3 ms·

Same here. I used to buy everything off of Amazon, but now I have to scrape the Internet for reviews to make sure that I can trust the thing I'm buying is actua

Same here. I used to buy everything off of Amazon, but now I have to scrape the Internet for reviews to make sure that I can trust the thing I'm buying is actually going to be of good quality.

pwaai 9y ago
Yeah the fake reviews are bad for business. I'm buying much less because I know knock off Chinese white label products are being marked up 5~7x the wholesale price from Alibaba. I don't like being used as an arbitrage opportunity. I think that if unaddressed it could harm Amazon in the long run. Validating authentic and genuine reviews is still a very much under-developed solution, still relying on an equally weighted consensus when it's overwhelmingly skewed to positive bias (fake reviews up the average rating). I now read the bad reviews very carefully. they are often always sandwiched or quickly buried by broken english reviews. I can't remember how many times I bought a 4.8 star item and realized it was from Alibaba with just a different logo. I definitely won't be needing Amazon Prime anymore....... but where else will I take out my shopping binge desires?
- wingworks 9y ago
  Why not just shop directly with Alibaba/aliexpress then, skip the big markup :D
  - froindt 9y ago
    Because you need to buy wholesale quantities and it's still not the brand name product you want.
    - dlubarov 9y ago
      AliExpress is consumer focused; you can buy single units there.
  - bsder 9y ago
    I do. But it doesn't solve the whole "Is this good or crap?" problem. Generally on Alibaba, you have to know what a "reasonable" price is and expect that "acceptable" means you may have to order something 3 different times. I seem to have a miss rate of about 20-30%--so most of the time I get what I want, but very occasionally I get a bad roll of the dice and have to order 3 times.

3 ms·

Same here. I used to buy everything off of Amazon, but now I have to scrape the Internet for reviews to make sure that I can trust the thing I'm buying is actua

by BlackjackCF 9y ago

Same here. I used to buy everything off of Amazon, but now I have to scrape the Internet for reviews to make sure that I can trust the thing I'm buying is actually going to be of good quality.

pwaai 9y ago
Yeah the fake reviews are bad for business. I'm buying much less because I know knock off Chinese white label products are being marked up 5~7x the wholesale price from Alibaba. I don't like being used as an arbitrage opportunity. I think that if unaddressed it could harm Amazon in the long run. Validating authentic and genuine reviews is still a very much under-developed solution, still relying on an equally weighted consensus when it's overwhelmingly skewed to positive bias (fake reviews up the average rating). I now read the bad reviews very carefully. they are often always sandwiched or quickly buried by broken english reviews. I can't remember how many times I bought a 4.8 star item and realized it was from Alibaba with just a different logo. I definitely won't be needing Amazon Prime anymore....... but where else will I take out my shopping binge desires?
- wingworks 9y ago
  Why not just shop directly with Alibaba/aliexpress then, skip the big markup :D
  - froindt 9y ago
    Because you need to buy wholesale quantities and it's still not the brand name product you want.
    - dlubarov 9y ago
      AliExpress is consumer focused; you can buy single units there.
  - bsder 9y ago
    I do. But it doesn't solve the whole "Is this good or crap?" problem. Generally on Alibaba, you have to know what a "reasonable" price is and expect that "acceptable" means you may have to order something 3 different times. I seem to have a miss rate of about 20-30%--so most of the time I get what I want, but very occasionally I get a bad roll of the dice and have to order 3 times.