4 ms·

> Lots of basic products are being sold to pump up reviews then being switched to a much more expensive item. This is the most frustrating of them all, reviews

> Lots of basic products are being sold to pump up reviews then being switched to a much more expensive item. This is the most frustrating of them all, reviews mean absolutely nothing anymore when the item can be switched out at will while keeping any old reviews.

organsnyder 7y ago
The frustrating thing is that it seems like a trivial problem to solve. Changing too many attributes of a product should either be disallowed, or automatically wipe old reviews.
- hk__2 7y ago
  > The frustrating thing is that it seems like a trivial problem to solve. Changing too many attributes of a product should either be disallowed, or automatically wipe old reviews. If it hasn’t been solved yet, it’s probably not that trivial. How many is “too many”? What happens if I change one attribute every week or so until I’ve completely changed the product?
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > If it hasn’t been solved yet, it’s probably not that trivial. How many is “too many”? What happens if I change one attribute every week or so until I’ve completely changed the product? The problem seems trivial, especially for a company of Amazon's size. All they'd need to do is have some prominent part of the product description (say the product name) be unmodifiable without review and approval by Amazon, and have reviewers that are trained to spot patterns of fraudulent behavior. Any legitimate issues caused by the review can probably be mitigated by giving sellers the ability to get pending changes pre-approved before they go live [1]. If a seller doesn't want to go through the approval, they can delete the product listing and create a new one with a new description, but they'd lose all the reviews. Seems like a fair tradeoff. However, all that would cost a little bit of money, and would require staff. Amazon probably made the business decision that they like money, and don't mind the costs of allowing the fraud since it's mostly borne by customers. [1] so the Amazon review for a legitimate product name change can happen while the packaging is being redesigned, and it can all go live in a coordinated fashion
    - ethbro 7y ago
      > All they'd need to do is have some prominent part of the product description (say the product name) be unmodifiable without review and approval by Amazon It's more trivial than that -- the product physical dimensions and weight. Amazon, the store, may have no idea about the description or product specifics. But you think Amazon, the logistics company, doesn't know exactly everything needed for shipping and warehousing an item?
      - mminer237 7y ago
        Sellers have the option to ship things themselves too. They just aren't eligible for Prime shipping.
  - rawrmaan 7y ago
    I think the simpler answer is that data shows that it’s good for Amazon’s sales, so they have no incentive to fix it.
    - SkyPuncher 7y ago
      The "curse" of being data driven without the right data or the broader picture. Netflix seems to be suffering from the same thing. It's hard to capture long-term sentiment towards a product, so short term optimization end up dominating conversations.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    We’re at the point now that eBay is more reliable than Amazon. There are thousands of retailers out there, Amazon seems to be unique in having this problem at scale.
    - zo1 7y ago
      All marketplaces have these problems, I would argue. If they don't, it's probably just because the "scammers" and product "spammers" haven't found it or focused on it yet. As long as you let such individuals into your marketplace without any oversight or data-cleaning requirements, you will have this problem. It's like email and spam all over again.
      - imtringued 7y ago
        >All marketplaces have these problems No this is a problem unique to Amazon because it has both a marketplace filled with third party sellers and an official brand both operating on the same site without highlighting that the marketplace is less trustworthy. If you want to buy an Asus mainboard then you won't be brought to a seller specific page. Instead there is a product specific page that bundles first party and third party sellers onto a single page and both will appear in the search results. The conflict of interest is pretty obvious. Only Amazon sells the "AmazonBasics" brand and by making all non Amazon brands look untrustworthy through third party sellers they steer people toward buying the Amazon products.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I mean - more conventional stores solve this with oversight, but amazon is trying to be amazon scale with zero oversight - can't let those unsustainable profit margins suffer.
  - acheron 7y ago
    > What happens if I change one attribute every week or so until I’ve completely changed the product? "Five stars! Would recommend this ship to Theseus or anyone else."

organsnyder 7y ago

The frustrating thing is that it seems like a trivial problem to solve. Changing too many attributes of a product should either be disallowed, or automatically wipe old reviews.

hk__2 7y ago
> The frustrating thing is that it seems like a trivial problem to solve. Changing too many attributes of a product should either be disallowed, or automatically wipe old reviews. If it hasn’t been solved yet, it’s probably not that trivial. How many is “too many”? What happens if I change one attribute every week or so until I’ve completely changed the product?
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > If it hasn’t been solved yet, it’s probably not that trivial. How many is “too many”? What happens if I change one attribute every week or so until I’ve completely changed the product? The problem seems trivial, especially for a company of Amazon's size. All they'd need to do is have some prominent part of the product description (say the product name) be unmodifiable without review and approval by Amazon, and have reviewers that are trained to spot patterns of fraudulent behavior. Any legitimate issues caused by the review can probably be mitigated by giving sellers the ability to get pending changes pre-approved before they go live [1]. If a seller doesn't want to go through the approval, they can delete the product listing and create a new one with a new description, but they'd lose all the reviews. Seems like a fair tradeoff. However, all that would cost a little bit of money, and would require staff. Amazon probably made the business decision that they like money, and don't mind the costs of allowing the fraud since it's mostly borne by customers. [1] so the Amazon review for a legitimate product name change can happen while the packaging is being redesigned, and it can all go live in a coordinated fashion
  - ethbro 7y ago
    > All they'd need to do is have some prominent part of the product description (say the product name) be unmodifiable without review and approval by Amazon It's more trivial than that -- the product physical dimensions and weight. Amazon, the store, may have no idea about the description or product specifics. But you think Amazon, the logistics company, doesn't know exactly everything needed for shipping and warehousing an item?
    - mminer237 7y ago
      Sellers have the option to ship things themselves too. They just aren't eligible for Prime shipping.
- rawrmaan 7y ago
  I think the simpler answer is that data shows that it’s good for Amazon’s sales, so they have no incentive to fix it.
  - SkyPuncher 7y ago
    The "curse" of being data driven without the right data or the broader picture. Netflix seems to be suffering from the same thing. It's hard to capture long-term sentiment towards a product, so short term optimization end up dominating conversations.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  We’re at the point now that eBay is more reliable than Amazon. There are thousands of retailers out there, Amazon seems to be unique in having this problem at scale.
  - zo1 7y ago
    All marketplaces have these problems, I would argue. If they don't, it's probably just because the "scammers" and product "spammers" haven't found it or focused on it yet. As long as you let such individuals into your marketplace without any oversight or data-cleaning requirements, you will have this problem. It's like email and spam all over again.
    - imtringued 7y ago
      >All marketplaces have these problems No this is a problem unique to Amazon because it has both a marketplace filled with third party sellers and an official brand both operating on the same site without highlighting that the marketplace is less trustworthy. If you want to buy an Asus mainboard then you won't be brought to a seller specific page. Instead there is a product specific page that bundles first party and third party sellers onto a single page and both will appear in the search results. The conflict of interest is pretty obvious. Only Amazon sells the "AmazonBasics" brand and by making all non Amazon brands look untrustworthy through third party sellers they steer people toward buying the Amazon products.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I mean - more conventional stores solve this with oversight, but amazon is trying to be amazon scale with zero oversight - can't let those unsustainable profit margins suffer.
- acheron 7y ago
  > What happens if I change one attribute every week or so until I’ve completely changed the product? "Five stars! Would recommend this ship to Theseus or anyone else."