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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

#381

Post by KirillPanov »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #28
TravisLS wrote: post #18

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. But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality. There's…

> replaced by better objective information about products I don't have much to add here, but economists call this perfect information .

I have even less to add, but while we're griping, I think academic fields should recieve a demerit for every term they introduce that involves the adjective "perfect".

For example, cryptographers: you get a demerit for using the phrase "perfect forward secrecy". Just "forward secrecy" would've done the job, no need to pat yourselves on the back...

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

#382

Post by jonnycomputer »

coldpie wrote: post #133
hanklazard wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also found myself buying a lot of things from Best Buy, something I would have scoffed at 5-7 years ago. These days, I just want to know that I'm getting a genuine (vs replica) product and most of the time I can go pick-up my purchase same day, solving the "fast shipping" problem.

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.

Did NewEgg do that? Damn. Irritated with Walmart for the same reason. I want to know what I'm getting, dammit.

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

#383

Post by wyclif »

butterfi wrote: post #230
TeMPOraL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I myself am convinced that brand recognition is on borrowed time - that is, recognition of old brands may still work as useful filter, but new quality brands will be near-impossible to establish. The reason for that: we're being DDoSed with brands on e-commerce sites. For an increasing amount of product categories, you're going to find 10+ "brands" on Amazon that are selling the same white-label garbage class product…

Lets not forget the brands get bought and the new owners lower the quality until the brand name loses its influence, e.g. Pyrex glass.

I haven't done a comparison of old vs. new Pyrex. In what way did they lower the quality?

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

#384

Post by aaron-santos »

dan-robertson wrote: post #152
coldpie wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even books aren't safe. Support your local booksellers! https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/amazo...

Even for non-counterfeit books, I’ve often got shit quality print-on-demand versions with plates that look like an inkjet printer running low on ink and with the letters having fuzzy boundaries.

I purchased a book this year which included encoding errors. Original greek text which amounted to a couple of quotes was replaced with garbage output. Tables were printed but unformatted. Furthermore, it only included the first 1/2 of the text. The entire second half of the book was missing. I could look past many of these except for the last. Selling half a book is fraud.

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

#385

Post by cjsawyer »

taurath wrote: post #339

I bought a plant growing light a few days ago on amazon. It was the #1 seller in the category, and had nearly 15,000 reviews and sat at 4.5 stars. It was cheap. Mine didn't work. The box said it was 80 watts, but the included adaptor could only do 40 watts. In the box was an offer for a $15 amazon gift card to give them a 5 star rating. I wrote a review on amazon, stating this. I got an email from amazon that my revi…

You’ve put words to my opinion here. Thank you for stating it so concisely

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

#386

Post by dingaling »

quasse wrote: post #291
biztos wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just made a pretty big purchase decision in a field (cameras) where there is a lot of competition and reviews carry a lot of weight. In the end, the information that helped me make up my mind was from video reviews by mostly well-known photography vloggers on YouTube. This is also something that could be messed with by unscrupulous marketers, but there is a strong counterbalance to those anti-patterns: the vloggers…

> because "top photography vlogger" presumably pays better than 99% of all other work that involves photography. Just to be clear though (I work in a field that relies heavily on niche-specifc YouTubers for marketing) - the reason that being a "top niche blogger" pays so well is because companies pay them a lot to encourage favorable opinions of their product lines. I've seen amounts that are several multiples of my…

Brand outreach in photography is so endemic that I just can't trust any reviews for the first three months or so after a release.

It's only when working photographers get their hands on the product and use it that the real story emerges, but it requires someone to take that risk for the benefit of others.

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

#387

Post by thwarted »

jamiek88 wrote: post #261
thwarted wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At the risk of long term diluting that brand reputation.

Yes, but the brand, being non-tangible, has stronger staying power as the platform marketplace expands to encompass more sellers. The brand then becomes more powerful as it eats up the reputation of the individual sellers.

Additionally, no one gives a crap about long-term anymore. Scorched earth, grab what you can, screw everyone else and all that.

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

#388

Post by jamiek88 »

zucked wrote: post #294
jamiek88 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! I got a shitty appletv stick on holder that dropped off the TV the other day after a couple months, I put up a 1 star review hoping that would happen but it hasn't as yet!

I'm pretty convinced there are a lot of sellers on these third party marketplaces that arrive with a truckload of Widget A - once Widget A sells out, they're gone... on to the next thing or rebranded and selling Widget C. Especially when you're selling a low-margin plastic commodity item. If you don't get support while they're still actively selling YOUR widget, good luck.

Yeah that would make sense, although I've seen the listing slowly morph into another product but retaining the reviews somehow.

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

#389

Post by doktorhladnjak »

CC38 wrote: post #322
silexia wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just switch to a reliable vendor like Costco or Target and stop buying from Amazon.

So you believe that those companies somehow avoid review manipulation? I sure don't.

The minimum quality of the items Target and Costco tends to be better. Also, neither allows arbitrary third party items onto their platform. Their buyers choose the items they sell.

In essence, I don't care that much about the reviews. There are fewer of them, and they usually talk more about factual aspects of the item. There are very few "1 star, this is total garbage" type reviews because the retailer has filtered much more of the crap out.

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

#390

Post by 80mph »

steelframe wrote: post #245
dan-robertson wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for non-counterfeit books, I’ve often got shit quality print-on-demand versions with plates that look like an inkjet printer running low on ink and with the letters having fuzzy boundaries.

For books I've gone from buying on a Kindle to Kobo+OverDrive which I use to check out e-books from the library. But I'm one of those freaks who actually prefers e-ink devices over dead tree books.

I love my Kobo e-reader. Syncs perfectly with my library and Pocket, and using the natural light feature hasn't hampered my ability to fall asleep.
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