A brief history of Amazon’s product review ecosystem, and where we are today

This month, Amazon

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It officially closed the doors on their Early Reviewer Program, a move that was both invisible and saddened by buyers who relied on the program to encourage reviews of newer products.

But it’s only the latest in a series of changes over the years as Amazon looks to address paradoxes in its review ecosystem. On the one hand, reviews are an essential part of Amazon’s value proposition to consumers. On the other hand, a series of changes over the past six years suggest a philosophy that product reviews should not be sought – either by Amazon or the brands that sell on the platform.

Why product reviews are so important

I often look to confirm product purchases by reading reviews on Amazon, whether or not I actually buy on Amazon or not. When I do this in a brick & mortar retail store, the practice is called “showrooming” and it sometimes forces me to finish the purchase on Amazon instead of at the store.

This phenomenon is not just my own quirk – a survey from Bazaarvoice in 2020 found that the majority of U.S. shoppers (56%) cited reviews as the e-commerce feature of the they relied primarily on making informed purchasing decisions. Globally, when customers engage with reviews of what Bazaarvoice calls “best-in-class” websites, there has been a 138% increase in conversion rates, year over year. There are huge commercial implications for brands that sell products online as well as for Amazon itself. After all, Amazon can earn sales when there are products with a combination of ratings. But for results without a significant number of reviews, there are fewer options now to get them legitimately and earn the trust of users.

The business of getting reviews: a timeline

Because of their importance, Amazon-based brands have been looking for ways to get product reviews – both through Amazon-licensed programs such as the Early Reviewer Program and a review program. Vine, or more bizarre methods. And over the past 6 years I’ve been communicating with brands about their Amazon strategy, the landscape has changed dramatically. Here’s a recap of the changes and what we can take away from Amazon’s general philosophy and next steps.

• Up to October 2016: Amazon community guidelines say it’s okay for sellers to offer free reviews or a big discount from customers in exchange for product review. The booth business was full of legitimate companies working on review markets: on the one hand, a buyer who was trying to drain reviews, and on the other, contract seekers who were willing to rate and review the free results they received. As long as the reviewer states that they received the product for free or at a discount, it was within Amazon’s rules at the time.
• October 2016: Amazon bans inspirational reviews. Now it is the only review generation program licensed by Amazon Vine, a program available only from Retailers, which are usually the larger brands that wholesale to Amazon. .
• February 2017: Amazon launches early reviewer program. Registered retailers in four markets could sign up for new products and encourage Amazon to leave customers reviews in the form of a low-value gift card. There were a number of restrictions regarding listing, including that results had to be less than 5 reviews. There was also a $ 60 fee for each registered product. However, this was seen as a real antidote to the October 2016 crackdown, as it allowed newer results to start gathering reviews and break the catch-22 problem of a result whose reviews do not attract less sales, which ‘means fewer reviews, and so on. .
• April 2018: Amazon cancels a large number of accounts for customers it says were using the market for commercial purposes. Despite the 2016 breakout of rave reviews, underground review communities continue to thrive. Some merchants offer ‘discounts’ that cover most or the entire price of a product.
• November 2019: “Pressure” emerges as an underground generational review method.
• End of 2019: Amazon launches “One Tap Review” system, allowing customers to leave a star rating without writing a review. The proponents of this program say that fake reviews will make it easier to succeed, as it will be impossible to determine if a fake review is the same way AI can by text analysis. On the other hand, a greater overall number of rankings could drown out the sound and be more representative of the general population’s experience with results.
• January 2020: Amazon lets customers opt out of all retailer communications, ending the widespread use of sellers sending messages to customers asking for a repeat -investigation.
• September 2020: Amazon places a “request a review” button next to consumer orders in Seller Central, allowing sellers to request a review in just two clicks. Within days there is a Chrome extension that will automate this process. But it is not a silver bullet. It’s a one-way tool with no ability to customize the message, and vendors get no insight into open rates or turnaround rates. Customers can unsubscribe from these messages.
• September 2020: The U.S. government charges six conspiracy and conspiracy theorists for bribing Amazon employees to reset suspended accounts and handle product reviews.
• Through 2020: Brushing will get a revival, with customers getting secret seeds in the mail.
• 2021: Amazon removes the ability of Sellers and Retailers to comment on reviews. Previously, this was a way for merchants to deal with positive and negative feedback from customers.

Along the way, Amazon has filed a lawsuit against various companies and individuals for generating false product reviews and misleading Amazon customers.

What now for reviews?

James Horey, founder of the Amazon software tool review box, says that after the major changes in the review ecosystem this year, there seems to be little love for reviews at Amazon. these days. “I’m not sure what their big plan is but it’s hard to see how these moves benefit customers,” Horey said in a post on LinkedIn. “We hope they will refocus and make some improvements.” Horey’s comments were picked up by sellers who praised the program’s ability to gather early reviews and start selling new products on Amazon.

In an email statement, an Amazon spokesperson said that other features, such as One Tap Reviews and review requests on the Amazon homepage have been more effective in encouraging customers to review leave the the Early Reviewer Program.

Responding to concerns that a lack of legitimate avenues to generate empty reviews could fill a powerhouse filled with bad actors, Amazon says the company’s goal is to ensure customers see genuine and relevant reviews so they can co-opt make more informed purchasing decisions.

The statement from Amazon said:

“To do this, we use powerful machine learning tools and skilled analysts to review 10MM review requests per week, with the aim of stopping non-verbal reviews before they are published. never. In addition, we monitor existing reviews for signs of abuse and take prompt action if we find an issue. We also work proactively with social media sites to report bad actors who are cultivating abusive reviews outside of our store, and we have sued thousands of bad actors for trying to abuse of our review systems. We encourage customers who are concerned about the validity of remaining product reviews to use the “Report Abuse” link, which is available on all reviews, so that we can investigate and take appropriate action. to do.

Overall, the number of fake reviews published on the Amazon site is probably tiny. But the impact a negligent competitor can have on a small business is particularly frightening. As I covered in a previous post for Forbes, there are a number of tactics that nefarious sellers use to downplay their competition including bombarding them with fake 5-star reviews (a get a product listing identified immediately by Amazon). While Amazon may be genuinely interested in keeping their review ecosystem clean and reliable for the benefit of customers, it is nowhere near as strong as the small businesses that could be put at risk by a well-performing competitor.

A large library of product reviews is one of many competitive competitions that Amazon has built. We hope that the ditch will not block new products and brands that deserve a chance to be discovered by customers.