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Just 5 years ago, as a freshman in college, I was alternating between Amazon and eBay to find the cheapest price for textbooks. This was the first time I ordere

Just 5 years ago, as a freshman in college, I was alternating between Amazon and eBay to find the cheapest price for textbooks. This was the first time I ordered anything off of Amazon, and it was their bread and butter; a book. Fast-forward to present day and I order almost everything off of Amazon, even if I can get it at a store nearby. Why? Because products reviews have grown to be essential in my psychology for buying, and it's very easy to wait just two days for the product to arrive at your doorstep. And I haven't used eBay in years.

estrabd 10y ago
I find that eBay's bread and butter is really small fry to small fry - or at best, dealers in collectibles to collectors.
- selimthegrim 10y ago
  Clothing and shoes still are a better experience for me on eBay than amazon although Amazon is catching up.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
choward 10y ago
I read the reviews for anything I buy. The average rating is pretty much useless though.
- artursapek 10y ago
  Agreed. The critical ones are the useful ones.
- CodeCube 10y ago
  I always find it more interesting to look at the distribution of ratings that they have. It's usually overwhelmingly good, overwhelmingly bad, or polarising, with lots of good and lots of bad. That to me is a pretty good quick-window into the level of quality of the product.
- BHSPitMonkey 10y ago
  I do the same, but as time goes by I'm inherently less and less trustful of all of it. The incentive to manipulate ratings and reviews is just too great for sellers to ignore, and it's not as though Amazon can reliably measure review honesty.
  - pduan 10y ago
    Use fakespot.com and use filtered by "Verified Purchase".
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      What does verified purchase matter when so many sellers pay people to review? Yes they really bought it, but for pennies on the dollar.
      - rogerdpack 10y ago
        Yeah I've started going for products that only have "hundreds" of reviews, and over several years, those are usually hard to game :)
        brianwawok 10y ago
        You are just upping the stake. Some people DO pay for hundreds of reviews. It just cost more to do.
mod 10y ago
Absolutely! I find myself looking at items in-store to get an idea of what's available, then going home and comparing reviews & prices on amazon where there is more variety. This is particularly true with what I've been buying lately--tools. The local home depot will just deal in a couple of brands for most tools, while amazon is virtually guaranteed to have dozens in all variety of size, power, options, price, and quality. The price is usually better, as well, and then I don't have to load it into my vehicle, either. Poor UPS guy, though.
- nbakshi 10y ago
  I do that too, and with the Amazon App you can even scan the barcode of the product you are looking in the market to compare prices and look at reviews right there. Don't even have to go home for that.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  I find eBay a better source for tools, but both it and Amazon are head-and-shoulders better than Lowes and Home Depot if you don't need that tool right this minute. And if you do need it today and it can be used, Craigslist.
  - mod 10y ago
    In my area (poor, very rural), craigslist is too slow for that. I've been searching for a drill press for months, and I actually just hit one today. Assuming it's not sold out from under me by tomorrow, I'll have a new one in the evening. The last one I saw was sold within two hours of listing, and that was over a month ago.
enobrev 10y ago
Similarly, I've switched almost completely from selling an occasional book or used item on eBay to Amazon because I can generally get a better price when I sell things on Amazon, and it's much easier to list things in that the description and reviews are already available for most of the things I have to sell. When I changed cities a few years ago, I decided to sell the majority of my books so as not to have to ship them, and I made enough from those sales to cover about a quarter of my shipping fees for the rest of my stuff.
jameslk 10y ago
Incidentally, I'm working on a project to spin off the reviews piece of Amazon and making it first class, with an emphasis on community and trustability. I feel like this is a very important part of the ecommerce ecosystem and I'm not really sure why it hasn't been done already (very well anyway, see Epinions).
- Shebanator 10y ago
  its not easy to do well. fraud, spam, hate speech, etc.
  - SonicSoul 10y ago
    easier to do when not anonymous?
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    I would go as far as to say it's impossible to do well.
    - jameslk 10y ago
      All communities have to tackle these problems in various forms, although I believe it is possible to fix in a way good enough to be more valuable than without it. I have some ideas on ways to tackle the fraud problem, such as with a trust-based ranking system, rewarding balanced feedback, purchase verification, looking for heuristics of fake reviews, and avoiding potential conflicts of interest. It's not the primary concern of Amazon to make sure their reviews are authentic, where as it would be with a service dedicated to that very concern. In fact, positive reviews help drive more sales, so there's an inherent conflict of interest that I feel justifies the need to separate reviews from the place selling the things being reviewed.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  I'd like to see something "social", where you "follow" other reviewers (who reviewed something you bought and you trust their review) and build up a reviewer network and then factor in some sort of "trust" percentage (how much you trust the reivewer).
freyir 10y ago
Online reviews were a revelation for me, but they're increasingly being gamed on Amazon (fake reviews, people getting free products in exchange for positive reviews, etc.). I've bought some really mediocre products lately that had amazing reviews. I've also noticed the quality control has gone down the tubes, with 3rd party sellers shipping counterfeit goods. Amazon doesn't seem to be interested in regulating this. If there was a company with Amazon's shipping speed but without all the shady 3rd party sellers, I don't think I'd use Amazon again.
- mcpherrinm 10y ago
  Jet.com?
  - freyir 10y ago
    I'll take another look at them now that they've dropped the membership fee.
- stormbuilder 10y ago
  Generally speaking I only read 3 star reviews. 5 star and 1 star reviews are usually garbage - either fluffed fake reviews, or reviews outraged about something unrelated with the quality of the product itself.
  - BashiBazouk 10y ago
    I find 1 star reviews quite useful. If all the reviews are shipping complaints, the lemon rate of the product is probably low.
    - newscracker 10y ago
      There's a lot of gaming on those low star ratings by competitors. The trustability of reviews on Amazon has sunk so low over the years that for many products, reading many (tens or several tens of) reviews across star ratings is what may help have some idea about the product's quality and the seller.
hoffcoder 10y ago
You can see when a company has built a stellar product when they can sustain return customers even without discounts and payback offers. See Amazon's rivals, in India atleast, Flipkart and snapdeal are biting the dust, and Amazon doesn't even give any special offers to the customer. They have perfected the thing they must do well to succeed in their business: fast delivery and returns. Amazon is the flagship bearer in e-commerce and is doing a good job advancing state of the art in this segment of human endeavour.

