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Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

arstechnica.com

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Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#201

Post by PaulKeeble »

kevincox wrote: post #161
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #128

Here's one solution: don't buy cheap garbage. Yes, someone makes a $23 drone. It is cheap plastic shit from China. Do you really need to buy it, and then throw it in landfill a week (or two days) later after it breaks? Did OP reeeeeally expect a $23 drone to be on the up-and-up and NOT end up as landfill? OP is a bit oblivious to his impact on the environment. This race to the bottom for the cheapest crap is what ins…

The problem is that we don't have a great indicator of quality other than price. Why do I think the $30 or $50 will be better? It probably is, but I have no way to tell if I am getting a better quality product or basically the same just sold at a higher price. It is hard to decide to take this "risk" when you don't know. Trusted reviews and recommendations can solve this but they are hard to come by.

It has become increasing difficult to find good reviews too. The use of affiliate links means there are a lot of affiliate link farm sites now that do top 10 product listings and sometimes they make really hard to determine if they know what they are talking about or not. You can waste a lot of time trying to find real roundup reviews that aren't just affiliate link scam sites on search engines.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#202

Post by r00fus »

a_wild_dandan wrote: post #175
CC38 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fakespot can help reveal which products have misleading reviews https://www.fakespot.com/ Obviously it isn't perfect but it does help.

I use Fakespot, and I wonder about its accuracy. Seeing a 5-star product given a `D` rating is shocking. If Fakespot is reasonably accurate, then Amazon is inexcusably bad at removing fake reviews. Amazon has orders of magnitude more developer talent and user information than Fakespot to tackle accurate ratings. But I suppose that's the reality of differing incentives...

It's likely Amazon. Of course, there are instances where (e.g. mason jars) where fakes may be acceptable as they're commodity products.

It's tiring using Fakespot just to find dozens of D and Fs. For the most part, I use other retailers or just don't buy the item (surprisingly it's a zen option to not buy stuff you don't pressingly need).

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#203

Post by Leherenn »

cbanek wrote: post #149

Somewhat related due to comments / reviews being for a product, but sometimes on Amazon one page has a set of different options (with the little boxes). So you can pick like a color or model. But then they group all the reviews together despite what buttons you've picked. This is so frustrating! At least they've added a little thing that says which SKU the review is for. But I wish they would just separate out the re…

I don't know, it kinda makes sense to have the reviews for phone (blue) in the phone (red) page. It's not like the colour is a major part of the product (in the sense that most reviews won't be about the colour, not that it is not important). Same with cable x1 or x2. Though it certainly is an issue if it changes the product in a major way (say, taste of a yogurt).

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#204

Post by thwarted »

mcpherrinm wrote: post #163
coldpie wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since NewEgg started up their 3rd party seller program, I've also switched to Best Buy. Running out of places to buy from that aren't flooded with trash.

BestBuy has added third party sellers online too: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/about/selling-on-marketplace/bl... Though they don’t seem to have many yet, I did run across it recently. In-store pickup items are still seemingly safe though.

This is the trend because the existence of the brand's website as a multi-seller marketplace is considered more valuable/higher ROI than the actual direct selling of items. And that's a reasonable view considering most of what is being sold is commodity and prices, thus margin, having downward pressure. The e-commerce website gets a positive reputation and a brand is built for being a good place to buy things, so it expands into being a hosting platform other sellers, with the intent of drawing more customers based on the brand reputation.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#205

Post by prepend »

cambalache wrote: post #29

I was a heavy Amazon customer 8-10 years ago. I only bought stuff sold directly by Amazon, and that was not hard to do, since +90% of the products had that option. The other day I was just checking the price of an article for my mom and I was shocked how different is now, the proportion has totally changed, +90% of the articles are not sold by Amazon and by the "stores" name it looks they are barely better than rando…

> I think now it is the time for a serious competition to take business out from them.

I think this is Walmart nowadays. They bought Jet in 2016 and seem to have scaled Jet up and everywhere. Jet was the last company I know of to go up against Amazon.

I think it’s a real opportunity for a Chinese or Korean brand. Or if Aldi/IKEA want to go into retail space.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#206

Post by Covzire »

cbanek wrote: post #149

Somewhat related due to comments / reviews being for a product, but sometimes on Amazon one page has a set of different options (with the little boxes). So you can pick like a color or model. But then they group all the reviews together despite what buttons you've picked. This is so frustrating! At least they've added a little thing that says which SKU the review is for. But I wish they would just separate out the re…

I despise this practice. I ran into it recently with the LOTR 4K Bluray set. I was going to leave a 3 or 4 star review, since while it's fantastic, the image detail is hardly an improvement over the standard bluray version, with some claiming the 4K wasn't even a full rescan from the originals. Side by side shots show very minor at best improvements to detail, with most of the actual benefits coming from HDR.

Since a 3 or 4 star review was pointless given their SKU grouping, I left a 1 star review. If 10% of users started punishing companies and Amazon with 1 star reviews they would change pretty quickly.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#207

Post by prepend »

IAmWorried wrote: post #66

I don't know about you folks, but I've received so many "new" items from Amazon that were clearly used that I have largely stopped shopping there for expensive items. I think it's still fine for small gifts, plastic utensils, etc. But anything over 100 bucks I try to buy directly off the manufacturer's website. I think Amazon needs to get a handle on their sellers and reviews ASAP because I am rapidly losing faith in…

Same here. I wonder if Amazon employees stopped eating their own dog food, and would be interesting to be a fly on the wall for how they are trying to solve this problem.

I fear that they’ve done the math and decided that they make more money this way than a quality way.

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#208

Post by [deleted] »

prepend wrote: post #180
yrimaxi wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself. Based on what? Are people investing less in marketing than before?

My personal experience is that many brands had a high markup on brand recognition and I used to be able to find better quality and value through no name brands that made good products. The internet is supposed to spread information well and with perfect information I should be able to differentiate true quality vs just a known brand signaling quality. I think the problem is that places like Amazon distort information…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews

#209

Post by PaulKeeble »

vidarh wrote: post #61
detaro wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one of the reasons why reading negative reviews is often helpful: there you often can figure out if the complaints about quality are from people with your standards or from people with higher ones. (after you filter out all the people who don't understand the difference between a product review and a review of their local postal service of course...)

It's almost always the negative reviews which convinces me to buy a product. The positive reviews rarely have much information . The negative reviews far more often will tell me where the weaknesses and problems are so I can determine if they are things that matter to me.

It has become the same with game reviews on Steam as well. I think most people just aren't very discerning or critical with their reviews. Those with negative reviews however have at least one complaint about the product and determining those as a combination matter to you is a big part of finding the right product.

It marks the death of high quality reviews however because professional reviews can be done in context weighing things up better, where as most customers just don't have the experience with alternatives to say if its a good example or not.

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