[HN Gopher] Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Le...
___________________________________________________________________
Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They
Did 5 Years Ago
Author : sharkweek
Score : 179 points
Date : 2021-03-02 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reviews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reviews.com)
| williesleg wrote:
| Nothing is UL listed anymore. AI bots and Chinese and Indian
| cheap labor reviews are everywhere. Same with postings, even to
| hacker news. Hard to know what's human and what's not anymore.
| mchusma wrote:
| This is great news!
| OhSoHumble wrote:
| I recently bought some sheets. Actually sorting through the
| sheets on Amazon was a hassle because 90% of the reviews would be
| obviously fake "best sheets I've ever slept on - 5 stars" and the
| remaining 10% would be 1-3 star reviews that would be photographs
| of poor fabric or tears in the arriving product.
|
| It is almost impossible to buy quality goods online and I'm
| afraid that is just going to get worse.
| 99_00 wrote:
| I'm shifting to brick and mortar or online retailers that I
| feel vet their sellers like Costco.
| my_usernam3 wrote:
| I had the same exact issue. So I went to target and felt the
| material i would be sleeping on and have been super happy ever
| since.
| niklasd wrote:
| What is also strange is when comparing "different" offerings
| they sometime turn out to be exactly the same product, just
| with a slightly different picture/text and a (sometimes
| substantial) price difference.
|
| For products like iPhone cases it feels like there is one
| factory in China which produces a few different models, which
| lead to the 200 offerings you'll see when searching for one at
| Amazon.
| bluGill wrote:
| Making something in a factory is skill and there are scale
| factors. You can buy a lawn mower from dozens of different
| companies, but the vast majority are made in one factory. If
| you want to sell lawnmowers you just need to order some
| quantity (I'm guessing 1000) and they will paint their
| standard mower with your colors and got to word and
| substitute your name in the manual. Easy enough for them to
| do and they don't need to worry about marketing at all.
|
| Nearly all store brands are the same way. A lot of other
| brand name products are also the same. That iPhone case
| factory will probably make any patter you want.
|
| Don't assume though that store bands are the same quality.
| There are some choices. They can use thicker metal in lawn
| mowers for quality. They can use source plastics of different
| qualities for the iphone cases. However the price isn't that
| much different and so sometimes the expensive products are
| the lowest quality.
| jxramos wrote:
| this, it's product representation dilution. When things go
| sour a new listing is made with a different name, edited
| photos, and same product. Amazon is so polluted with noise
| like this we've started to shift our business elsewhere.
| akvadrako wrote:
| It's not impossible to buy quality goods online, but it is on
| Amazon.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Is this an appropriate thread to trash talk the garbage up / down
| vote system that is hacker news karma?
| vpmpaul wrote:
| In other news 60% of people don't pay attention to anything other
| than what is parroted to them by other "people"
| gallamine wrote:
| A fun anecdote from my wife: 6 years ago she reviewed a nursing
| bra on Amazon. Gave it five stars. Fast forward to now and she
| when pulls up her review history that same review (with the exact
| text!) now appears on a consumer electronics device.
| milesvp wrote:
| Yup, it's a very common way to get a product with high sales
| and ratings. You put up a low cost, high volume, high quality
| item. Sell it cheap, then after you have enough 5 star reviews,
| swap all the pictures and text with a new higher margin (maybe
| lower quality item), completely unrelated item.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Would love to see a 'social score' come back a-la Klout, but not
| Klout.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klout
|
| Instead of measuring how powerful or influential you are - it
| could instead be used to prove your honesty, trustworthiness,
| identity in some kind of anonymous way, etc...
| paxys wrote:
| Variants of this have existed forever. Here's what will happen
| - I spend years writing great reviews and building up a good
| score. People trust me, I become famous in the community.
| Brands start to vie for my attention. A shitty company comes
| along and offers me $1 million in exchange for a good review.
| What incentive do I have to turn it down?
| umvi wrote:
| I use niche (<2M subs) YouTube channels like ProjectFarm[0] to
| decide between products these days. Huge YouTube channels are no
| longer trustworthy as I've noticed they will shill for whatever
| "opportunity" comes knocking (MatPat recently did an interview
| with Dr. Fauci[1] on his The Game Theorists channel, and while I
| didn't disagree with the content of the video, it raised some red
| flags in my mind because it was obviously content that didn't fit
| into the channel...)
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2rzsm1Qi6N1X-wuOg_p0Ng
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLIkZRmqgjI
| jxramos wrote:
| +1 for project farm, I've found his recommendations and putting
| things to the test to be very accurate. Been pleased with the
| buys I made off his recommendations.
|
| Will Prowse is a real gem too
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoj6RxIAQq8kmJme-5dnN0Q
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I invite people to checkout BestBuy's online shop. Just about
| every single item has a rating from 4.0 to 4.8 out of 5. I have
| yet to see a single listing under 4 stars. There are of course,
| unrated items, but can you honestly believe that virutally every
| product they carry is nearly perfect? Who actually writes a 5
| star review for a no-name brand of tape and cable ties?
|
| When everything is perfect, nothing is, and I don't trust
| BestBuy's review system at all. I can't help but think there is
| some kind of false advertising law against fake reviews that
| they're breaking.
| rhino369 wrote:
| This is a problem with nearly every online rating place. 4.0
| means TOTAL GARBAGE and 5.0 means it didn't burn by house down.
| Totally useless.
| troydavis wrote:
| This is so common that I considered creating a browser
| extension to convert/normalize the the min and max values on
| a page into a 5-star rating. When the lowest rating of items
| on the page is 4.2, 4.2 would displayed as 1.
| vpmpaul wrote:
| That is actually a really cool idea. Probably a lot more
| work than it sounds like.
| briffle wrote:
| I gave an honest review of some $30 bluetooth headphones. I
| gave it a 3 star, and listed my complaints. The company
| reached out to me, offered to send me 2 more, for free, of
| their newer and better model, if I just adjusted my review to
| all stars. That was when I stopped believing them.
| vel0city wrote:
| Lots of products have <4 stars on Best Buy's website. If you're
| not seeing products with < 4 stars, you're just looking at
| their featured items.
|
| I also agree its hard to trust online reviews, but we don't
| need to throw out falsehoods about how every product is 4+
| stars.
