4 ms·

All the books have approximately the same number of reviews. Is Amazon completely uninterested in dealing with fake reviews?

by ccleve 3y ago

mkl95 3y ago
More positive reviews = more sales. They are not just uninterested in dealing with fake reviews, their algorithms reward products with positive reviews regardless of their authenticity. Of course if you report it, they eventually deal with it, as long as it is required by some law.
- rcarr 3y ago
  Only if they’re taking a very short term perspective. If the customer is left feeling like they’re consistently getting scammed, they will stop shopping at Amazon and take their money elsewhere. I highly, highly doubt Amazon is letting these through the net on purpose.
  - armitron 3y ago
    It doesn't seem like they care. For the last coupe of years, their packing of books for mailing has been so bad (end result that the books one received would be severely damaged) that I've stopped buying books from Amazon altogether (I'd already stopped buying anything but books due to bad reviews and scams). Most of my friends/work colleagures have done the same.
  - mkl95 3y ago
    There's a threshold they have to respect to avoid damaging their own reputation. It's exactly the same thing Google do by offering misleading results to increase traffic and engagement. Google are just a bit more elegant about it.
  - foobarian 3y ago
    Amazon has a huge range of products for sale, and it is easy to get a feel for what works better there than not. At the end of the day all the reviews and UI doesn't matter as much as that it can actually ship for free and arrive in 1 or 2 days, and that returns are as easy as giving the item to a clerk at a store (no rewrapping or shipping fees needed). This is their only competitive advantage IMO.
    - janalsncm 3y ago
      Maybe 10 years ago that would be true. Amazon isn’t the only online store with that feature anymore, though. I got a rug from Target in 2 days. Walmart also directly competes. The amount of profit Amazon will make from “Tom Lesley” and the like is negligible compared to the actual long term reputational damage that low quality products do to their brand.
    - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
      What 1 or 2 days? Its more like 3 to 5 days now.
- d23 3y ago
  They seem to go out of their way to not give an avenue of reporting these issues.
  - layer8 3y ago
    They would get DoS’ed by people who don’t like certain authors.
    - counttheforks 3y ago
      Then they should do a better job themselves...
- chmod775 3y ago
  At Amazon's scale, chances are that for any product someone decides against because of reviews, a competing product is going to get bought instead - also on Amazon. What would however be a big problem for Amazon is the marketplace becoming unusable and untrustworthy in the eye of users.
- timwaagh 3y ago
  Not every e-commerce site agrees. I tried to review a book that I wasn't entirely happy with on bol.com recently. They told me I can only write reviews of books that I purchased there (ironically I bought it at a retailer that is part of the same holding). I ended up putting it on Amazon instead.
low_tech_love 3y ago
I wonder if our clicks alone are actually somehow driving his numbers up at Amazon? I surely would hope so. It would be amazing to actually see the reviews of real people who inadvertently bought these books because they showed up as recommended in some independent search.
Turing_Machine 3y ago
These days they seem largely uninterested in even stopping the sale of counterfeit high-dollar physical goods. Seems like "Lesley" should get himself a Midjourney account to go along with thhe ChatGPT account, because his covers kinda suck.

All the books have approximately the same number of reviews. Is Amazon completely uninterested in dealing with fake reviews?

by ccleve 3y ago

All the books have approximately the same number of reviews. Is Amazon completely uninterested in dealing with fake reviews?

mkl95 3y ago

More positive reviews = more sales. They are not just uninterested in dealing with fake reviews, their algorithms reward products with positive reviews regardless of their authenticity. Of course if you report it, they eventually deal with it, as long as it is required by some law.

rcarr 3y ago
Only if they’re taking a very short term perspective. If the customer is left feeling like they’re consistently getting scammed, they will stop shopping at Amazon and take their money elsewhere. I highly, highly doubt Amazon is letting these through the net on purpose.
- armitron 3y ago
  It doesn't seem like they care. For the last coupe of years, their packing of books for mailing has been so bad (end result that the books one received would be severely damaged) that I've stopped buying books from Amazon altogether (I'd already stopped buying anything but books due to bad reviews and scams). Most of my friends/work colleagures have done the same.
- mkl95 3y ago
  There's a threshold they have to respect to avoid damaging their own reputation. It's exactly the same thing Google do by offering misleading results to increase traffic and engagement. Google are just a bit more elegant about it.
- foobarian 3y ago
  Amazon has a huge range of products for sale, and it is easy to get a feel for what works better there than not. At the end of the day all the reviews and UI doesn't matter as much as that it can actually ship for free and arrive in 1 or 2 days, and that returns are as easy as giving the item to a clerk at a store (no rewrapping or shipping fees needed). This is their only competitive advantage IMO.
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    Maybe 10 years ago that would be true. Amazon isn’t the only online store with that feature anymore, though. I got a rug from Target in 2 days. Walmart also directly competes. The amount of profit Amazon will make from “Tom Lesley” and the like is negligible compared to the actual long term reputational damage that low quality products do to their brand.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
    What 1 or 2 days? Its more like 3 to 5 days now.
d23 3y ago
They seem to go out of their way to not give an avenue of reporting these issues.
- layer8 3y ago
  They would get DoS’ed by people who don’t like certain authors.
  - counttheforks 3y ago
    Then they should do a better job themselves...
chmod775 3y ago
At Amazon's scale, chances are that for any product someone decides against because of reviews, a competing product is going to get bought instead - also on Amazon. What would however be a big problem for Amazon is the marketplace becoming unusable and untrustworthy in the eye of users.
timwaagh 3y ago
Not every e-commerce site agrees. I tried to review a book that I wasn't entirely happy with on bol.com recently. They told me I can only write reviews of books that I purchased there (ironically I bought it at a retailer that is part of the same holding). I ended up putting it on Amazon instead.

low_tech_love 3y ago

I wonder if our clicks alone are actually somehow driving his numbers up at Amazon? I surely would hope so. It would be amazing to actually see the reviews of real people who inadvertently bought these books because they showed up as recommended in some independent search.

Turing_Machine 3y ago

These days they seem largely uninterested in even stopping the sale of counterfeit high-dollar physical goods. Seems like "Lesley" should get himself a Midjourney account to go along with thhe ChatGPT account, because his covers kinda suck.