A couple of readers brought up the FTC’s recent ruling regarding fake reviews, and to be honest I don’t think it’s doing to do much to help consumers.
There are various e-commerce features that, whether intentional or not, can be exploited to potentially mislead customers.
Aggregate tool reviews, for example, can have benefits, but for the most part I find them annoying at the least and deceptive at worst.
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Consider the Skil Flip Drill, with a screen capture of the Amazon listing shown above.
At first glance, it looks like this brand new product, which just started to ship, has 141 ratings and an average score of 4.7 stars out of 5.
However, if you look at the reviews, all of the “top reviews” are for a completely different product, in this case a Skil 20V Max cordless drill that launched a few years ago.
Every single one of those top reviews, except for the second to last one, are for a different product.
If you click a few buttons, first to switch to “most recent” and then the “see more reviews” link at the bottom, only then can you go to a filtering page where you can then click to select the “style” and only see reviews for the new Skil Flip Drill cordless driver product.
There, we can see a handful of reviews that are at most about a week old. Some of the reviews are positive, others have titles such as “Hot Garbage” and “Awkward.”
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At this time, there are 12 total ratings, 9 of which are “Vine free product” reviews. Of the 3 that are verified purchases and not free product reviews, one declares it the Skil Flip Drill to be “Hot Garbage,” another discusses complaints and why they returned it, and the only positive review is a short sentence fragment.
Skil provided a good example of what can go wrong with review aggregation, but the fact of the matter is that many brands and retailers do this.
I’d like to be able to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an algorithm glitch or unintentionally error. Unfortunately, all of my contacts there left the company, and so there’s no one to ask.
Review aggregation can be useful, such as if a new color of a specific product is introduced. In such cases, older reviews can legitimately apply.
But when multiple dissimilar products are mashed together, such as when ratings and years of reviews for an entry-level drill are shown for a brand new holiday season release with gimmicky design, how does that help tool users?
I’ve seen aggregated reviews used to boost the review count for new releases. How likely are you to buy a brand new product with 0 reviews? 5 user reviews? What about 250 reviews?
Nobody wants to be the first to buy a product – most people prefer to spend their money on something that’s tried-and-true and vetted by a broader online audience.
To filter out aggregate reviews on the Amazon page, one has to scroll to the review section, click a button, scroll down to a link, toggle a filter field, and then select the product they want to see reviews for.
How many people actually do this, compared to how many simply look at the rating and think “ooh, 141 ratings with 4.7 stars?”
Sure, I guess it’s nice that the FTC took a stance against fake reviews, but what about all of the other types of loopholes, exploits, and manipulations that can mislead and even deceive unsuspecting consumers?
I brought up some discrepancies in a conversation with a retailer nearly 9 years ago. At the time, they said:
We automatically share reviews across ssku families (same product in different colors, for example) and occasionally for merchants/vendors when they request it for skus that are not set up as ssku families providing the items are the same.
That’s how aggregate reviews are supposed to work – to share reviews for things like the same product in different colors – but it seems like a lot of online marketplaces are no longer being policed.
It’s clear that aggregate reviews are being misused, whether intentionally or not, and in ways that don’t serve consumers’ best interests.
As I know some people who occasionally make purchasing decisions solely based on user review counts and ratings, this PSA was perhaps overdue.
ColeTrain
I have always wondered this, who is responsible for the reviews, is it the retailer or the manufacturer of the product? I’ve always been skeptical of reviews but I have made purchases solely based off of reviews because some set of factors left me no other choice. As for Amazon, I just read the negative reviews. You still get reviews that are completely unrelated to the actual product but there’s far less reading involved before finding useful information, people tend to be more descriptive when they’re disappointed. I started calling them “reman” reviews. Look at all the remanufactured tool batteries and car parts, particularly starters. They use them once and write a glaring review but look at the negatives and you’ll typically find how long they last. Same goes for harbor freight, I’ve been going there long enough where I know what I’m getting and my thoughts are mostly always positive. That said, I still don’t trust that everything they sell has a near perfect five-star review. If I am making an expensive purchase or buying something I need to perform I will search through the reviews until I find something I trust. A lot of harbor freight reviews are new purchases with nothing else to compare to. Personally I do like what harbor freight is done with their power tools and I love the Skil 12v stuff but that screw gun did look like the gimmicky toy.
Stuart
I used to think it was Amazon, but I believe many brands have their own product listing managers that handle all that stuff.
Jimmie
Likewise, I’ve always found that user complaints are more helpful when judging a product than user accolades so I attach more weight to negative reviews. When I buy a piece of expensive A/V gear or an appliance that I’m going to be stuck with for a while, I want to know where the pain points are. Tell me what you find frustrating about it. A lot of complaints are user error but if the same complaint surfaces repeatedly across multiple reviews then perhaps the product is difficult to use or perhaps there’s a design flaw; in either case that’s useful data.