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/ge-7-8-cu-ft-10-cycle-electric-...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/whirlpool-7-4-cu-ft-36-cycle-el...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/combo/washer-dryer-bundles/d40c...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hisense-32-class-h55-series-led...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/furrion-49-class-led-outdoor-fu...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/jam-been-there-wireless-on-ear-...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/tcl-mtro-series-mtro200btbl-wir...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sennheiser-ie-80-s-bt-wireless-...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/supersonic-7-tablet-8gb-black/6...
|
| https://www.bestbuy.com/site/azpen-10-touch-screen-tablet-an...
|
| To be honest though, if you were a retailer trying to push the
| idea that almost any product you sell if cool tech, wouldn't
| you probably remove most SKUs that are genuinely 2-star
| products?
| jwagenet wrote:
| I think the reality is not just that Best Buy is (maybe)
| creating fake reviews or removing bad ones, but that most
| reviewers only rate with 1 star or 5 stars. The majority of
| reviews I find are in one of those two buckets, and only a
| handful of nuanced reviews fall in 2-4, effectively making the
| rating of a non controversial product that does what it's
| supposed to - but has lemons - from 4 (meh) to 5 (works as
| expected).
| bombcar wrote:
| This is why I would support a law that says if you're selling
| a product and have reviews you must also report how many
| you've sold over the last year, and how many returns (or
| maybe a percentage or something).
|
| That would be a much more useful metric.
| jfim wrote:
| It would be gamed anyway, you'd just get sellers saying
| "we'll give you twenty dollars for not returning the item."
| boatsie wrote:
| Almost all online stores seem to be like this. Why would Dell
| or Lenovo show you products that had anything less than 3.5
| stars? There's a huge conflict of interest in showing reviews
| of their own products. BestBuy has to sell the inventory they
| carry, so sure, they will tell you everything is 4-5 stars.
| Amazon is actually slightly better because they profit no
| matter which headphones you buy, but then it's the sellers that
| are gaming the system. In theory it should be easier to detect.
| undefined1 wrote:
| and Doordash. how is everything >4? are we really to believe
| that McDonalds has a rating of 4.6 out of 5?
|
| it makes the system completely useless.
| ssharp wrote:
| If you order McDonalds, you probably know what McDonalds
| should taste like. If it meets 100% of your expectations, why
| would you rate it lower?
|
| Similarly, if I get a meal from Michelin Star rated
| restaurant and it fails to meet my high expectations, should
| it get a better rating than McDonald's just because the
| restaurants meal was still likely much better than McDonald's
| even if it failed to meet expectations?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| In practical terms it dilutes the value of 4 and 5 star
| reviews for other restaurants. There's some cognitive
| dissonance involved when McDonald's gets a 4.6/5 and a mom
| and pop haute-cuisine restaurant gets a 4.6/5 as well.
| These are two very different dining experiences but they
| are being judged using the same system and feels
| inaccurate.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| For what McDonalds is they probably deliver a 5 star
| review the way their customers see it. You probably have
| to divide restaurants into different categories and
| compare within them. I beat a lot of people will rate
| MCDonalds higher than haute cuisine restaurants even in
| direct comparison. There is no absolute rating for
| restaurants.
| neltnerb wrote:
| If in direct comparison they rate McDonald's higher, then
| that's fine... McDonald's is a huge business, they
| obviously have people who like them.
|
| But it should be a direct comparison, I certainly think
| KFC is far superior to most haute cuisine fried chicken.
| neltnerb wrote:
| From a utility standpoint, I mean, yeah. You should
| definitely rate McDonalds lower than a restaurant with food
| you liked better, if people want to search for "how was the
| food" divided by "cost of the food" that's obviously a
| sliding scale that depends on the person. Maybe it should
| be something you can sort by, but I don't see how you could
| possibly reconcile ratings from different people if they
| _all_ give five stars for any restaurant that meets their
| expectations.
| conception wrote:
| This I think stems from a different issue. Doordash has a
| very easy, one second review they ask from everyone. And I
| think 99.999% of folks think "oh yeah that was fine, 4 stars"
| or "it was pretty good, five stars." Do people get what they
| expected from that McDonald's? Was it cheap, fast and
| nostalgic? 5 stars.
|
| The people doing these reviews are not good critics, or
| critical with any sort of depth.
|
| They are the sort of folks that get doordash to bring them
| McDonald's.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| This reminds of me leaving reviews on Uber or Lyft. A
| perfectly fine ride is a 5/5 because anything less than
| that hurts the driver. In reality I just need a binary
| "Satisfactory? Y/N" and then maybe an optional extended
| rating for leaving feedback if anything was out of the
| ordinary, good or bad.
| undefined1 wrote:
| good points. maybe that makes all the difference between
| Doordash compared to Google/Yelp, where McDonalds is more
| along the lines of 1 or 2 out of 5.
|
| it means Doordash ratings are useless for discovery, but if
| you already know the restaurant, it might have utility in
| terms of delivery.
| egypturnash wrote:
| There is also unevenly distributed cultural knowledge:
| anything less than five stars starts causing hassle for the
| driver. I hate this inflation but I also wanna make sure
| the person who gave me competent service that I would
| _realistically_ mark as three stars - not bad, not great,
| job done exactly as specified and I 'm perfectly happy with
| that - is going to get five.
|
| (hassle varies: offered fewer/worse-paying jobs is a good
| start)
| neltnerb wrote:
| When I moved to California for a while I once made the
| mistake of describing my food at a restaurant with "fine,
| thanks" when the server asked how it was.
|
| Apparently this translates very differently in the
| culture of the Bay Area where it means something like "I
| am very upset" whereas in Boston I think this roughly
| would be read as "I am satisfied, but don't really feel
| like chatting."
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Randomly reminded me of George Carlin's bit on that.
|
| _It's like "fine." Another weak word.
|
| "How are you?"
|
| "Fine."
|
| Bullshit! Nobody's fine. Hair is fine.
|
| "How's your hair?"
|
| "Fine."
|
| That makes a lot more sense to me._
| fuzxi wrote:
| "Good" is a California "fine", and "fine" is a California
| "pox be upon you".
| bluGill wrote:
| I've given up on leaving reviews. For 3 stars to be
| average, you need to actually give average reviews to
| some things, thus I rate almost everything as 3 stars
| which results in the "what went wrong", "Nothing, you
| were average, just like everyone else". I got sick of
| that exchange and gave up. Doing better than average is
| almost impossible in my book because almost everyone is
| doing their best. Sometimes someone will mess up and get
| a 1, but not often, and not bad enough that they make
| enough of a difference as to raise everyone else to 5.
|
| Also, I just don't buy enough of most things to honestly
| know. Is Brand X thing better than Brand Y - how should I
| know? I don't have the time to spend a week trying each
| item to give a fair review. I happened to choose Brand X,
| and it is fine but it might really be far worse than
| Brand Y if only I had tried the other in stead.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| They can both be 5/5 in terms of delivering the product you
| expect them to deliver.
| notahacker wrote:
| Isn't this just the logical consequence of the "less than 5
| stars means you want them _punished_ " mentality popularised
| by Uber?
| walshemj wrote:
| And I suspect the use of grades in US Highschools where
| anything that isnt an A is considered a failure is an
| element why every ones gives a 4 or 5
| ghaff wrote:
| It was popularized at least as far back as eBay (albeit as
| a positive/neutral/negative scale). "Seller shipped me an
| empty box but at least there wasn't dynamite in it.
