re: Will Amazon's reviews system be their downfall?

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Amazon's reviews

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= fake news, literally!

Third party sellers selling counterfeit or knockoff items sold as the real thing is a much bigger issue imo.

Three times I have bought something that was a complete fake. Another time I bought a pack of D-Cell Duracell batteries that had an expiration date of only a year later.

They have do do a better job of items betting listed or vetting 3rd party sellers.

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I haven't heard this about Amazon. Its more that cheap ripoff companies found the way to game the system.

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I listened to this podcast a while ago about this Chinese company that pays people to do fake reviews. The funny thing is that some of the e-commerce companies have started to try to crackdown so the company needs to prove that they actually shipped something to a person.

So, they pic a person's address and then just send them random cheap shite. They'll send em like a plastic key, a piece of string, an eraser, whatever, all so they can post the review.

I think it sounds hilarious and would love to come home to a random package every couple days.

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accused yet of shaking down people in exchange for good reviews,

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Certain Alexa skills do this when you open them, under guise of “keep them free” spiels.

A lot of small sellers will offer you a full credit or extra items in exchange for a 5-star review on Amazon. You can tell those by people who awkwardly mention the full product name in the review. They'll sometimes even mention the product number. There are websites people follow that tell you which sellers are offering free stuff in exchange for reviews (I don't remember them).

They will also buy hundreds or thousands of 5-star reviews from companies that offer the service. Typically Chinese or Indians post them. Those either don't have any words, or have something like "Awesome!". They used to post them all within a day or two, but now spread it out over two weeks initially. Sellers can go back at any time and purchase more good reviews.

Also available is the ability to purchase 1, 2, and 3-star reviews for a competitor. They don't hit as quickly as buying positive reviews for yourself, because the seller would notice it immediately.

I get maybe 30% of the Prime items shipped to my house within two days. Most take 3-5 days like any other package would. I have also seen my delivery date change from just before purchase confirmation, to just after purchase confirmation. Amazon was given a sweetheart contract to prop us the USPS, and USPS never had the ability to cover that amount of packages.

The one redeeming thing about Amazon is that they'll take damn near any returns, and I've never had to pay a restocking fee

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I sort of focus on the 1 star reviews. Still have to sift though those, though.

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I started looking at the longer 3 ratings and compare them to longer 1 ratings I cherry pick. Usually I can get a feel for common and repetitive issues. Not the best way but absent real and honest reviews-what you gonna do?

The main reason I started using Amazon was for the reviews. I would sort by "highest rating" and start browsing. They took off the feature to only show items with a minimum amount of reviews which pisses me off. Now if I sort like this I get a list of a hundred items that all have a perfect rating with only two or three reviews.... which are probably fake.

I don't know about you, but I don't just take one websites reviews for fact. I look around at other vendors, to get a true feel for a products worth....and cost. Not doing that when buying something will be your downfall, not Amazons. They are printing money, you aren't.

Amazon retail is their primary market. But amazon has expanded into so many other market shares and they are hard to beat. Amazon AWS has taken over IT infrastructure. They are by far the best

The 2, 3 and 4 star reviews are the ones to read.

You can pretty much assume that all the two or three sentence five star reviews are fake and the one star reviews are too many idiots who don't buy the right product or don't understand the application or use or people complaining about irrelevant shite like, "the package was hard to open. Muh cellophane!"

You can tell the honest reviews because they usually say some good things and some bad things about the product. Pretty much how most people feel about everything they own.

The truth always lies in the middle