2 ms·

Amazon reviews are about as trustworthy as the selling points of a slimy salesman. I've bought products with a lot of 5-star ratings which were utter garbage.

Amazon reviews are about as trustworthy as the selling points of a slimy salesman. I've bought products with a lot of 5-star ratings which were utter garbage. Even if you only consider "Verified Purchase" reviews, every one of them requires careful vetting for authenticity. There are companies providing quality fake reviews by native speakers as a service, where care is taken to not be overly optimistic and provide a few negatives to sound more believable. Even negative reviews might be fake, often mentioning a competing product that is supposed to be better. There are plenty of valid reviews out there, but the need to constantly question the authenticity makes them almost worthless to me. I've mostly gone back to buying from medium sized local retailers. They might have a much smaller selection and are a bit more expensive, but make up for it with a decent quality control.

coleca 7y ago
It would be a shame if the reviews went away though. There are tons of garbage reviews out there, but I still find some gems out there. Recently, I was in the market for a paint sprayer and one reviewer wrote this crazy detailed review of the sprayer he purchased, what type of paint he used to paint his cabinets, why this paint worked vs. the other ones he tried, and included numerous pictures of the process and results. It was super helpful not only in making my selection, but ultimately completing my project. I also have found a bunch of instances where people will post tips in the reviews about how to fix or modify a product to make it perform better (or sometimes unfortunately just perform to its advertised specs). In one case I was able to repair my own refrigerator with a part purchased on Amazon and the instructions found in a review. While I'd rather have purchased it locally, that would have meant a service call and spending half the cost of the unit to get it repaired vs. a hundred or so dollars for the new circuit board from Amazon.

coleca 7y ago

It would be a shame if the reviews went away though. There are tons of garbage reviews out there, but I still find some gems out there. Recently, I was in the market for a paint sprayer and one reviewer wrote this crazy detailed review of the sprayer he purchased, what type of paint he used to paint his cabinets, why this paint worked vs. the other ones he tried, and included numerous pictures of the process and results. It was super helpful not only in making my selection, but ultimately completing my project. I also have found a bunch of instances where people will post tips in the reviews about how to fix or modify a product to make it perform better (or sometimes unfortunately just perform to its advertised specs). In one case I was able to repair my own refrigerator with a part purchased on Amazon and the instructions found in a review. While I'd rather have purchased it locally, that would have meant a service call and spending half the cost of the unit to get it repaired vs. a hundred or so dollars for the new circuit board from Amazon.