| A+++++++ seller."
|
| I do think restaurant and product ratings are a bit
| different. With Uber, eBay, etc., a lot of people recognize
| that any less than perfect rating can lead to a personal
| impact on someone even if a small number of people leave a
| negative.
|
| That said, many will leave good marks on satisfaction
| surveys because a middling mark may lead to someone
| reaching out to find out what the problem was and that can
| just be more hassle than it's worth.
| notahacker wrote:
| Arguably the punishment side existed before the web then
| in US tipping etiquette.
|
| But at least the eBay 'approve' asks you whether the
| vendor was adequate or not, not to give them the maximum
| on an entirely artificial multiplier scale unless you
| think they should face consequences.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Arguably the punishment side existed before the web then
| in US tipping etiquette.
|
| True. In general, even if service is bad for whatever
| reason, most people would say you should leave a tip even
| if a less generous one than you normally would.
|
| I haven't left a rating on eBay for a long time and don't
| use it much. But for many situations there's something to
| be said for thumbs up/down or an up/neutral/down rating
| when you're not really trying to fine tune.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > are we really to believe that McDonalds has a rating of 4.6
| out of 5?
|
| Why shouldn't it? You know what you are getting with
| McDonalds. For the price point they sell at, it is pretty
| good food. They are consistent. And they do a really good job
| with food safety, probably better than a lot of more highly
| rated restaurants (when was the last time you heard about an
| outbreak of a food borne illness at McDonalds)?
| ghaff wrote:
| I very rarely eat at McDonalds because I don't like them
| for the most part. But, if I did, and I was promptly served
| what I ordered, why would I ding them because their burger
| isn't up to the standards of the (costlier) burger joint
| down the street or even Shake Shack.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Even if you didn't feel the reviews were gamed--why would
| BestBuy leave bad reviews on its site--it would basically be
| admitting they sell bad products. Ideally maybe they are
| removing products that get continuous bad reviews before you
| see them, but generally reviews can't come from the same place
| you buy items and be trustworthy.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| > why would BestBuy leave bad reviews on its site
|
| Because any website that doesn't do this I immediately assume
| is untrustworthy and I will choose to buy nothing from them
| at all.
| [deleted]
| neltnerb wrote:
| How would someone know this when visiting them for an
| occasional purchase? You might easily assume that the lower
| rated items rapidly stop being carried, that the items that
| are carried are curated to have a real bias towards higher
| ratings, or merely that the lower rated items are on a
| different page of results.
|
| Which isn't to say I trust Best Buy's customer reviews, I
| definitely don't. I probably trust Amazon's more simply by
| sheer quantity combined with fakespot.com to sanity check
| the reviews.
|
| But I don't think a website having weird average scores is
| very suspicious, especially when they have small numbers of
| reviews. If many items are totally unreviewed and others
| have only a few dozen reviews, the results are essentially
| noise right? That's why I would trust Best Buy reviews
| less.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I can understand if a company uses truly bad reviews as an
| indicator that they should stop carrying the product. That
| makes sense, and you'd have survivorship bias from that.
| However, the problem I see with BestBuy's approach is that
| even average reviews are being diluted by a deluge of 5 star
| reviews. _Decent_ products should be getting 3 out of 5 stars
| and only the truly exceptional ones should be getting the
| perfect 5 /5.
|
| I sense the problem is partly due to the shortcomings of the
| X/5 rating system.
| dawnerd wrote:
| To answer your question about tape and cable ties, BestBuy will
| offer rewards points for writing reviews and sometimes offers
| bonus points for certain products.
|
| Im sure they're also doing some review cleaning like Amazon
| does where if the review is negative they will moderate it more
| aggressively. After all, badly rated products hurt the entire
| storefront so it is in their best interest to keep "bad"
| products off.
|
| But that said I still will trust BestBuy over Amazon. I know
| items from BestBuy are not being co-mingled with potential
| knockoffs and returns are pretty easy for items that are
| terrible.
| [deleted]
| marcosdumay wrote:
| In theory, they could actively remove bad items from the
| catalog, thus not having any lower than 4.0.
|
| Yeah, I'm aware that is not what is happening there, but you
| seeing no item lower than 4.0 is not a certain and general sign
| of fraud.
| akramer wrote:
| I spend entirely too much money at Best Buy, and I've only
| written 5 star reviews for products I like. The bad products
| get immediately returned for a full refund - one of the
| advantages of buying from a big brick and mortar store. I never
| think about products I returned, I would prefer not to unless
| I'm given some incentive to write a bad review. Now, if I were
| stuck with the item, I'd probably trash it online in their
| review section.
| vel0city wrote:
| Same kind of experience here. On top of that, I'm usually a
| pretty picky purchaser who does a decent bit of market
| research ahead of time. So I'm probably more likely to only
| buy that good electronic item from a shop like Best Buy that
| I've got a high likelihood of giving a 4-5 star review.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I guess a useful metric would be if they posted return rates,
| warranty cases and so on.
| aSockPuppeteer wrote:
| This is one of the bonuses of a brick and mortar store if
| you can get a commissioned associate to tell you.
|
| Ex: I'm not going to say phonefriend makes a bad phone but
| they have the highest return rate and people will buy a
| much more expensive Panasonic when they leave for a second
| time.
| dhdhhdd wrote:
| Maybe there should be a "return rate"% per product? :-)
| kardos wrote:
| That would give competitors an incentive to buy&return said
| product to drive up the return rate
| kull wrote:
| Reviews and rankings are broken across the industries. For
| products I usually start my journey at NYT Wirecutter
| https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/.
|
| I was also recently looking for a place at Apartments.com, as I
| learned all places get 5 star ranking to start, and it's of
| course not clear at all in the UX. I think at the moment google
| maps does pretty good job with rankings.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I'm finding Wirecutter to be less-than-useful, though. There's
| the question marks around their funding model, but the deeper
| problem is their "the best X" format. It requires setting up a
| very specific rubric that tends to favor Cadillac models, and
| leaves you with very little information to go on if you don't
| have Cadillac needs.
|
| Concrete example: I recently bought a new office chair. My
| shopping process involved a lot of reading reviews and a lot of
| sitting in actual chairs. The chair I ended up with, an Ikea
| Langfjall, wasn't even considered by Wirecutter because it
| lacks a lot of adjustability features. But there are a lot of
| truly independent reviews (by which I mean, people talking on
| Web forums or mentioning the chair they use on their personal
| blogs) with the general consensus being, "This chair is
| fantastic if it fits your body and you don't need/want all the
| bells and whistles." A couple people even said they happily
| switched to it _from_ an Aeron chair or similar. Which
| describes me well enough, insofar as my office was supplying me
| with Herman Miller love up until the pandemic hit.
