Foreign media exposed the chaos of fake Amazon reviews.

Comments on e-commerce platforms in foreign countries have always been strictly regulated, and relevant policies have also been introduced in various places to curb this chaos of fake comments. In addition to the most common "sweeping praise", there is also the phenomenon of "donkey's lips not horse's mouth". The product reviews are actually reviews of irrelevant products? In addition to fake reviews, peer spoofing problems are also emerging one after another.

"Donkey's lips are not horse's mouth", foreign media exposes the chaos of Amazon comments

Recently, foreign media " Which? ” reported related issues about Amazon reviews. There are a lot of irrelevant content under the reviews of some products, and the phenomenon of “review merger” occurs.

For example, nine of the top ten headphone brands based on "average customer reviews" had irrelevant product reviews, including reviews for umbrellas, jigsaw puzzles, keyboards, bowls, etc. There are two brands with the "Amazon Choice" label.

Most of these reviews have five stars, and you can see similar positive comments like "it's more of a decorative plush toy than just suitable for holding, but it's definitely worth buying", and there are several The irrelevant bad review, "This extension cord is not safe, don't buy it, your house could burn down." At a glance, the reviews for this headset are filled with reviews of many other products.

Reviews play a key role in consumers' decision to purchase, and buyers are more likely to have a favorable impression of products with more reviews, which is why this situation is derived. What 's more, there are about 1386 reviews about beach umbrellas in one earphone, and 64 of them have pictures, and there are really few reviews about the headphones themselves.

This phenomenon is not only found in the earphone category, but also found in other such as smartphone chargers, blackhead stickers, and kitchen utensils.

In response, " Which? "Attempted to get in touch with the seller, but received no response, and seeking help from Amazon was also rejected on privacy grounds. "Which? 》 According to interviews with relevant professionals, such deliberate and illegal comments are a common "black hat" marketing strategy designed to game the system.

The successful implementation of this strategy also benefits from a grasp of consumer psychology. Many sellers say that most consumers don’t spend too much time reading reviews, and generally only focus on the first few pages. For earlier reviews, they will automatically default to match the browsing products.

For testing purposes, the survey also made irrelevant reviews of some products and followed up to see if they would be removed by the platform. The results show that some of them are deleted, some are displayed normally, and some are marked as "unavailable" but still visible.

Regarding the findings of this survey, Which? ” also got in touch with Amazon. Amazon said that by setting, the system will automatically detect irrelevant content, and most abuses can be blocked, but there will be fish that slip through the net, and the platform will continue to improve the process and increase supervision of this situation.

The emergence of the above situation also gives bad sellers an opportunity to take advantage of, and damages the interests of the sellers. Due to its large size, Amazon uses machine algorithms in many aspects. Although it saves manpower and time costs to a certain extent, there are also many problems. Many sellers say they have been tricked by the "system".

Peer spoofs need to be solved urgently, Amazon strengthens platform supervision

Since last year, incidents of "fake" reviews on Amazon have emerged one after another. The behavior of the parties has not only caused damage to their own reputation, but also hindered the healthy development of the industry. While fake reviews continue, spoofing among peers is also an urgent problem to be solved within the industry.

Recently, another seller reported that they had been spoofed. According to the seller's description, one of his products was out of stock the day before, and when he woke up the next day, he found that the brand had been changed, and then the main image was changed to an irrelevant product, and then he was complained and removed from the store, and opened a case . It was useless, the details page was deleted and the editing right was lost.

The seller then immediately went to the brand team to change the brand, but the seller said that the customer service replied: The brand belongs to someone else, and it can only be changed with the consent of the brand owner. The seller is very helpless about this. It is obvious that his brand has been changed, and the current main image and the things he sells are not the same product at all, so it is not clear.

The seller also added that he opened several cases and got official answers. Shortly after, the seller also received an email saying his listing had been removed. In this regard, the seller said that it is obvious that a competitor is doing it. After explaining the situation to the Amazon team, the seller's listing was restored, but the brand name and image editing rights were still the same as before.

Although the seller looked for customer service to solve the problem many times, the seller said that every time the brand team responded, he asked himself to find the revised brand to discuss, but he did not know who modified the brand name, how to find someone to "discuss", and fell into a cycle.

The seller said that such an obvious action, such a malicious modification of the link, disrupted the order of the platform, and affected the experience of buyers and sellers. The seller expressed disappointment why Amazon's customer service did not act.

The spoofs among peers did not start this year, but there were a lot of them last year, and some big sellers on the Amazon platform have also been spoofed. Maliciously placing orders at rival stores, threatening to demand refunds, maliciously complaining about copyright infringement, tampering with brand names … Such behaviors make the spoofed sellers suffer.

For the above-mentioned problems, Amazon is also continuously strengthening the supervision of the platform, including the supervision of abusing comments, and suspending the sales rights of some sellers. In mid-2021, Amazon also posted a message on the issue of fake reviews calling on social media to remove fake reviews about products.

In recent years, Amazon has also issued several compliance documents for some products, such as adult products, bamboo products, and dietary products. This year, Amazon removed a batch of listings that did not meet the platform’s dietary product regulations .

As we all know, Amazon's consistent principle is to crack down on those who violate the regulations, regardless of whether the sellers whose products are removed or suspended from sales are lucky or negligent. For spoofs between peers, it is generally more difficult to solve.

These problems in the industry are actually thorny issues for both sellers and platforms. Sellers must prevent being spoofed while ensuring legal and compliant operations. When the platform monitors the behavior of buyers and sellers that do not comply with the policy, it must solve the problem fairly and justly, but the facts are often not satisfactory.

For these problems to be solved urgently, in addition to the supervision of relevant policies and regulations, the self-discipline of "members" in all aspects of the industry is also particularly critical.