Whenever I see one- or two-star reviews on Amazon (or Newegg) I make sure to read as many of them as possible to gauge what the problems with the item might be. This allows me to judge whether the people reviewing the items are overreacting or if there is a legitimate defect common to all the reviewers. The fact that Amazon is removing or not posting critical reviews in the first place is a red flag for me personally.
Amazon Dark Patterns
101–110 of 278 posts
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#102One thing where they are right is your review of your weights. What has the seller/packaging to do with the product itself? You weren't reviewing the item, but the seller (which isn't allowed when the seller is Amazon itself). Unless you think that the neoprene was bad quality.
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I know, the rule is, you can only show the native app-store review dialog once, if the user cancels, you won't get any review ever. So the idea is, to show your own until the user finally decides to review. But now the growth hackers of the world had the brilliant idea to treat bad reviews like "the user isn't ready for a review"
It's good that android doesn't allow this. And it doesn't give a way for the app to find out if I actually rated also. So I just click yes i want to rate. Then come back and continue as usual.
Same with iOS, but I guess chances are good that people don't behave like you. (Even if I also think they should, haha)
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I did a lot of work on anti-botting some years ago. It's not as easy as it looks. Often you spot a pattern that is obviously fake, like here, but discover it can't generalise without huge numbers of false positives. For example I would expect lots of legitimate users to review the same small set of TV shows or video games if they buy into a series or franchise.
I would expect that the reviews which are a result of purchase would be treated differently? Especially if not returned, or if the customer is returning less than X/Y products? Amazon has the advantage that their users are known (to them), so it's a lot easier to fight fakes.
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#105I 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 believe recent iOS SDKs have implemented a system-controlled UI to ask for reviews to prevent apps doing this. I assume it's enforced via app-store review.
Yes, and you only call the system-controlled function if you're sure you'd get a good review.
They should prohibit that function call completely and ask users randomly for reviews, maybe when they pause or close the app...
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except, will they look elsewhere? The current trend seems to suggest otherwise.
Also, will the sporadic negative experiences be enough for users to leave the site, if they are distributed among all the infrequent buyers?
Maybe not leave the site, but at least distrust negative reviews. I recently bought some towels that had amazing reviews. The towels sucked. That won't make me stop using Amazon for things in which I already have confidence but it will stop me from relying on their reviews. I will buy things like towels elsewhere.
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#107I 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'm more sympathetic to this behavior and developers in general than I used to be.
Just seen too many quality apps get relegated to obscurity because of a few 1-star early reviews from people expecting perfection from a free or cheap app. Or needing functionality that just isn't part of the app. I don't have any apps in the store, so this really isn't personal for me.
What I don't understand is why more devs don't use the API for the in-app overlay review versus a weblink that forwards to the app store. Clearly they're tracking the behavior, but not sure what is tracked via that means that can't be done in-app.
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#108“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”.
Personal experience:
When shopping for budget 3D printers, some models that had been available for several months or years had earlier reviews mention poor packing/shipping. The newer reviews mentioned that the situation has improved.
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#109I work at a sleep company and reviews are super important for our ecommerce site.
We use: https://reviewmeta.com to ensure that we remove fake reviews.
Just paste in the Amazon link and it will check all the reviews and give you loads of stats.
Re: Amazon Dark Patterns
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a good site explaining it. https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern Their homepage video starts with a bunch of examples from Amazon: https://darkpatterns.org
Google has one built into mobile Youtube with Chromecast. When you open a video and go to click the cast button, the "visit advertiser" button immediately shifts right into the place of the cast button, causing you to click into an advertiser website.
That gets me at least once per viewing session.