|
| So, all in all, I'm loving this chair. But, if I were
| constrained to the Wirecutter "The best X" format, I wouldn't
| include it, either, because its lack of adjustability means it
| just won't be suitable for lots and lots and lots of people.
| TRcontrarian wrote:
| The funding model is extremely sus. I used to trust them but
| your criticisms are right on, and their 'the best x' lists
| have a curious tendency to prioritize brands that already
| have high ad spend, rather than surface little known indie
| choices.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| The possible saving grace of their funding model is that,
| even if the manufacturer itself doesn't have an affiliate
| program, they can probably still get some sort of affiliate
| link through Amazon or Wal-Mart.
|
| That said, there's just no amount of "not actually sketchy"
| that will prevent this sort of revenue model from seeming
| sketchy. Hard not to wonder if there are small Internet-
| only companies that only sell direct-to-consumer who are
| being shut out of independent reviews, or are feeling
| pressure to give them a cut in order to avoid being cut
| out.
| JoshTko wrote:
| I trust them a bit less these days. Seems that at least some of
| their products are pay to play.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25993512
| ajdude wrote:
| I recently canceled my Amazon prime subscription after having it
| for almost a decade. The final straw was Amazon removing the
| ability to comment on reviews. First, they remove the ability to
| see the comments using the mobile site, then they remove them all
| together saying that not as many people were utilizing it.
| Unfortunately, those comments were a good litmus test to the
| authenticity of a review - positive or negative - and gave
| insight to the responsiveness of the seller. Some comments on
| reviews even had instructions on how to solve the reviewer's
| problem from experts in the field, it's all lost now.
| choward wrote:
| I agree completely. Now the only way to "reply" to a review is
| to leave another review which adds something that shouldn't be
| a review to the reviews making reviews even more worthless.
| ericol wrote:
| For me, the biggest issue I have is book ratings on Amazon.
|
| Besides companies - and small time authors - paying for good
| ratings, you have a similar amount of people that genuinely
| bought the book, giving 1 start ratings because of whatever
| quality of the book manufacture, be it physical or digital.
|
| One of these two alone would not be difficult to manage, but
| having to deal the two makes it almost unbearable to find out the
| proper rating. We should start giving ratings ratings.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Companies undermining consumer reviews undermines the
| justification for consumer capitalism. The idea is supposed to be
| that a merchant sells a product that solves some problem real or
| imagined at a given quality level. The consumer is supposed to be
| able to make a fair evaluation of the quality and fitness of the
| product and compare it with their budget and the item's price and
| make a decision.
|
| If companies systematically and intentionally destroy the
| consumer's ability to do this, then why should their state
| charters even be valid?
| cronix wrote:
| I wonder what the % would be if they asked a more general
| question about just "information they read online." I'd bet it's
| in the same ballpark. How many major news stories did you read in
| the last several years that made large sensational claims, which
| later turned out to be completely false?
| jdlyga wrote:
| An absolute ton of Amazon sellers give you gift cards for
| positive reviews.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| You can't even search for information about products anymore. All
| that shows up is affiliate spam pages that read like they were
| generated from a ML algorithm.
| ChrisLTD wrote:
| This is what's going to kill the search engine ad market if the
| algorithm designers aren't careful.
| umvi wrote:
| It's infuriating. I've noticed the auto-generated pages
| especially when searching using patterns of the form "X vs. Y".
| Half the links will just be auto-generated pages that show the
| specs side by side along with some ML-tinged paragraphs above
| to make it seem like the article was written by a human. (but
| after reading a few sentences it obviously wasn't)
| geocrasher wrote:
| I don't understand the need to mistrust online reviews. They are
| all 100% accurate and only published by people who are completely
| authoritative in their segment. I find online reviews to be
| objective and informed, while providing deep insight into the
| inner workings of that which is being reviewed. They always
| express an unbiased approach, and in my expert opinion, everyone
| should trust online reviews. A++++++ would do business again. You
| can trust me on this!
|
| Yours Truly,
|
| Prince Alyusi Islassis
|
| Nigerian National Petroleum Company
| nixarian wrote:
| Honestly can you even trust something like an HN comment? How
| many times do you see someone spouting corporate-favored opinions
| as if they were truth? Sure, they could just be delusional
| libertarians, but there are times when it stretches credulity.
| mistyvales wrote:
| I stopped caring about user "reviews" years ago. A good chunk of
| them are paid and another good chunk are absurdly
| emotional/hyperbolic, most of which the buyers don't even know
| what the use case of a product is. Most people, especially on
| Amazon, buy a product without even looking at every detail about
| it.
|
| I partially blame Amazon's product UI which is generally
| terrible, but also people that don't do any research on a product
| they buy.
| roboman wrote:
| I use the FakeSpot extension for the Brave browser. Works with
| any Chrome based browser.
|
| Uses AI to analyze reviews as well as the reviewers other
| reviews. Then it gives a letter grade from A to F that rates the
| trustworthiness of the reviews.
|
| Maybe not perfect but very cool!
| JoshTko wrote:
| Just had an Amazon vendor offer me the full value of my purchase
| (in Amazon gift cards) to change my review from 3 stars to four.
| On one hand, it's great customer service, but on the other the
| product is still really a three star product.
| rsync wrote:
| Well, did you ?
| SeanFerree wrote:
| I'm the same. I've slowly looked at reviews as something that can
| be manipulated, so it's hard to trust
| argiope wrote:
| In Germany there's Stiftung Warentest [1] which offers reviews
| without the apparent conflict of interest. They release paid
| articles with review and comparison all kinds of items. I find
| their offering a breeze of fresh air compared to the dumpster
| fire that online reviews have become.
|
| [1] https://www.test.de/unternehmen/ (German)
| insickness wrote:
| Who pays for the articles and who writes them? Is this like
| Consumer Reports?
| Tenoke wrote:
| Can't you literally request for any negative review to be
| removed in Germany as it 'hurts your business' by law? I live
| here and that's the explanation I've been given when negative
| reviews disappear .
| argiope wrote:
| As far as I know, businesses have no right in Germany to
| remove lawful reviews, even if they are negative [1] and I
| can confirm to see occasional bad reviews on their articles.
| In any case I'm rather interested in finding trustful
| positive reviews to guide my purchases and I value having a
| neutral agency that offers that.
|
| [1] https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/negative-bewertungen-
| im-in... (German)
| meddlepal wrote:
| I basically always go to Reddit now for reviews... even if
| companies are astroturfing their as well, there's usually more
| honesty in the reviews than whatever is on the vendor's site.
| spoonjim wrote:
| If you are going to Reddit then they are going to Reddit.
| esturk wrote:
| If they're going to Reddit, they'll have to put in a lot more
| effort than just using bots to post fake reviews.
