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Amazon has a team of like 50 researchers working on solving this problem.

by internetslave 6y ago

andrei_says_ 6y ago
But whose salaries depend on Amazon selling more stuff.
spoonjim 6y ago
But if their solution results in Amazon making less money, it will never ship.
- asxd 6y ago
  I’d like to believe that they truly see the long term financial value of building more customer trust, but I can see this being a bit of a back burner project due to short term losses
  - nomeddie 6y ago
    They build the customer trust by taking financial hits - if you’ve been a long time prime customer they are good at refunding the purchase when you aren’t happy. It doesn’t protect others from ordering the same bad widget but you are at least satisfied not to make it a bigger issue.
- syrgian 6y ago
  That's not how Amazon works, they take a lot of 'short term losses in exchange for trust' decisions, like warning you if a product has increased in price since you added it to the wish list, possibly triggering additional research of competitors that might have it cheaper.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    > they take a lot of 'short term losses in exchange for trust' decisions I'm sorry, but I don't believe your statement. They're not doing enough about fake reviews, and definitely aren't doing enough about poor quality products, fake products, and poor products squatting over good / brand products. Their marketplace is not curated enough, and buying a product is a gamble. There are a few posts about that; one I remember is that someone bought a book off Amazon, but got a fake / copy / low quality reproduction instead.
m463 6y ago
Why don't they just put a "this review looks fake" button next to the helpful button? Wire it into a neural net, don't make it a way to snipe competitors products. ok, ok... probably not a realistic solution. I've left a few reviews recently and one good thing I have noticed is they seem to be adding some checks (I think they're intentional). Like you review a product and it says "overall rating 1-5" but below it will have subcategories like maybe "true to size 1-5" "value 1-5" or similar (can't recall the real ones). Every once in a while they throw in a curveball like "warmth 1-5" which would make sense for a sweater but is nonsense for something like a plate or ssd. I just press [X] and figure it's a check for a fake reviewer. (either that or a fake reviewer added a nonsense category)
- gwd 6y ago
  Or how about this: 1. Add a way to report solicitations for fake reviews. Ban companies that pay for fake reviews for a year and all their reviews above 3 stars are removed. Customers who report requests for fake reviews are given a small bonus; maybe a $5 credit or something. 2. Amazon themselves pretend to be sellers and solicit fake reviews from customers. If a customer reports the request for a fake review, they're given the same bonus but told that they were part of a sting operation. If the customer gives the fake review, they're banned from Amazon for a year, and all their reviews are removed. Obviously some details need to be worked out: need to make sure the system can't be abused, need to make sure the fake review solicitation doesn't make real sellers look bad. But if done properly, ti should make the whole fake-review solicitation completely impractical.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    The one with the customers won't work because creating a new account is trivial. Actually, I think so is creating a new company to sell stuff on Amazon. Mind you, if your company is kicked off Marketplace, it has to rebuild its reputation and inventory and stuff. But yeah, they should definitely mark companies that pay for reviews as dodgy. I don't think they would ban them - because ANYONE selling stuff on Amazon is earning them money - but they could do more. I don't think the problem hurts Amazon enough though. It's not like people stop using Amazon because of bad reviews. And I'm sure Amazon is undercutting the market so that any competitor with good reviews is unable to compete. Price beats everything, when it comes down to it.
baxtr 6y ago
I can actually confirm, that amazon invest heavily in this. However, they struggle with growing their team and their resources as fast as their (seller) business grows.
- capableweb 6y ago
  Why actually and not just confirm? Also, investing in something internally means absolutely zero as none of those investments seems to have paid off so far, since there has been absolutely nothing deployed or done by Amazon in public to fight the review spam.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  "However, they struggle with growing their team" it means "Amazon considers that unimportant and refuses to pay competitive wages" Amazon had 21$ billion income in 2020, it is not a tiny company struggling for resources. ( per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) )
- fredophile 6y ago
  I've seen other people say the same thing about fraudulent products but amazon hasn't taken the most obvious step, stopping commingling products, there. This makes me believe that they aren't serious about that issue and I don't see why I should believe they're serious about this one either.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
matkoniecz 6y ago
It is clearly insufficient and I do not care why Amazon failed. Amazon had 21$ billion income ( per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) ). 50 people is nothing for them, and it is basically ignoring problem. Also, can you provide evidence that they have any people working on the problem?

