Hacker News Reader

Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

This is an entirely reasonable stance. A given product could have n(bignum) sellers. A review telling me that a seller is doing shady things tells me nothing about the product. Amazon told him to go review the seller in the appropriate section. What's the problem?

View on HN

> A review telling me that a seller is doing shady things tells me nothing about the product

It's not telling you anything about the product, but it also making you aware that those other review you thought were telling you something about the product, actually are not.

In essence you are saying that it is a reasonable stance to remove off-topic bad reviews, but keep off-topic good reviews.

Wait I don't see how this is inconsistent.

- "Seller was great and delivered on time!"

- "Seller is doing shady things and posting fake reviews"

It seems like both of these would be removed.

I think the concern is -- seller A (or manufacturer) has created lots of gamed reviews for product A. Putting a negative review on seller A is much less visible, and leaves the fake reviews in place, so that when successor-scammy-seller-B sells the product everyone is still deceived.

The review tells you that the _product's_ rating is compromised by paid reviews. From that perspective it doesn't really matter which seller is the one at fault. Buying from that shady seller won't get you a worse product, or even necessarily worse service. It's just that the product overall is likely of worse quality than what the other reviews might indicate, regardless of which seller you buy it from.

Almost half the things I buy on amazon come with a little postcard thing that tells me I'll get anywhere between $10-$30 back as cash if I leave a 5 star review. If I wasn't in a slightly comfortable place financially, and not so lazy, I would absolutely do this. None of those products deserved a 5 star review, and perhaps 1/3rd were returned by me for poor quality. This is absolutely a real problem. The few review sections where people point this out means I won't buy and I probably saved myself a ton of returns by doing that, but now that is no longer an option.

Amazon is cultivating a lot of bad will with this. I imagine their sellers will claim they don't do this (even when they do), then Amazon feels obligated to pull those reviews to please the sellers and in a conflict between sellers and customers, Amazon will tend to pick sellers in fear of them just moving to Aliexpress and hurting Amazon.

and as others have said, these are OEM's, this is their product and no one else sells it. Amazon is pretty much a sales portal for Chinese manufacturers, some of whom are shady like this, to get into the states with minimum overhead, hassle, and oversight.

Because the bad seller is also tainting the product reviews. Is (in the case of OP) the camera really a five star product? Or is it a five star product because one seller basically bought x percent of the positive reviews?

The problem is that the card specifically asks the customer to give the "product a positive review with 5 stars."

If the card was asking for a seller review, that would be reasonable. But the money is being paid for a product review, hence skewing those reviews.

Exactly. It would have only been justified if the manufacturer and seller were the same entity. He should have given a honest review based on the product itself and then it would have been appropriate to point out that some of the reviews might be paid. Or better yet: report the seller to Amazon. But the way he wrote the review makes it sound like he rated the item with 1 star solely based on the malpractice of a seller. Companies like Logitech are usually not involved in shady business like that (they hire professional reviewers through third parties, not entice regular customers with 10 bucks, jk :D).

When I've encountered this before the shady seller was also the manufacturer.

> A given product could have n(bignum) sellers.

Most likely a seller paying for reviews like this has an exclusive on the product, it's likely a product sold directly by the maker.

The problem is that product reviews are right up front on the product page. Seller reviews are 2 more clicks past that, effectively hidden.

They'll remove product ratings for a particular seller if enough people complain.

So? That doesn't address the issue I pointed out.

So seller reviews are useful even if buyers can't read them at all.

What kind of twisted logic leads you to believe this? The whole point of reviews is that you can read them and use them to influence your purchasing decision.

Because they'll remove product ratings for a particular seller if enough people complain. That's a secondary use.

That's not relevant. You were talking about seller reviews, not product reviews before. Why are you trying to avoid the question? Do you think choosing a reputable seller is a "secondary" concern after choosing a product? If so, why?

> Why are you trying to avoid the question?

I wasn't trying to avoid a question. Sorry if I missed one.

> You were talking about seller reviews, not product reviews before.

I was actually talking about both types of reviews. Amazon will remove illegitimate product reviews if their existence is made known through seller feedback mechanisms, and seller reviews are one such mechanism.

> Do you think choosing a reputable seller is a "secondary" concern after choosing a product? If so, why?

Usually I'd pick the product first, then find a reputable seller. If there's no reputable seller, I may choose a different product, or choose a disreputable seller if I think their reputation is undeserved, or if I'm willing to take a risk to get the particular product. I'm not sure if that's what you mean by "secondary concern", but I wouldn't call it that. They're both considerations.

I don't think most people consider having a reputable seller a secondary consideration. Take a look at Prime, for instance. There's literally no reason to have a Prime membership other than getting free shipping from a reputable seller.

I dont buy much from amazon anymore but arent very clear if the review is for the product or the seller...

Right now there are only two sellers

Reply on news.ycombinator.com