|
| For some subreddits like r/BuyItForLife, it's not about the
| number of upvotes. Some people just gravitates toward old
| fashion goods.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Yes but one Reddit comment has a lot more weight right now
| because of the ease of astroturfing, so it doesn't need to
| be a Bot. Someone posts a Swiss Army knife and someone else
| might say, "I love my Swiss Army Knife that my grandfather
| left me. Oddly enough my aunt thought it was lost and
| bought me a knockoff from Amazon and it actually works
| better than my grandfather's knife."
|
| Then someone replies saying "what was the brand?"
|
| Then the person replies with a picture of the knife with
| the lettering in tatters saying "QUINIPO" or one of those
| Chinese brand names.
|
| Boom
| abecedarius wrote:
| Somehow this problem will be solved -- not perfectly, but like
| how spam went from a serious problem to an annoyance. The
| question is, how? What's the solution going to look like? You'd
| think Amazon would've focused more on it by now.
| makecheck wrote:
| I mean, when articles point out clear scams with _thousands_ of
| 5-star reviews, how can a lowly honest person compete?
|
| Similarly, what can you possibly do if someone with deep pockets
| decides to trash your competing product's reviews?
|
| Also, in my experience at least, the overwhelming majority of
| real customers do not submit reviews _at all_. Thus I am
| skeptical of any product that has miraculously convinced
| thousands of people to contribute positive feedback.
|
| At this point, every single review system acts more like a tool
| to _help_ scam people, instead of helping them to avoid bad
| products. It pushes bad products to the top of search, whereas
| unrated products would be forced to scam a handful of people in
| obscurity.
|
| And the worst part is that I _still_ think twice about any low
| review, even _knowing_ that in all likelihood the reviews I am
| reading may not even be real! It really messes with your head.
| djoldman wrote:
| Amazon/walmart/google throwaway account people: whats the holdup
| on fixing fake/fraudulent/spam reviews? Is it a tech problem or
| do people not care to fix it (perceived small benefit to cost)?
|
| If it's a tech problem, I'd be curious to know the details. Is it
| more interesting than "too big of a firehose"?
| yblu wrote:
| Dealing with fake/fraudulent reviews is hard enough, this is
| probably harder: manufacturers incentivizes real customers to
| write good reviews & remove bad reviews. I recently bought a
| few highly-rated gadgets from Amazon. One of them came with a
| leaflet saying they would send $50 gift card (the product costs
| $200) if I review and send them the screenshot. For another
| product, after I posted a 3-star review, which was not at all
| negative, I've been receiving a dozen or so emails from
| different addresses with varying subjects/contents but all
| asking me to remove that review in exchange for a gift card. I
| could only imagine how much harder they would go after the
| 1-star reviews...
| spectramax wrote:
| Checkout Tabelog, a Japanese version of Yelp. Anything over 3.5
| is phenomenal. 4.0+? Rare. 4.5 is probably the best sushi place
| in all of Tokyo. Anything over 2.0 is great. 1.5 is manageable
| and 1 or below is bad.
|
| We in the west just love so much excess. Everything is amazing or
| everything just sucks. Bimodal distribution and extreme greed.
| Most things in nature, society, etc are normally distributed and
| our review system and the people are broken from the most
| fundamental ways.
|
| Something to learn about this from Japan.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| So, at what point does this become a problem for Amazon (for
| example)? They _seem_ to not care.
| paxys wrote:
| Amazon realized long ago that selling cheap Chinese-made
| products (whether real or fake) isn't the future of the
| company. Something is only a real problem if it affects their
| first-party products and services ecosystem (Echo, Alexa, Fire,
| Kindle, Audible, Ring, Prime, Video, Whole Foods, Fresh).
| kansface wrote:
| Does Walmart care about low quality products? Or alternatively,
| what would an online marketplace that avoids fraud,
| intentionally low quality reproductions, or just low quality
| products in general look like?
|
| We'd really like to align the incentives of the reviewers with
| potential buyers. One way to achieve that would be to pay
| reviewers as judged by the people who buy the product from the
| service. There are a few problems here, like there not being
| much incentive to review low volume products, or manufacturers
| introducing 10k variations that differ by a single letter in a
| GUID (monitors/tvs), or a change in the quality of the product
| itself. These sound tractableish.
|
| Outstanding questions: does the math add up such that the
| incentive of maintaining a high quality platform is larger than
| the incentive for manufacturers to defect (signal high quality
| and cheat). Can we pass on that win to reviewers?
|
| Other thoughts: we can't punish manufacturers for cheating
| because its too easy for their competitors to abuse.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| I've stopped using amazon for anything unless either I already
| know exactly what it will be or if its throwaway and I dont
| care.
|
| Even books now are often something that looks like it was
| printed on photocopy paper from a word processor.
|
| I think amazon is converging to its niche (maybe not a niche if
| there is ~a trillion in annual revenue at stake) as a Walmart
| replacement. For instances where quality matters, I think they
| are already off the table for many people.
| walshemj wrote:
| Or check out amazon first and go direct to alternate sites in
| the UK there are sites like Book Depository for books or
| Weyland Games for 40K gear 4 music for sound cards etc.
| fullshark wrote:
| When they stop growing and decide fixing it is the way to win
| market share against Costco etc / Direct to Consumer
| purchasing.
| dragontamer wrote:
| AmazonBasics seems like a way to build brand-name recognition
| in the face of untrusted online reviews.
|
| Clearly Amazon cares. Not enough to fix the problem, but enough
| to build a new brand of white-label goods. If anything,
| untrusted reviews is to the benefit of the AmazonBasics brand.
|
| --------
|
| Amazon Reviews are a benefit to the 3rd party marketplace, more
| so than anything else. Buying non-branded goods from unknown
| (or nearly unknown) brands. I'm not entirely sure to see how,
| or why, untrusted Amazon reviews is Amazons' problem.
| Finnucane wrote:
| I haven't ordered anything from Amazon in over a year, for
| various reasons, but the general untrustworthiness is a factor.
| On the other hand, while the problem is particularly bad for
| Amazon, it isn't exclusive to them. It has generally become
| difficult to find reliable information about products. So I
| tend to stick with stuff I know, and buy direct as much as
| possible.
| TinyRick wrote:
| When it affects their bottom line. Consumers largely _seem_ to
| not care either, and continue buying from Amazon.
| paxys wrote:
| I recently ordered delivery from a highly-rated restaurant on
| Yelp. In the bag was a $10 off coupon for the next order if I
| left a 5-star review and sent them a screenshot. I reported it to
| Yelp, but to my knowledge nothing has changed. This is the state
| of online ratings and reviews today.
| bsd44 wrote:
| Nowadays I look for reviews on Reddit. If I can't find any that I
| consider to be legitimate, I won't buy the product if it's more
| than PS10.
