When we're looking for a
product on Amazon, most of us
have got into the
habit of checking
the reviews beneath it.
This is what Saoud
Khalifah was doing
when he started to
notice something
strange about the
products he was buying.
So I got interested
in online reviews
when I actually was finishing
up my master's degree,
and I ordered a few
things off Amazon.
They were five-star rated.
There were hundreds of
reviews, and they were all
really, really positive.
I received the product, and
there was something completely
off with the products.
The quality was really low.
It did not last at all.
So I went back,
read the reviews,
and noticed there was
a lot of red flags
within the reviews themselves.
There was a huge trend
of fraudulent activity
within the reviews, and I
could tell that they were fake.
Mr Khalifah now runs a
New York-based company
called Fakespot, one of
several new businesses
which claim to be able to
help you spot a fake review.
The very existence
of such companies
highlights a looming crisis of
faith in online reviews, which
are now at the very heart of
how internet shopping works.
In the UK alone, they influence
an estimated GBP 23 billion
of transactions each year.
Most internet users
are aware of the fact
that they have to read reviews
before doing a purchasing
decision.
And without any reviews
there, most products
won't get any sales.
That's basically it.
So most of these sellers
know that reviews
are a very critical
part of their business.
Faced with these
pressures, some companies
are now encouraging customers
to leave a positive review
in return for a free item.
Others opt for more
cynical tactics,
targeting competitors
with negative feedback.
In a statement, Amazon
told us that "any attempt
to manipulate customer reviews
is strictly prohibited"
and that it suspends, bans,
and takes legal action on those
who violate its policies.
The US firm added that it
"invests significant resources
to protect the integrity
of reviews in our store."
This includes "teams of
investigators and automated
technologies to prevent and
detect inauthentic reviews"
at source.
The US company
has filed lawsuits
against more than 1,000
defendants for reviews abuse.
But Amazon is an enormous
global platform for selling,
and so any attempt
to monitor wrongdoing
comprehensively is going
to be seriously difficult.
It is a cat-and-mouse game
between the platforms,
for example, Amazon
and the sellers that
are on those platforms.
So they constantly find
new angles, new ways,
to exploit their system
and find new ways
of detecting fake reviews.
So it is definitely
a cat-and-mouse game.
When it comes to
smaller sellers,
reviews can be a matter
of life or death.
Kevin Williams
founded Brush Hero,
a company that sells
brushes used to clean cars.
Reviews have an incredible
effect on revenues.
We went through a
period in the last year
where we had a number
of negative reviews
that weren't necessarily fair
but appeared on our listings,
and it immediately
had a 20 per cent
to 30 per cent impact on
the individual unit sales.
But worse than that, it affected
the relevance of those products
in the Amazon search engine.
For Utah-based Brush Hero,
there is a tipping point
for negativity.
Even a few critical fake
reviews could encourage
genuine customers to pile on.
Once the review level drops
below, say, a 3.5 out of 5,
we've noticed a vast
increase of negative reviews
that start occurring because
it's just easier to pile on.
What that leads to is not
just a loss of sales on Amazon
and a loss of
velocity on Amazon.
It also impacts sales
all over the place
because consumers
are relatively savvy.
They're looking
for review scores
when they're buying
off Amazon or Amazon.
So it decreases the
efficacy of our advertising
through Facebook, through
other social media channels,
through Google, whatever it is.
There is also a sense that
the source of the reviews
is difficult to address.
Amazon can do a lot to
improve its review system.
I don't believe that they're
doing a great job in tracking
where reviews are coming from.
It seems to me
that Amazon should
have the statistical ability
to identify those bad reviewers
and vet them out of the
system, and they haven't yet.
So where do the bad
actors come from?
For Mr Williams, the problem
has one obvious source.
The sense is that it's
coming from China.
When Amazon started to solicit
Chinese sellers directly,
it seemed to open the floodgates
to a mountain of bad actors.
Despite his
experiences, Mr Williams
is himself a devoted
user of the platform.
Absolutely, it's changed
the way I look at reviews.
I'm highly analytical about it.
I am an avid Amazon shopper.
I have to admit that
even though I've
had lots of problems
on Amazon, it's
a major sales channel for me.
And as a consumer, I purchase
things nearly every day
on Amazon.
The tangled web
of online reviews
is a challenge for Amazon,
the companies that sell on it,
and those of us buying.
But it's also just one part of
a bigger story, the difficulty
we now have trusting
anything we read online,
even as we spend more of our
time in front of computers.