Amazon has a team of like 50 researchers working on solving this problem.

andrei_says_ 6y ago

But whose salaries depend on Amazon selling more stuff.

spoonjim 6y ago

But if their solution results in Amazon making less money, it will never ship.

asxd 6y ago
I’d like to believe that they truly see the long term financial value of building more customer trust, but I can see this being a bit of a back burner project due to short term losses
- nomeddie 6y ago
  They build the customer trust by taking financial hits - if you’ve been a long time prime customer they are good at refunding the purchase when you aren’t happy. It doesn’t protect others from ordering the same bad widget but you are at least satisfied not to make it a bigger issue.
syrgian 6y ago
That's not how Amazon works, they take a lot of 'short term losses in exchange for trust' decisions, like warning you if a product has increased in price since you added it to the wish list, possibly triggering additional research of competitors that might have it cheaper.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  > they take a lot of 'short term losses in exchange for trust' decisions I'm sorry, but I don't believe your statement. They're not doing enough about fake reviews, and definitely aren't doing enough about poor quality products, fake products, and poor products squatting over good / brand products. Their marketplace is not curated enough, and buying a product is a gamble. There are a few posts about that; one I remember is that someone bought a book off Amazon, but got a fake / copy / low quality reproduction instead.

m463 6y ago

Why don't they just put a "this review looks fake" button next to the helpful button? Wire it into a neural net, don't make it a way to snipe competitors products. ok, ok... probably not a realistic solution. I've left a few reviews recently and one good thing I have noticed is they seem to be adding some checks (I think they're intentional). Like you review a product and it says "overall rating 1-5" but below it will have subcategories like maybe "true to size 1-5" "value 1-5" or similar (can't recall the real ones). Every once in a while they throw in a curveball like "warmth 1-5" which would make sense for a sweater but is nonsense for something like a plate or ssd. I just press [X] and figure it's a check for a fake reviewer. (either that or a fake reviewer added a nonsense category)

gwd 6y ago
Or how about this: 1. Add a way to report solicitations for fake reviews. Ban companies that pay for fake reviews for a year and all their reviews above 3 stars are removed. Customers who report requests for fake reviews are given a small bonus; maybe a $5 credit or something. 2. Amazon themselves pretend to be sellers and solicit fake reviews from customers. If a customer reports the request for a fake review, they're given the same bonus but told that they were part of a sting operation. If the customer gives the fake review, they're banned from Amazon for a year, and all their reviews are removed. Obviously some details need to be worked out: need to make sure the system can't be abused, need to make sure the fake review solicitation doesn't make real sellers look bad. But if done properly, ti should make the whole fake-review solicitation completely impractical.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  The one with the customers won't work because creating a new account is trivial. Actually, I think so is creating a new company to sell stuff on Amazon. Mind you, if your company is kicked off Marketplace, it has to rebuild its reputation and inventory and stuff. But yeah, they should definitely mark companies that pay for reviews as dodgy. I don't think they would ban them - because ANYONE selling stuff on Amazon is earning them money - but they could do more. I don't think the problem hurts Amazon enough though. It's not like people stop using Amazon because of bad reviews. And I'm sure Amazon is undercutting the market so that any competitor with good reviews is unable to compete. Price beats everything, when it comes down to it.

baxtr 6y ago

I can actually confirm, that amazon invest heavily in this. However, they struggle with growing their team and their resources as fast as their (seller) business grows.

capableweb 6y ago
Why actually and not just confirm? Also, investing in something internally means absolutely zero as none of those investments seems to have paid off so far, since there has been absolutely nothing deployed or done by Amazon in public to fight the review spam.
matkoniecz 6y ago
"However, they struggle with growing their team" it means "Amazon considers that unimportant and refuses to pay competitive wages" Amazon had 21$ billion income in 2020, it is not a tiny company struggling for resources. ( per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) )
fredophile 6y ago
I've seen other people say the same thing about fraudulent products but amazon hasn't taken the most obvious step, stopping commingling products, there. This makes me believe that they aren't serious about that issue and I don't see why I should believe they're serious about this one either.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

matkoniecz 6y ago

It is clearly insufficient and I do not care why Amazon failed. Amazon had 21$ billion income ( per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) ). 50 people is nothing for them, and it is basically ignoring problem. Also, can you provide evidence that they have any people working on the problem?