| TRcontrarian wrote:
| I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before that becomes an
| astroturfing target as well. At least there's account history
| associated with it, so there is some effort associated with
| creating or purchasing accounts with believable histories. Long
| term I think facebook wins this space because they have the
| most in depth real digital identities tied to people.
| quxbar wrote:
| The other 60% are simply not paying attention.
| usrusr wrote:
| The other 60% claim that they were already at zero trust in
| 2016. I think that they are exaggerating their distrust and I
| reject the idea that there could be a third option.
| coding123 wrote:
| Maybe re-phrase the question - I ONLY trust negative reviews now.
| The key is to see how many people have negative reviews and then
| scan them.
|
| Let's say I am interested in a BBQ Grill.
|
| 10 reviews about an open box/returned box? I'll probably go to a
| local CampingWorld and pick it up instead of Amazon and pay the
| extra $50.
|
| 4 people say the grill grate is bent but there are 1200 other
| reviews that don't seem to have a problem? Low chance I'm going
| to get the bent grill grate.
|
| Things like that.
| kardos wrote:
| > I ONLY trust negative reviews now.
|
| That won't last long, negative reviews will get flooded by
| glowing reviews with trivial complaints. "This thing is perfect
| except I don't like green so 1/5"
| m463 wrote:
| are you saying 1-star reviews? Because they are sometimes
| bonkers reviews from some non-critical-thinking folks.
|
| I would say 3-star reviews are more likely to provide useful
| information.
| dragontamer wrote:
| What if those 1200 other reviews were bought from a Facebook
| review farm?
|
| https://www.amzfinder.com/blog/top-100-facebook-groups-list-...
|
| There are a ton of Facebook groups out there whose sole purpose
| is to shove $$$ into paid reviews on Amazon (or Yelp, or other
| review sites). Could be a bunch of college kids looking to make
| a quick buck, or maybe some broken-English dude from some 3rd
| world country who actually made it their full time job. I don't
| know, but that's not the point.
|
| The point is: you can literally buy Amazon reviews (or Yelp
| reviews, or ... any kind of review really) from Facebook
| groups, if you know where to look.
| bombcar wrote:
| What I look for is bad reviews that indicate to me the
| problem is PEBKAC - nobody is buying bad reviews, but if the
| only real complaint is that when someone dropped it on their
| toes it hurt, then it's probably OK.
|
| But more and more I lean toward "if I have to get it from
| Amazon it needs to be something I'd be happy with being
| crap".
| dragontamer wrote:
| > nobody is buying bad reviews
|
| https://usasocialmediaservices.com/services/buy-negative-
| fac...
|
| Going price of negative reviews (that lean positive to sell
| the product) is $10 for 5 reviews.
|
| A mix of good, medium, and bad reviews "naturally" sells a
| product. You can literally buy astroturfing for your
| products these days on the cheap.
| bombcar wrote:
| Ah snap they're on to me. :(
| dragontamer wrote:
| There's also "rival company" reviews. I've heard from
| some business friends in the Hotel business that rival
| Hotels are probably leaving bad reviews on Yelp. And
| there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.
|
| You look at a review, you back-check the date and try to
| line it up with customer records. You look for
| complaints, you ask staff if they remember the customer.
| Etc. etc. Ultimately, its a phantom, clearly a made-up
| review designed to hurt your company for some reason.
|
| That's more of a thing on Yelp where if you bad-mouth a
| neighbor with a fake-review, your own business across the
| street benefits. Less of a thing on Amazon (where a fake
| negative review won't necessarily lead to customers
| buying your thing).
|
| ----------
|
| Back 20 or 30 years ago, a fake negative review on a
| newspaper or an advertisement would lead to suing the
| perpetrator for slander or libel. Today, there's no
| recourse at all. And more-and-more people are learning
| about the marvels of the modern internet age where you
| can pretty much slander your opponents and benefit from
| customers as a result.
| fmajid wrote:
| And even more devious, companies paying people to leave
| obviously fake _positive_ reviews for competitors so they
| get afoul of what little review verification Amazon does,
| and banned:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-
| marketpl...
| Fomite wrote:
| This. I look for genuine problems. Works with hotels too -
| are the negative reviews unreasonable ("Dude, I think
| you're the problem, not the hotel...") or things that I can
| see someone like me being upset about occurring ("They say
| construction is done on the new wing, it's not done and
| they start at 8 AM...")
| 99_00 wrote:
| Every product I order from Amazon from a Chinese brand has an
| offer for a free 'gift' for leaving a good review.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Just curious. Like what kinds of products?
|
| I hear this a lot, but I've never seen it in the wild.
| duxup wrote:
| That and requests to delete my review in exchange for a refund.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I don't even get that courtesy. Amazon deletes legitimate
| negative reviews all the time without the seller having to
| make amends.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Then it's only a matter of time before consumers start gaming
| the system right back. Write a poor review, await a refund
| offer, then write the real review.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Well the flip side to this scam too is now I start seeing
| hints in the reviews.
|
| "Edit: I left this review a month ago, and I have not seen
| the 'special gift' that the seller promised for my help"
| dawnerd wrote:
| Then find out Amazon wont accept your real review because
| it 'doesn't meet their community standards'
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yep, can't let the word spread that someone peed in the
| co-mingling pool. That might cause a panic!
|
| Also: can't let the word spread that "prime" shipments
| get silently substituted for 30-day slow-steamed-in-a-
| containers-and-then-USPS shipments. That wouldn't reflect
| fairly on the product!
|
| Ugh.
| briga wrote:
| I've found that instead of looking for positive reviews I'll
| first search for negative reviews. Can't really trust the
| professional reviewers because they have an incentive to bend the
| truth. But you also can't really trust casual reviewers because
| it's so easy to game the system. Sometimes I'll look at places
| like Reddit for product reviews but you can't even really trust
| that anymore because more and more companies have started to
| understand the value of viral marketing on social media. So it
| seems like the only thing you can really trust are the negative
| reviews.
| breckenedge wrote:
| And you can't really trust those either since companies will
| review competitor's products negatively. These days I just ask
| coworkers and friends and family
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| Yeah the whole system is gamed. This is my process:
|
| - check out the reviews that actually post pictures
|
| - read the 1-stars to see what happened.
|
| - Do a google search for "best X product" to see if product
| shows up there. Sift through the many many bullshit sites set
| up to make money from Amazon affiliate links. Sometimes a
| result sticks out that I feel like I can easily trust, like
| if I'm looking for hiking equipment and an REI links shows
| up. Even the NY Times has a whole product review section and
| has amazon affiliate links:
| https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/
|
| - Look for YouTube video reviews. I know a lot of those are
| free products provided to YouTubers so I take any positive
| reviews by them with a grain of salt. I just want to see the
| product in use.
|
| - Check out Reddit. Also take these with some scrutiny
| because Reddit has already been infiltrated by marketing
| companies willing to pay for fake reviews & upvotes
|
| - Check FakeSpot and ReviewMeta to see what they say
|
| - Analysis paralysis sets in. Are the good reviews fake? Are
| the bad reviews from competitors? Did the websites reviewing
| the products actually review it or just searched the top 10?
|
| - Walk away for a day or 2
|
| - Go back to the product, and decide to gamble and buy one of
| the top results in Amazon.
|
| It's so annoying
| sgt101 wrote:
| I just hope that the 44% didn't trust them 5 years ago either!
