interesting dark pattern (albeit unrelated to the review flow) is during the standard checkout process. on the last screen before the purchase, the Amazon logo image / header no longer links back to the Amazon homepage like the rest of the site. I guess keeping the user captive leads to more sales

I’ve also noticed that they don’t let me ship a lot of products (mostly food, but also random harmless electronics) to shipping points or Amazon boxes in my city (in Spain), telling me they are full (they are not, they let me ship other products there and it tells me it’s full with literally any shipping point or Amazon box). They only let me ship it to a home address.

I can’t prove it’s not a bug, but it seems such a blaring issue that it’s impossible that they haven’t been noticed, specially since some people can’t ever ship to a home address.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#16

Post by ramblerman »

> Note that I only got this message AFTER trying to leave a 2 star review. What would have happend if I had left a more positive review? Would that be allowed?

This is highly speculative, and without evidence it's pretty shady to suggest it, imo.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#17

Post by k__ »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #6
k__ wrote: post #2

I also had to implement this pattern for app reviews. Show a custom review dialog, if the user gives 4-5 stars send them to the app store for the real review, if not just say "thank you" and close the dialog. Repeat until one day they'll give you a good review.

Unless I'm missing something,that kind of masking behaviour is what typically causes me to exit an app and manually give it a low review. Are you saying you are actively gating the reviews? :-/

Pretty much.

Some app-store marketing guru told the startup I'm contracting with, that this is the way to go, because you're pretty much f*cked if you get reviews below 4.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#18

Post by numbsafari »

jxdxbx wrote: post #5

“Arrived damaged” could be borderline as it sounds like a review of the shipping process and not the product. Not sure what’s going on with that first one though.

How is he supposed to know if this is a problem with “shipping” or with the warehouse, the manufacturing, or the design of the product? What if it left the warehouse in that condition? Or the factory? I previously have avoided products with a large number of “arrived damaged” reviews, because it’s a sign of something other than a “shipping problem”.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#19

Post by Aeolun »

arrrg wrote: post #4

An alternative explanation for this is that Amazon is struggling with identifying fake reviews, which could explain both why there seem to be many fake reviews and why one would get blocked from writing reviews (basically falling victim to a false positive of their fake review detection). Obviously there is also some bad UX thrown in for good measure (being able to write a review without being able to send it), but w…

If the person who wrote the post could immediately identify the clearly fake reviews I see no reason why Amazon could not use the same method.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#20

Post by mrtksn »

arrrg wrote: post #4

An alternative explanation for this is that Amazon is struggling with identifying fake reviews, which could explain both why there seem to be many fake reviews and why one would get blocked from writing reviews (basically falling victim to a false positive of their fake review detection). Obviously there is also some bad UX thrown in for good measure (being able to write a review without being able to send it), but w…

If your maybes are valid it simply means that these Amazon guys are new in the business and will figure out how to design user interface once they have the resources.Lets give them a slack, aye?

Seriously though, I canceled my prime after I got a fake SD Card that was sold by Amazon. There was no straightforward way of returning it, had to contact customer support.

Later I looked closely and I noticed the reviews warning against fake SD Cards but these were buried in enthusiastic 5 star comments celebrating their new SD Cards and trying to tell the world what a good purchase that was.

Maybe it’s just due to the scale, maybe it’s in the business model but dealing with fakes wasn’t working for me. If I wanted the eBay experience I would have been buying my SD Cards from eBay.

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