Reviews for sellers themselves are a joke too, I was looking at some earlier today, via black friday deals. The number of reviews with a line through them and "Amazon takes responsibility for this fulfillment-related experience" was hilarious, when those reviews were things like "the motor doesn't work". I guess those then aren't included in the "90% positive" statistic.

I was offered a refund and replacement of a newer version of the case in return for a better review.

The phone case was simply not fit for purpose as it was and the review fairly (I hope) highlighted this.

I accepted the replacement newer version and agreed to a more flattering review once the improved case was seen to indeed be improved. If the flaw had been fixed then it would be fair to reflect this in my review.

The improved case was no different and my review remained unchanged, except for an update reflecting the bribe.

It's the new normal. Airbnb is even worse, they used to (and still might) actually have customer service edit reviews. Your review will get removed with no notice, Amazon will let you know.

If you remove some or most negative reviews but leave positive ones, what do you get.

As if reviews exist only to give constructive feedback to property owners, rather than to warn other renters away from a bad experience!

“Interesting locals in the area!” = homeless people on your doorstep

I was once even warned by Amazon that my account could be deactivated for violation of the ToS after posting a review that pointed out all of the other fake reviews on a particular product. Apparently the ToS allow fake reviews and disallow shining a light on it.

You have a good chance to end with some chinese crap if you rely only on Amazon.

On some product, I prefer finding a specialized seller (that isn't dropshipping). Or find a real blog (tends to be hard with all those fakes websites listing top 100 products, but they nmask hemselves when all products are chinese crap on Amazon). Reddit also work to get advice from peoples.

What's more. I make research on the compagny producing the thing. LinkedIn helps with that. Only commercials on a tech product ? Get out.

Have you heard of https://reviewmeta.com/ ?, If not, give it a try, I use it regularly and it does as advertised.

I knew exactly the kind to look for but I couldn't just search for that and pick the first item on the list. I could have easily bought the wrong thing in one click and not known it.

Instead I had to spend about 30 minutes tweaking my search query, scrolling through SEO-spam listings ("NEW iPhone 14 Galaxy S21 MacBook Pro Windows 95 SE USB 2.1A cable 6cm!") and other listings which were all just the same listing but with a different no-name logo laser printed on the casing. Was on Google cross-referencing some of them to see if they'd actually be legit, since I'd trust a post in a niche forum over a review on a marketplace.

It took me longer to verify what I was buying than it did to go through checkout. Reminded me why Amazon stopped being my go-to.

For example: I recently ordered a €600 printer at a local retailer. The printer shipped in an unusable state (it refused to print and one of the paper feeds spit out a metal spring at me, not a good sign), so I sent it back. It took 6 weeks and an angry email from me for them to ship the replacement unit. With Amazon this just doesn’t happen, or at least, has never happened to me.

I think Amazon is going back to being a place where you only get certain things when you know exactly what you're looking for.

Amazon search is so useless that about half the time I use DuckDuckGo to search Amazon itself.

Here in Japan, Amazon is really popular, especially with expats. Other online sites are Japanese-only, so if you don't read Japanese well, Amazon is just much easier to use because it can be set for English, and will auto-translate everything that's in Japanese. The checkout process is also really simple. Japanese websites tend to have really poor UI too, and Amazon doesn't. Also, Amazon has relatively easy returns, unlike most Japanese retailers.

However, according to the grapevine things are getting worse. Instead of using reliable local shipping companies like Yamato or Sagawa, supposedly they're doing more delivery with freelance contractors and the results aren't good.

- cheaper

- easiest to search

- do not sell knockoffs, counterfeits and fake products

I know some people will raise the "you need to create another account for it annoyance" but it is not that annoying when you are using a password manager and the additionnal time spent could even be considered a feature to avoid compulsive buying.

Not to mention the extortionate fees such places charge because they prey on the elderly and technically illiterate. One of the majors(can't recall if Staples, Kinkos etc.) recently tried to charge my parents $2/page to fax some records to a new doctor which would have been >$100.

Verified purchase only & 1-2 stars lets me quickly scan through for those people who come back months after purchase to write reviews because the thing broke in some way. I don't care about good/middling reviews except in aggregate, but the bad ones are worth delving into.

3. Filter by Seller: only Amazon

This is harder and harder to do, especially on the app. I’ve started to use walmart instead. They also have this third party seller garbage but at least they make easier to filter out.

"Cable didn't work, instead it shortcircuited my TV".

Why do you still use it? Is it just because it's cheap?

Sometimes it's because of price, if something's significantly cheaper on Amazon I'll buy it from Amazon. Free delivery tips it in Amazon's favour sometimes.

Sometimes it's availability. It can be quite painful to order things from outside the UK, most sellers aren't equipped to deal with VAT/duty their end so I end up with the delivery company holding packages hostage until I pay those (which is fine) plus a £20-30 "admin fee" for their package-hostage service. Pre-Brexit I could avoid this by ordering from elsewhere in the EU, but now I'm even more limited. Looking through my Amazon purchase history 3 of the last 5 things I've ordered are only available from Amazon in the UK (and at twice the price from a couple of dodgy looking online stores I've never heard of).

The other reason is their returns policy, if the thing I order doesn't work they'll take it back with no fuss and refund the money. Other major retailers in the UK make this difficult, frustrating and/or time-consuming.

I think they succeeded in retail because of a relentless focus on making the experience for customers better than their competitors. That's all still there, in the background - but it's being eclipsed by some other part of the org that wants to trick those customers into buying a load of shit.

Fake reviews are paid for by sellers shifting tat that Amazon themselves will not sell (because someone in that bit of Amazon still cares about quality). If Amazon themselves wanted to add fake reviews they could easily do it in a way undetectable by Fakespot etc.

Fakespot in particular is a business with a business model, and that is (I think) all about ads and affiliate links. Just a guess, but probably VC-funded with a pressure to actually make a profit somehow. I am thus not their customer, and their incentives may not always align with mine so it's hard to trust them.