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I also don't particularly trust professional reviews anymore. The
| affiliate link funding model has set up a glaring conflict of
| interest.
| yborg wrote:
| Consumer Reports. That's literally it.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Are they still influential? They're something I associate
| with my parent's generation and the era of print magazines.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| They won't influence you if you don't subscribe, of course.
|
| I used to subscribe, my sense is that they do a good job,
| but their tastes are geared toward those of more affluent
| boomers and genxers. If you're someone who can't afford a
| Lexus, or who'd even consider choosing a Kia over a Lexus
| even though you can easily afford one, then Consumer
| Reports may not cater to your tastes.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It was humorous when they started doing computer reviews
| in the 90's and they clearly didn't have a clue about
| what they were reviewing.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| How so? I mean, I could imagine that they were reviewing
| computers on practical things that real-world users cared
| about, but maybe a tech enthusiast would find irrelevant.
| bluGill wrote:
| I remember they rated the Atari (8 bit) computers a best
| buy. At the time I was an Atari fan and that how great it
| was. On hindsight, it was obvious even back then that the
| Atari was obsolete and the PC was where everyone was
| going for a reason. (though they could reasonably put
| mac/St/Amiga in the review, at least they were not
| obsolete)
|
| That would have been the mid-late 80s, but it set the
| tone for the time: rate something high because it was
| cheap not because it was the best for the job.
| Mc91 wrote:
| I subscribe to their web site. Because my father
| subscribed and liked it, and I find it useful as well -
| also my former team lead was a lead there for a while. It
| is $40 a year.
|
| They do surveys of consumers as well as do their own
| testing. About once a year they survey about vacuum
| cleaners - I had to buy one recently, and some brands got
| high grades, other low grades - so I bought a Shark
| vacuum cleaner. A few years ago I needed to buy an air
| conditioner and used CR for that as well. I also needed a
| laptop in a hurry and CR was one source I consulted
| (although I consulted several sources).
|
| $40 a year is worth it to me to get a decent air
| conditioner and vacuum cleaner and such at a decent price
| (and laptop, although CR was just once of the consulted
| sources). The Shark vacuum cleaner was the last item I
| bought and it picks up dirt good, is easy to empty, and
| can vacuum rugs as well as things that need the hose to
| vacuum.
| wincy wrote:
| My method for making >$100 purchases is open up Consumer
| Reports, look at the top 3 ratings, and often the first will
| be some I'm sure very good product at $1200, and the second-
| best will be $500, so I buy the second-best rated of
| everything.
|
| Like a Peloton is really good, yeah, but there's probably a
| $1000 treadmill that's pretty good, or Traeger makes great if
| overpriced pellet grills, but there's definitely some cheaper
| options that will smoke your meat fine if you don't need wifi
| and bluetooth for your smoker. And then sometimes the
| expensive products are really terrible quality with an aura
| of mystique about then (looking at you, Molekule air
| purifier) and Consumer Reports is willing to call these snake
| oil salesmen companies.
|
| I don't trust any other reviews, though.
| [deleted]
| boatsie wrote:
| The internet is making everything winner take all. Off the first
| page of Google? You don't exist. Not on first page of Amazon for
| "Bluetooth headphones"? You don't exist. That's why companies
| will pay so much to game whatever system gets them to the top
| rank, which is only further reinforced when people buy/click that
| top product/result. This is a hard problem to solve but I think
| there needs to be a way of segmenting the results you see,
| perhaps more highly weighting the opinions of others similar (in
| preferences) to you.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Tons of Amazon vendors pay for reviews. Either a direct offer
| ahead of time (buy this product, give it a 5 star review, we pay
| you via PayPal), an offer in the box (give us a good review and
| we'll give you a free product!), or in response to a bad review
| (delete your review and we'll give you a refund). This is
| expected behavior now on Amazon. Amazon doesn't ever seem to
| penalize these vendors as they keep making Amazon money. They
| will, however, ban customers from leaving reviews once they have
| engaged in this. And prevent users from posting reviews
| mentioning things like receiving counterfeit products (had this
| happen to me).
| ggggtez wrote:
| There was a time when I read Amazon reviews. At best now, I only
| look at the 1 star reviews to see if there are glaring problems.
| Any review with 4 or more stars causes "ad blindness" for me. I
| don't even see them.
| everdrive wrote:
| As well they should.
|
| This is a game of cat and mouse. Consumers were ahead for a
| little while, but companies have really gotten a grasp on the
| internet, and they're winning the information war.
|
| It's no mistake that I've come to rely on brand name again. It's
| the best heuristic available to me. When all this first started
| (mid-2000s) I was actively avoiding basing ANY decision on brand
| name. For a brief window, I had better information, but no more.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| > It's no mistake that I've come to rely on brand name again.
|
| I've been saying for awhile, this could be the salvation for
| brick-and-mortar stores. As long as Amazon continues to play
| fast and loose with counterfeits, the one thing that will get
| me to drive down to the store and buy something in-person is
| the store's guarantee that the product came from the vendor
| whose name is on the box, and that I can return it if I get a
| lemon.
| MereInterest wrote:
| That and in-person testing of equipment. When (pre-pandemic)
| I was buying a new set of headphones, I was able to go
| through different options, test out how they feel, and
| whether there are any significant sound quality issues. I
| prefer over-the-ear headphones, but have bigger ears, so it
| is hard to tell whether a set will be comfortable without
| trying them on first. To do the same with an online store
| would require ordering a dozen headsets, then navigating the
| return policies for all but one of them.
| jedberg wrote:
| This is true in the real world again (still?) too. We're
| currently stocking up on disinfecting wipes to donate to the
| school when they open next month. We've been told that the
| teachers only want brand name Clorox wipes, because they don't
| trust any other brand to actually disinfect safely.
| neartheplain wrote:
| Unfortunately, even this approach isn't foolproof. Fake
| brand-name products make it into supply chains all the time,
| especially on sites like Amazon via third-party sellers. In
| China for example, "fake alcohol" (where brand-name bottles
| are refilled with cheaper, sometimes dangerous off-brand
| liquors) has been a big problem:
|
| https://www.mersolluo.com/china-cracking-down-on-
| counterfeit...