Mike
I’ve found this issue to be prevalent in computer gear like hard drives. I’ll be looking at an 8GB hard drive, and discover that their are reviews for other sizes of the same hard drive brand mixed in. Yes, this really does make a difference. A few years back, 3TB models of a Seagate drive were very problematic (as I discovered the hard way), but other sizes of the same drive line (including larger) were fine. It really makes a difference to compare like for like. I always presumed that it was stupid users dropping a review in the wrong place.
And yes, the negative reviews are typically more useful than the positive ones, especially if you can weed out the negative reviews that are really “operator error” and not something wrong with the tool.
bob
I fully agree, I also give more weight on negative reviews.
Adam
I believe it was the Forge 12ah battery that I looked at recently, and had an absurd amount of reviews for not really being available yet. I would argue that is deceptive marketing, and probably would be questionable in certain states.
If they want to pull actual reviews for that product from another site, but when it has nothing to do with it, why even have the reviews. About as useful as reviewers who give the product 1 star due to poor shipping, or other non-product factor.
Stuart
Home Depot has a single page with selections for different M18 Forge batteries – 6Ah, 8Ah, and 12Ah. Those are similar products in the same line.
It could be confusing, but Home Depot has “this review is from…” links at the bottom of adjacent product reviews AND you can filter out all other reviews instantly with a single click of the “current item selections” button.
When it pulls reviews from a difference source, such as a brand’s website, those are “syndicated reviews,” which is a little different from what I’m referring to above.
Scott K
I appreciate you explaining how this works – I’ve seen the results but didn’t totally understand how it was occurring. I’ve largely soured on reviews. I found it hard for a while to discern real vs fake. I also noticed that a lot of reviews on HD have a star rating but no context which makes the review meaningless to me. I try to stick to brands I trust and retailers with an easy to navigate return policy. Toolguyd, Wirecutter, and outdoor gear lab are my goto sources when I’m making a purchase that I was suggestions on. I recently came across OutdoorEmpire and I feel like he’s honest and reliable.
Frank D
FWIW, it is against Amazon’s TOS to recycle product pages and their reviews, to boost new products. I have reported some in the past … but AMZ makes it harder to report stuff. And, even worse, they allow stores to put vastly different products on the same page, as if they were different colors … so making sense of those reviews is next to impossible, unless you go line by line.
Speaking of Home Depot and Ryobi. What a complete mess. The whole system is gamed by the entires for Ryobi product giveaways and there are a ton of useless reviews … brand new purchase, used once or twice, all is great …
And then there are the vine or similar reviews of free products. Rarely have anything negative to say, sometimes does not even know how to use the product or have anything to compare it to, no longevity or long term use, because it is a new product and these reviews need to go out winth a few weeks to a month. Sigh.
Scott K
It seems like everyone wants to be an influencer – I like some of the video reviews on Amazon simply because I can see the product being handled, but I find the content generally useless. I’ve noticed that tons of reviews now state that the product was received for free for review purposes.
Stuart
From what I’ve been told, on-Amazon videos are commission-incentivized.
Scott K
That’s what it seems like. For items I’m not familiar with, its nice to see them being handled for the sake of scale and whatnot.
Stuart
https://www.amazon.com/earn-with-amazon-video/b?ie=UTF8&node=53633762011
MM
I feel that a big part of the problem with garbage reviews is the fact that so many sites bug their customers to submit reviews very shortly after purchasing a product. I often get emails asking me to review products I purchased online, sometimes the same day the product was delivered. How could I possibly leave a meaningful review if I haven’t had a chance to use the product for a significant period of time?
It shows that these sites care about social engagement of their customers but they don’t give a crud about the usefulness of the reviews.
Big Richard
Ah how I love when people do those review requests:
“Haven’t used it yet, 5 stars”
– Barb
MM
It seems that some people are reviewing tools that don’t even exist yet. Earlier in the year I spotted a couple 1-star reviews for the DCG460 Flexvolt grinder. Their complaint? The tool wasn’t available for purchase yet. Both of these reviews were marked “verified buyer”, even though the tool wasn’t out yet and the reviews originated from a different site.
https://www.acmetools.com/dewalt-60v-max-7-in-to-9in-large-angle-grinder-kit-dcg460x2/885911800471.html
PB
Completely agree. Most reviews are worthless. Because of things like this.
Big Richard
This is why I am OK with sites not even having reviews. Reviews like this, the 1-star review for ordering the wrong size, 2-star review because the shipping was longer than they thought, the glowing paid 5-star reviews, people reviewing the wrong product (on a brand new tool review they will say how they had this tool for 2 years and love/hate it for xyz reasons), etc..
Pops
Speaking as a Vine member, the algorithm they use to serve items to us seems pretty terrible. Sometimes it nails it and I get “recommended for you” items that are right in my wheelhouse, and other days I get ostomy bags and “personal massagers”. This month Amazon seems convinced I own a Dell laptop in need of a battery replacement (I do not and have never). There are definitely people snagging power tools off Vine that have no business being first reviewers of power tools. The system is kind of a hot mess.
