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Amazon Dark Patterns

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Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#61

Post by arrrg »

TuringTest wrote: post #22
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…

Well, this bad UX has a positive consequence for Amazon, unintended or not. Products with good reviews generate more sales than those with comments stating problems with the product or delivery process, specially among infrequent buyers. (Frequent buyers may learn to ignore comments altogether, or at least spot valuable comments from fakes). So the bad pattern is not allowing fake reviews as much as it is rejecting l…

I would, however, postulate that Amazon is aware that fake positive reviews only buy them short term benefits with long term disadvantages.

Having a cheap/free way to evaluate products by letting the customers do it is an advantage, especially if your goal is to sell everything (so you have no hope to evaluate it all yourself) – but it’s only an advantage if some useful signal is provided.

With strings of negative purchasing experiences customers might begin to look somewhere else. That’s why Amazon has a vested interest to provide reviews that are more signal than noise.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#62

Post by virtualritz »

I was looking for a 2nd USB C charger for my new MacBook and found one[1]. It had 378 5 star, 'verified purchase' reviews. All filed on July the 12th, 2018!

I reported this to Amazon via Twitter on July the 18th [2] (Sorry, German).

I checked yesterday and despite Amazon promising to look into this, all reviews where still there. So I tweeted to them again and, at last, they're deleted today.

But why is this not detected automatically? 378 verified 'customers' that all review the product, with five stars, on the same day?? What are the chances?

And the language of the reviews was also so similar that even a Markov model could be used to detect they must be from the same person (or bot). No machine learning needed.

[1] https://www.amazon.de/MAOFINE-MacBook-Adapter-Charger-Replac... [2] https://twitter.com/virtualritz/status/1019741791422173185

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#63

Post by fouc »

mrtksn wrote: post #20
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 war…

What? They make returns very easy to do. There's a form that pops up and many choices for reasons.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#64

Post by test1235 »

jackewiehose wrote: post #33

I once wrote a 1-star review on amazon for a top-selling product that had almost only positive reviews. The review was published but they quietly changed its contents. They replaced some words (I guess it was too strong language like "crap" or something) but even worse they removed at least one whole sentence and after that the review didn't make much sense anymore and it looked like I wrote it like that. Then I watc…

I find that hard to believe. Any chance of a link to the review? Otherwise this comment could easily be written by an Amazon competitor looking to sway opinion.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#65

Post by ahakki »

ritinkar wrote: post #56
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

Recently I wanted to purchase something from prime now, I added the product and during checkout where I put in the OTP ( 2FA is mandatory in India ), I changed my mind about purchasing and quit the app, knowing the purchase would fail. Amazon then quietly changed the order from prepaid to cash on delivery without asking me and went through with the order. I thought that was a shady way of closing a sale.

> 2FA is mandatory in India

Well you did just show that it's not :)

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#66

Post by jglauche »

I tried to comment on a product about that I highly dislike it now as they changed ingredients a month ago. "Sorry, commenting to this product has been disabled because we're currently receiving too many reviews" .

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#67

Post by nextlevelwizard »

numbsafari wrote: post #18
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”.

What if people reviewd your product as bad or left warnings not to buy/use it based on things outside of your control.

The product isn't bad because it arrived damaged, you can not argue against this. What you should do is contact Amazon and have the product replaced. If the next item also arrives damaged, then you can start claiming that the product is badly build.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#68

Post by Magnets »

nebulous1 wrote: post #50
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? When I receive a damaged product, this causes me substantial hassle (communicate with customer support, send item back, order replacement, ...). It seems very natural to write a review that reflects the poor quality of the product in this situation, and this review would be a useful signal to others.

My take is that damaged and broken items happen, particularly when items are new. I'm not saying that this information is irrelevant, but as a review of the product it isn't valid (as it's a review of a damaged product) and as a review of the supplier it isn't that helpful either (as I'm more interested in how the supplier responds to this situation: any supplier can send you what they have in stock, the true test is…

If a product is poorly packaged from the manufacturer or (more likely) poorly packaged by Amazon and that leads to a lot of people receiving a damaged product, then it is clearly beneficial to see that in the reviews before you purchase.

Or maybe the product just has poor QC, again, it should be allowed to show up in reviews.

If it's just a one-ff then it will be watered down by all of the other reviewers anyway

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#69

Post by ritinkar »

ahakki wrote: post #65
ritinkar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I wanted to purchase something from prime now, I added the product and during checkout where I put in the OTP ( 2FA is mandatory in India ), I changed my mind about purchasing and quit the app, knowing the purchase would fail. Amazon then quietly changed the order from prepaid to cash on delivery without asking me and went through with the order. I thought that was a shady way of closing a sale.

> 2FA is mandatory in India Well you did just show that it's not :)

mandatory for card transactions.

Unless you were joking, in which case, whoosh me.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#70

Post by kennydude »

_b8r0 wrote: post #25
2T1Qka0rEiPr wrote: post #3

Having recently unsubscribed from Prime, I can say their dark patterns don't stop there. About 5 pages to complete the process, in which the CTA to confirm bumps around the page, gets less prominent, and is given such lousy loss-aversion labels as "Give up my prime benefits".

Strangely it wasn't so bad for me, I live in the UK. I wonder if EU rules are different? I have to say for all the people complaining but still staying with Amazon, there's a simple solution that will force their hand if enough people act: Stop buying from them. Personally I cancelled my Prime subscription because no service is worth enough to me to force other human beings to pee in bottles to avoid work breaks for…

Same. Amazon Logistics is a horrible thing and not worth the money.
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