Many legit sellers – big names in all sectors – use the listings merging feature, from kindle books that are almost unreadable to network equipment that has var

Many legit sellers – big names in all sectors – use the listings merging feature, from kindle books that are almost unreadable to network equipment that has variants with very different qualities. In many cases, Amazon is the seller. As a customer I find it infuriating, and it feels as though it has been made more difficult over time to read the reviews for just the selected product. I suspect that many transactions on Amazon simply would not happen if customers were better informed about what they are buying. I have no doubt that this is true across retailers – just think of all the things that have been hyped and sold that end up in garage sales barely used. It's far more common to see crap with five-star reviews than something great with three- or four-star reviews. The feature kind of makes sense for purely cosmetic changes, like color – but even then it would be useful to have information about the actual variant. I don't think this is some UI problem. I am quite sure it could be solved very quickly by showing reviews for the selected variant first, and then making it clear that other reviews are for other variants. There is a way of somewhat mitigating this merging feature: Don't just look at aggregate review scores. Read the lower-end reviews. If the flaws are petty or expected, then that's great. If your variant is the worst of the bunch, you'll find out. But even with all that, it doesn't sort the takeover problem in the article.