That said, it pays off frequently enough that I’m absolutely addicted to the game.
PB
I’ve been sorting the reviews by most recent.
It can help you see if it’s a bait and switch.
Somehow the first most helpful reviews are always highly rated. (and sometimes you notice they are also reviewing a completely different product.)
I also like looking at review pictures and the reviews with the real pictures. These can tell you a lot more about the quality than the rendered images.
Wayne R.
The great benefit of the internet was to “Provide the world with access to all information” but is more often just another angle for grift & BS.
Amazon is wildly successful – but they continue to exploit everything possible, to their severe detriment. They could treat their employees better, take situations like this seriously and become a model company, or just nickel & dime everything forever so Bezos ends up with a fleet of gigantic yachts.
Absurd.
Jared
Unfortunately, reviews aren’t a great shortcut – at least not anymore.
You have to actually read them to get much benefit, not rely on the overall rating. Aggregating reviews is only one example of the problem – though a particularly annoying one. Fake reviews are still an issue. Reviews in exchange for free product are another.
There just doesn’t seem to be any shortcuts. If you spend the time to read a few reviews its often easy to tell if:
– someone ever actually used the product,
– they’re reviewing it just after opening the box,
– they’re gushing over it because it was free,
– they gave it five-stars because it arrived early (or one star when it arrived late or damaged), or
– they have any idea about the product they’re reviewing compares (the Dewalt DCD771 still has 4.5 stars – why? Because the people who buy it haven’t used another cordless drill from the last couple decades).
eddiesky
Or the negative reviews which are unrelated because “customer upset the box was damaged”. That is shipper issue, not the brand. Or negative review because they list a different item and not retracted, or vendor resolved a complaint but customer left the negative. Or some reviews are just “good”, or “its ok”. or “didn’t use it long”…. so much chaff to sift through.
Sergey
I managed a team of developers at a well-known e-commerce shop. This is 100% intentional. We were specifically tasked by top management to add a feature that would allow to aggregate reviews for a product group even though only one product in a group had positive reviews. And products did not just differ by color – they were different products.
We added the ability to filter the reviews by product, but were asked to remove it as it was viewed as a possible driver of negative impact on sales.
The entire development team was against this and I’ve argued many times that we need to have clarity in how we present the reviews. All of it was shut down by top management.
MT_Noob
I always appreciate it when reviewers take the time to specify the exact make/model/version in their review. Preferably in the subject line itself. That makes it clear if that review is for that exact item or just a similar one. Also the rev number is hugely helpful on things like routers/modems where it can be a make or break feature depending on the version or revision of that device.
If the FTC really wants to look out for consumers, they should make it mandatory that users are allowed to include price paid in in reviews if they want (along with a date stamp to provide context and help people see trends). Amazon hides behind a only review the “product” policy. They argue price is not the same as the actual product, but that is a pretty weak argument in my opinion. Buying decisions would be a whole lot easier for me if I saw the product review and prices paid all in the same feedback area in one place. That is just my two cents.
Again, hats off to anyone that takes the time to provide real reviews, and also include the exact make model etc. Honest reviews do help me with my purchase decisions, although how much they factor in varies wildly from site to site and product to product.
In the end I trust the info on sites like this far more than the sellers review sections alone.
Wayne R.
Thanks for pointing this out, adding the exact make/model to reviews, and the date. When I’ve written reviews, the option comes as a direct connection to what I’ve bought, but hadn’t really considered it being lumped into a messy pile of other stuff.
Michael Martin
I’ve recently gone all in on the Skil brand. Have had great luck with there impact wrenches. They are good power tools and hit above their price point. I built a large covered deck, privacy fence for 1/2 acre backyard and a wall of shelves in a garage. Love them. I think the reviews out there for anything are skewed and not always for what you think. It’s trick nowadays with fake reviews . Gotta love days gone buy when you went to Sears, bought a tool and if it broke or you hated it you always got your money back !
Big Richard
Here’s a good one, look at the reviews from the new DeWalt 20v snow shovel. A bunch of 5 star reviews from “inluenster.com” people who have not even used it in the snow. Just a lot of pictures of it sitting in living rooms. Disgusting.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-10-in-20-Volt-MAX-Cordless-Snow-Shovel-Tool-Only-DXSVXA2016-002/330818496
Stuart
A lot of 3rd party companies and marketing firms put a lot of emphasis on review count, even if they’re completely useless. I guess they use that as a performance metric to win more contracts.
https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/influencers-home-depot-lowes-fake-reviews/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
With the Dewalt snow shovel, most shoppers are only going to look at the review count and rating, even if none of the reviewers didn’t test anything.
Syndicated reviews are a different issue than aggregated reviews, but still a bit problem.
Big Richard
Yeh, I meant to add this to my discussion above about reviews being garbage in general. This was not meant to be an example of aggregate reviews.
Bob
Handy, but way too light duty for me!