estrabd 10y ago

I find that eBay's bread and butter is really small fry to small fry - or at best, dealers in collectibles to collectors.

selimthegrim 10y ago
Clothing and shoes still are a better experience for me on eBay than amazon although Amazon is catching up.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

choward 10y ago

I read the reviews for anything I buy. The average rating is pretty much useless though.

artursapek 10y ago
Agreed. The critical ones are the useful ones.
CodeCube 10y ago
I always find it more interesting to look at the distribution of ratings that they have. It's usually overwhelmingly good, overwhelmingly bad, or polarising, with lots of good and lots of bad. That to me is a pretty good quick-window into the level of quality of the product.
BHSPitMonkey 10y ago
I do the same, but as time goes by I'm inherently less and less trustful of all of it. The incentive to manipulate ratings and reviews is just too great for sellers to ignore, and it's not as though Amazon can reliably measure review honesty.
- pduan 10y ago
  Use fakespot.com and use filtered by "Verified Purchase".
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    What does verified purchase matter when so many sellers pay people to review? Yes they really bought it, but for pennies on the dollar.
    - rogerdpack 10y ago
      Yeah I've started going for products that only have "hundreds" of reviews, and over several years, those are usually hard to game :)
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        You are just upping the stake. Some people DO pay for hundreds of reviews. It just cost more to do.

mod 10y ago

Absolutely! I find myself looking at items in-store to get an idea of what's available, then going home and comparing reviews & prices on amazon where there is more variety. This is particularly true with what I've been buying lately--tools. The local home depot will just deal in a couple of brands for most tools, while amazon is virtually guaranteed to have dozens in all variety of size, power, options, price, and quality. The price is usually better, as well, and then I don't have to load it into my vehicle, either. Poor UPS guy, though.

