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Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

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Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#81

Post by [deleted] »

Judgmentality wrote: post #17
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you didn't feel the reviews were gamed--why would BestBuy leave bad reviews on its site--it would basically be admitting they sell bad products. Ideally maybe they are removing products that get continuous bad reviews before you see them, but generally reviews can't come from the same place you buy items and be trustworthy.

> why would BestBuy leave bad reviews on its site Because any website that doesn't do this I immediately assume is untrustworthy and I will choose to buy nothing from them at all.

[deleted]

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#82

Post by usrusr »

quxbar wrote: post #3

The other 60% are simply not paying attention.

The other 60% claim that they were already at zero trust in 2016. I think that they are exaggerating their distrust and I reject the idea that there could be a third option.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#83

Post by bombcar »

jedberg wrote: post #79
neartheplain wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, even this approach isn’t foolproof. Fake brand-name products make it into supply chains all the time, especially on sites like Amazon via third-party sellers. In China for example, “fake alcohol” (where brand-name bottles are refilled with cheaper, sometimes dangerous off-brand liquors) has been a big problem: https://www.mersolluo.com/china-cracking-down-on-counterfeit... I can’t imagine that the rubb…

Yeah that is true. I'm hoping Costco has their supply chain down well enough that it's not an issue, but at least there is a slightly higher chance it's legit if it says Clorox on the side.

Yeah, we've gone back to having to trust the brand name of the distributor - if it says it came from Amazon it is basically assumed to be counterfeit chinese crap; Costco and Home Depot (and even Walmart in store) are a bit more secure there.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#84

Post by tobib »

everdrive wrote: post #7

As well they should. This is a game of cat and mouse. Consumers were ahead for a little while, but companies have really gotten a grasp on the internet, and they're winning the information war. It's no mistake that I've come to rely on brand name again. It's the best heuristic available to me. When all this first started (mid-2000s) I was actively avoiding basing ANY decision on brand name. For a brief window, I had…

And then there are fakes of brand name products which makes it difficult to even know what you're buying. Personally I started buying things that I used to buy at Amazon locally instead whenever and wherever possible. That might mean a trip to the store but better than not knowing what you get.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#85

Post by bombcar »

jwagenet wrote: post #24
BitwiseFool wrote: post #10

I invite people to checkout BestBuy's online shop. Just about every single item has a rating from 4.0 to 4.8 out of 5. I have yet to see a single listing under 4 stars. There are of course, unrated items, but can you honestly believe that virutally every product they carry is nearly perfect? Who actually writes a 5 star review for a no-name brand of tape and cable ties? When everything is perfect, nothing is, and I d…

I think the reality is not just that Best Buy is (maybe) creating fake reviews or removing bad ones, but that most reviewers only rate with 1 star or 5 stars. The majority of reviews I find are in one of those two buckets, and only a handful of nuanced reviews fall in 2-4, effectively making the rating of a non controversial product that does what it’s supposed to - but has lemons - from 4 (meh) to 5 (works as expect…

This is why I would support a law that says if you're selling a product and have reviews you must also report how many you've sold over the last year, and how many returns (or maybe a percentage or something).

That would be a much more useful metric.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#86

Post by abecedarius »

Somehow this problem will be solved -- not perfectly, but like how spam went from a serious problem to an annoyance. The question is, how? What's the solution going to look like? You'd think Amazon would've focused more on it by now.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#87

Post by bombcar »

dragontamer wrote: post #73
coding123 wrote: post #45

Maybe re-phrase the question - I ONLY trust negative reviews now. The key is to see how many people have negative reviews and then scan them. Let's say I am interested in a BBQ Grill. 10 reviews about an open box/returned box? I'll probably go to a local CampingWorld and pick it up instead of Amazon and pay the extra $50. 4 people say the grill grate is bent but there are 1200 other reviews that don't seem to have a…

What if those 1200 other reviews were bought from a Facebook review farm? https://www.amzfinder.com/blog/top-100-facebook-groups-list-... There are a ton of Facebook groups out there whose sole purpose is to shove $$$ into paid reviews on Amazon (or Yelp, or other review sites). Could be a bunch of college kids looking to make a quick buck, or maybe some broken-English dude from some 3rd world country who actually ma…

What I look for is bad reviews that indicate to me the problem is PEBKAC - nobody is buying bad reviews, but if the only real complaint is that when someone dropped it on their toes it hurt, then it's probably OK.

But more and more I lean toward "if I have to get it from Amazon it needs to be something I'd be happy with being crap".

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#88

Post by neltnerb »

Judgmentality wrote: post #17
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you didn't feel the reviews were gamed--why would BestBuy leave bad reviews on its site--it would basically be admitting they sell bad products. Ideally maybe they are removing products that get continuous bad reviews before you see them, but generally reviews can't come from the same place you buy items and be trustworthy.

> why would BestBuy leave bad reviews on its site Because any website that doesn't do this I immediately assume is untrustworthy and I will choose to buy nothing from them at all.

How would someone know this when visiting them for an occasional purchase? You might easily assume that the lower rated items rapidly stop being carried, that the items that are carried are curated to have a real bias towards higher ratings, or merely that the lower rated items are on a different page of results.

Which isn't to say I trust Best Buy's customer reviews, I definitely don't. I probably trust Amazon's more simply by sheer quantity combined with fakespot.com to sanity check the reviews.

But I don't think a website having weird average scores is very suspicious, especially when they have small numbers of reviews. If many items are totally unreviewed and others have only a few dozen reviews, the results are essentially noise right? That's why I would trust Best Buy reviews less.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#89

Post by ajdude »

I recently canceled my Amazon prime subscription after having it for almost a decade. The final straw was Amazon removing the ability to comment on reviews. First, they remove the ability to see the comments using the mobile site, then they remove them all together saying that not as many people were utilizing it. Unfortunately, those comments were a good litmus test to the authenticity of a review - positive or negative - and gave insight to the responsiveness of the seller. Some comments on reviews even had instructions on how to solve the reviewer's problem from experts in the field, it’s all lost now.
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