An investigation by UK consumer rights group Which? has uncovered an extensive network of sites where Amazon sellers can bulk-buy reviews from hundreds of thousands of “product reviewers”.
Ten review sites were identified, and Which? investigators signed up for them to discover how they operated and just how far they went in terms of requiring only positive reviews and taking steps to avoid detection by Amazon.
They did not hold back from naming and shaming the review sites, and the sellers using them, and even calling out Google for allowing the review sites to advertise in search results.
Experienced sellers might not be surprised at the scale of this activity, but the fresh publicity will not be welcomed by Amazon, which has a history of reacting decisively to bad PR.
Amazon review buying sites exposed
Some of the findings are particularly damning for sites claiming to be in full compliance with Amazon’s terms. Many are clearly not following the rules. For example, a researcher was offered a service aimed at manipulating the “Amazon’s Choice” badge, and some reviewers complained that they were denied refunds for leaving reviews of three stars or less.
Buying reviews is of course banned by Amazon, as is any kind of search manipulation and offering any incentive for a review, even if the seller does not specifically ask that a positive rating is given. This has been the case for several years now, so it may be a surprise to some just how blatant the sites selling reviews are being.
Ten review sites were named in the report: AMZDiscover, AMZTigers, AppSally, Cashbackbase, Jump Send, Nicerebate, Rebatest, Severnvine and TesterJob. Some of those might be familiar to Amazon sellers, such as Jump Send which is a Jungle Scout-owned service. All were contacted by Which? for comment and none responded.
One of the sellers that were contacted for comment, Chinese company Enacfire, claimed to have no knowledge or involvement in giving refunds for reviews, despite its $50 headphones being offered for free on review site Rebatest. So someone else is giving away their products? How kind of them.
Amazon has taken legal action against fake review sites in the past, but it’s clear that many are still operating and proving popular with consumers and sellers alike. More legal action might be coming soon.
But it’s not just the review sites who could be closed down. Sellers who have ever used these services should be very concerned. If one of these site’s customer databases ever makes it into the open, Amazon will have a perfect record of guilt and thousands of suspensions could swiftly follow.
Read more at Which?
Other Amazon news
Sellers can no long fudge tracking information
Amazon will require the carrier name for seller-fulfilled orders from April 5th, and will validate tracking numbers from May 3rd.
It may come as a surprise that this is not already happening. Even though the carrier name and tracking number fields already exist, it is possible for sellers to enter bogus details to cheat the system. From May 3rd, that should no longer be possible. This is good news, but it may impact honest sellers if the tracking validation system has some glitches – as these things often do.
Read more at Seller Forums – US Announcements.
Listing A/B testing now includes product images
Amazon’s own product page A/B testing system, Manage Your Experiments, now includes product images, in addition to titles and A+ Content.
Manage Your Experiments is currently available to brand-registered sellers on Amazon.com, with enough existing traffic to their listings to generate statistically significant results. Split-testing of listings is also possible with third-party tools, such as Splitly.
Read more at Seller Forums – US Announcements.
Advertisers get a new video ad creator
Amazon’s DSP advertising platform has introduced a new ad builder tool so advertisers can create video ads without, well, having any videos. The tool works by building a video from static images, although existing videos can also be uploaded and edited.
Read more at Amazon Advertising.
Amazon starts collecting Illinois tax
Amazon has started collecting Illinois “retailer occupation tax” on behalf of sellers. Sellers were a little confused that this latest development in the long and very, very complex saga of online sales taxes was announced 47 days after it went into effect.
Read more at Seller Forums – US Announcements.
Launchpad adds an extra boost for a few lucky sellers
Amazon’s Launchpad program, which is aimed at getting new innovative products onto the Amazon marketplace, has a new “Innovation Grant” providing $10,000 to two Launchpad sellers each month.
The winners of the January grants were WAYB, for its Pico Travel Car Seat, and nCase, for its nCase Clear Aligner SmartCase and Mobile App.