nbakshi 10y ago
I do that too, and with the Amazon App you can even scan the barcode of the product you are looking in the market to compare prices and look at reviews right there. Don't even have to go home for that.
ryandrake 10y ago
I find eBay a better source for tools, but both it and Amazon are head-and-shoulders better than Lowes and Home Depot if you don't need that tool right this minute. And if you do need it today and it can be used, Craigslist.
- mod 10y ago
  In my area (poor, very rural), craigslist is too slow for that. I've been searching for a drill press for months, and I actually just hit one today. Assuming it's not sold out from under me by tomorrow, I'll have a new one in the evening. The last one I saw was sold within two hours of listing, and that was over a month ago.

enobrev 10y ago

Similarly, I've switched almost completely from selling an occasional book or used item on eBay to Amazon because I can generally get a better price when I sell things on Amazon, and it's much easier to list things in that the description and reviews are already available for most of the things I have to sell. When I changed cities a few years ago, I decided to sell the majority of my books so as not to have to ship them, and I made enough from those sales to cover about a quarter of my shipping fees for the rest of my stuff.

jameslk 10y ago

Incidentally, I'm working on a project to spin off the reviews piece of Amazon and making it first class, with an emphasis on community and trustability. I feel like this is a very important part of the ecommerce ecosystem and I'm not really sure why it hasn't been done already (very well anyway, see Epinions).

Shebanator 10y ago
its not easy to do well. fraud, spam, hate speech, etc.
- SonicSoul 10y ago
  easier to do when not anonymous?
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  I would go as far as to say it's impossible to do well.
  - jameslk 10y ago
    All communities have to tackle these problems in various forms, although I believe it is possible to fix in a way good enough to be more valuable than without it. I have some ideas on ways to tackle the fraud problem, such as with a trust-based ranking system, rewarding balanced feedback, purchase verification, looking for heuristics of fake reviews, and avoiding potential conflicts of interest. It's not the primary concern of Amazon to make sure their reviews are authentic, where as it would be with a service dedicated to that very concern. In fact, positive reviews help drive more sales, so there's an inherent conflict of interest that I feel justifies the need to separate reviews from the place selling the things being reviewed.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
I'd like to see something "social", where you "follow" other reviewers (who reviewed something you bought and you trust their review) and build up a reviewer network and then factor in some sort of "trust" percentage (how much you trust the reivewer).

freyir 10y ago

Online reviews were a revelation for me, but they're increasingly being gamed on Amazon (fake reviews, people getting free products in exchange for positive reviews, etc.). I've bought some really mediocre products lately that had amazing reviews. I've also noticed the quality control has gone down the tubes, with 3rd party sellers shipping counterfeit goods. Amazon doesn't seem to be interested in regulating this. If there was a company with Amazon's shipping speed but without all the shady 3rd party sellers, I don't think I'd use Amazon again.

mcpherrinm 10y ago
Jet.com?
- freyir 10y ago
  I'll take another look at them now that they've dropped the membership fee.
stormbuilder 10y ago
Generally speaking I only read 3 star reviews. 5 star and 1 star reviews are usually garbage - either fluffed fake reviews, or reviews outraged about something unrelated with the quality of the product itself.
- BashiBazouk 10y ago
  I find 1 star reviews quite useful. If all the reviews are shipping complaints, the lemon rate of the product is probably low.
  - newscracker 10y ago
    There's a lot of gaming on those low star ratings by competitors. The trustability of reviews on Amazon has sunk so low over the years that for many products, reading many (tens or several tens of) reviews across star ratings is what may help have some idea about the product's quality and the seller.

hoffcoder 10y ago

You can see when a company has built a stellar product when they can sustain return customers even without discounts and payback offers. See Amazon's rivals, in India atleast, Flipkart and snapdeal are biting the dust, and Amazon doesn't even give any special offers to the customer. They have perfected the thing they must do well to succeed in their business: fast delivery and returns. Amazon is the flagship bearer in e-commerce and is doing a good job advancing state of the art in this segment of human endeavour.