|
| I can't imagine that the rubbing alcohol wipe industry is
| that much more resistant to counterfeiting.
|
| (Edit: It's not- https://wjla.com/features/7-on-your-
| side/scammers-promise-cl...)
| jedberg wrote:
| Yeah that is true. I'm hoping Costco has their supply chain
| down well enough that it's not an issue, but at least there
| is a slightly higher chance it's legit if it says Clorox on
| the side.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, we've gone back to having to trust the brand name
| of the distributor - if it says it came from Amazon it is
| basically assumed to be counterfeit chinese crap; Costco
| and Home Depot (and even Walmart in store) are a bit more
| secure there.
| depingus wrote:
| Does Walmart (online) co-mingle their inventory with
| third party inventory like Amazon?
| somethingwitty1 wrote:
| Amazon doesn't co-mingle their inventory with 3Ps, they
| do co-mingle 3Ps that don't opt to avoid it. This is one
| of the reasons I look for the "sold and shipped by
| Amazon" for important purchases.
|
| Unfortunately, I've never seen information about how
| Walmart handles this. Given their massive shift to 3Ps
| providing most of their products online...I'd imagine
| they use a similar strategy (it improves same/next day
| availability and lowers cost). I follow the same strategy
| with Walmart (try to only buy directly).
|
| It is a sad time for online purchasing :(
| bombcar wrote:
| I'd heard that they DO mingle their 1st party inventory,
| but that you have an easy return when it turns out to be
| fake; but perhaps the story changes.
| jxramos wrote:
| absolutely, I've been shifting my purchases to in store,
| leaning heavily towards Costco because whoever their
| buyers are have a good eye for quality. Also with their
| incredibly generous return policy I don't really worry
| about buying things from Costco and will buy by default
| because I know I can change my mind later if things don't
| work out.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Surely buying a brand name disinfectant by the gallon and
| paper towels and a spray bottle are orders of magnitude
| cheaper. And probably orders of magnitude better for the
| environment?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Not to mention it isn't really necessary. It's pretty clear
| now that surface contact is not a major vector for COVID
| transmission.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-
| si...
| jedberg wrote:
| Teachers have been using disinfecting wipes for decades,
| not just for COVID. Kids spread lots of germs.
| thrwaway2day wrote:
| When dealing with teachers understand that when presented
| with a career choice they are the folks who self selected
| into the job with summers off and the easiest course
| load. They will use the smallest excuse not to have to
| show up for work.
| bluGill wrote:
| Covid isn't the only reason to disinfect surfaces. Proper
| disinfecting surfaces does prevent a large number of
| diseases. Covid we now know isn't one of them, but the
| others are still a worry.
| jedberg wrote:
| If you're an engineer, and when you get back to your job
| you're told that you are now responsible for wiping down
| your workstation every hour, your first response will
| probably be, "I'm an engineer that's not my job" and your
| second response will be, "ok fine but make it as easy as
| possible".
|
| Teachers are not supposed to be cleaning their classroom or
| teaching your kids about hygiene, but they have to now
| because parents don't and there is no budget for staff.
| There needs to be a tradeoff there. Spend a little more on
| supplies to save time so you don't have to hire a janitor
| to come around every hour and wipe down the classroom.
| spoonjim wrote:
| There are also retailers which actually vet brands. For example
| anything edible that Target or Walmart or Trader Joe's or Whole
| Foods (Amazon ownership notwithstanding) sells in their stores,
| they actually contract a testing company to test it to make
| sure that it's safe. For things where safety is important an
| actual physical national store is going to be much better than
| Amazon.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| That's still relying on brand name, just the brand of the
| retailer instead of the brand of the manufacturer.
| sharkweek wrote:
| I used to trust Amazon for just about anything I needed to buy,
| but I'd guess maybe in the last 6-8 years I'll mostly only
| order something if I recognize the brand name selling me the
| product.
|
| Tried to buy a pair of cheap-ish bluetooth headphones off there
| a few months ago. Three different pairs and none of them even
| worked out of the box. Gave up and bought a more expensive pair
| from a known brand.
| depingus wrote:
| You can't trust ANYTHING on Amazon; including name brand.
| They co-mingle their legit inventory with counterfeit 3rd
| party inventory. When you order something, even if it's "Sold
| and Shipped from Amazon", they ship you the closest product.
| You may very well end up getting the fake 3rd party item.
| cout wrote:
| If it's Amazon brand (e.g. Kindle), I'd be surprised to get
| a counterfeit.
|
| I also trust less popular brands to not be counterfeit,
| though I expect that to change in the future.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Also ship damaged, repackaged goods as "new", e.g. monitor
| with scratched screen. Solution: Order monitor from
| Staples, insist employee open box for inspection. Cost an
| extra $20 over Amazon -- bargain!
| AJ007 wrote:
| My experience ordering from Shopify sites over the past or
| two: the checkout is now faster and easier than Amazon.
| Overall Amazon's failings are good for everyone else involved
| in e-commerce. The bottlenecks to purchasing online 20 years
| ago are far behind us now.
|
| If your business is selling low margin items at massive scale
| then Amazon probably continues to win (in the US.)
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Why not look at consumer reports
| (https://www.consumerreports.org/)? I purchased a subscription
| and use them quite a bit. The problem here is in willingness to
| pay. If companies are willing to pay to promote their product,
| you will need to pay to get objective information. Any attempts
| at free objective information is going to be vulnerable to
| pollution by those willing to spend resources.
| tobib wrote:
| And then there are fakes of brand name products which makes it
| difficult to even know what you're buying. Personally I started
| buying things that I used to buy at Amazon locally instead
| whenever and wherever possible. That might mean a trip to the
| store but better than not knowing what you get.
| Shivetya wrote:
| Oh my, I am at the point I only read the 1 star reviews and
| maybe 2 star reviews. Worse dealing with Amazon is a royal pain
| when the company fulfilling the order ships the wrong item.
|
| Brand names are a fine method to follow but not when sellers
| ship the wrong model/version/etc.
| fearling wrote:
| > It's no mistake that I've come to rely on brand name again.
|
| Big +1 here. Brand name is a core part of my decision making
| process at this point. Otherwise, I'm relying on word of mouth.
| _Occasionally_ , I'll use some of the more "reliable"
| independent review services.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| This has been mentioned before but I've done this for a
| while: searching "[product] reddit" often does the trick when
| looking for candid reviews. Normal people with nothing to
| gain except internet points (which just incentivizes them to
| give the popular consensus or fantastic failure of the
| product).
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Though, I would still go stalk the reviewer a bit and make
| sure they're a real person. Reddit isn't necessarily any
| less amenable to astroturfing than amazon.com or
| bestbuy.com; the only thing that might be protecting it
| right now is that it's currently not as big a pot of honey.
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