What happens when buyers don’t think product reviews are credible or accurate?
At best, they’ll pay less attention to them.
At worst, product reviews will stop impacting buying decisions.
Helpful product reviews written by Amazon customers have been the heart of the Amazon marketplace from the beginning. Amazon has no interest in seeing their well-established product review system falling by the wayside.
I spoke to Jochen Schall about this subject. He’s a former member of Amazon’s Transaction Risk Management Services/ Merchant Risk Investigation team. Jochen recently left Amazon and we discussed his contact with and knowledge of the Product Review Abuse squad. With all the recent attention focused on this subject, I wanted to get some internal insights and find out where things might be heading in terms of future seller account restrictions.
Why is there all the interest around Amazon product reviews, in your opinion?
Jochen: There were complaints internally and from management that reviews are inflated, and that sellers would get an unfair advantage over other sellers. It came down from the VP level to create the Product Review Abuse (PRA) team.
And what is the PRA team’s role?
Jochen: PRA is a unique team that’s for sure. Their intent is to make sure that items are actually reviewed by real buyers, not all the companies that sell reviews. The team started in early 2015. They’re aggressively going after reviews they deem not to be real, such as reviewing companies, people getting paid for reviews, etc. They get their info via various channels, such as internal complaints from category management or from other teams, and external complaints about ASINs that have several high reviews or ASINs that are new but have large amount of reviews. They’re going after buyer accounts associated with seller accounts that increase reviews and then shut those sellers down.
Ok and where do reports of abuse or fake reviews come from?
Jochen: That is the part I always questioned. Internally they keep track of ASINs which received a large amount of reviews in a short period of time. Also they have reports running to see what related buyer accounts are leaving a larger number of reviews. So that’s a red flag.
Are all sizes of sellers affected by this?
Jochen: I have seen a seller who had over 150 bot related buyer accounts and left reviews via those accounts. All the buyers were frauded (closed permanently) and seller was blocked for good, and the seller was not small.
What is the PRA team’s standard operating procedure with sellers?
Jochen: From what I remember (and barring any updates), sellers will get warned for abuse, and if the abuse is severe then get shut down. All associated buyer accounts will get frauded out and new ones shut down ASAP. If the buyer accounts are attached to seller accounts those sellers get removed as well.
How does category management fit into this? Sellers complain to them, and then they contact PRA internally?
Jochen: Category does whatever they can do on the reviews, and then they open tickets. Too many similar positive reviews is a sign they are fake or not legit which then boosts the ASIN rankings, which boost sales which boost revenue and so on.
Chris: My overall impression is that Amazon takes product review abuse a lot more seriously than in prior years, and devotes more team resources to keep things from getting out of control. Sellers who got away with some dubious activities in the past will not in the future as internal teams iron out processes and execute new strategies. In short, make sure you know what the policies around reviews are and beware buyer account abuse, because you could lose the ability to sell, permanently.
Read the first two parts of this interview, Why you should be worried about Account Suspensions and Amazon Customers Are Trained To Complain.
Good info, thanks Chris!
Any discussion with Jochen about sellers using “legitimate” review groups such as AMZTracker and Review Kick and whether Amazon has or is expected to change its stance on these services?
What about the determination of when a verified badge is removed? What is the approx. discount %?
Hi Bryan,
As I just told Fernando, I have found no predetermined list of services they will allow.
But, here’s a direct quote (via TechCrunch) from Amazon on this, ““Our goal is to eliminate the incentives for sellers to engage in review abuse and shut down this ecosystem around fraudulent reviews in exchange for compensation,” an Amazon spokesperson said.”
Chris, I’m hoping that Amazon makes a distinction between blatant paid review spam and these services that try to adhere to their TOS by requiring their members to post unbiased reviews in exchange for deeply discounted products. Amazon itself has a similar program in “Vine”.
Regarding the Verified Purchase seal, I recall reading somewhere that if a product was purchased with a discount of more than 40-50%, the seal is removed, which is mostly what I’ve seen with my products, though I’ve seen some exceptions.
The real question is if these reviews receive a lower weighting when they calculate a product’s score… and to what extent?
The TOS for reviews are intentionally vague so they can maintain their discretion on a case by case basis. We can’t know which way Amazon will land on this in the future.
For example, the policy states, “you may not provide compensation for a review other than a free or discount copy of the product. If you offer a free or discount product, it must be clear that you are soliciting an unbiased review. The free or discount product must be provided in advance. No refunds are permitted after the review is written. You may not intentionally manipulate your products’ rankings, including by offering an excessive number of free or discounted products, in exchange for a review.”
What is considered an “excessive number”?
In regards to the Verified Purchase Seal, I don’t believe Amazon has released the exact number at which they remove the seal, however, most anecdotal evidence puts it around 50%. Yes, these reviews have less weight than Verified Purchases. But the algorithm takes several factors into consideration, such as how new the review is and if it is upvoted as helpful.
Amazon’s TOS allows giving a free (or deeply discounted) product in advance as compensation for an honest, unbiased review. This is exactly what services such as Snagshout and ILoveToReview provide. Do you think it’s risky for a seller to use them, even judiciously? By that I mean allowing only 1-2 of these reviews per day.
I think the jury is still out on which services Amazon tolerates and which in the long run they will not. In my research, I have found no predetermined list of services they will allow. As this entire process is in flux, that could change at any time.