Who reviews products on Amazon.com

[pbray]

Cornell study unmasks Amazon's product reviewers.

What Shoppers Don't Realize About Amazon's reviews.

And the opinion piece Are Amazon reviews corrupt?

Interesting points about what motivates people to write reviews, and how the demographics of the reviewers differs from the demographics of the average Amazon.com shopper.

I've long thought that the so-called "customer" review function ought to be restricted to people who have actually bought the product from Amazon. But that would immediately knock out all of Amazon's top customer reviewers, so there's no chance it will happen.

Comments

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

Caveat emptor.

If nothing else, it confirms my suspicion that it's smarter to actually talk about a book with someone rather than rely upon a review.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Interesting, particularly Laura Owen's analysis of the inherent problems with this system.

There's a company called B&H in New York which is one of the major online sellers of photo and video gear. They have customer reviews, but do restrict those reviews to people who have actually bought the specific products from them.

On eBay, I have had the experience of sellers actually retaliating viciously at a truthful but mediocre review (one person kept trying to bid up anything I bid on for months - I got very good at sniping instead).

I had a friend who died a few years ago who did a lot of amazon reviews, partly for the free books. He fit the demographic mentioned (male, older, retired) though I think he mainly did it because he liked reviewing.

I only check plot summaries on amazon, and almost always ignore the reviews. In general, I want to know the reviewer before trusting their review.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I read about this on Writer Beware earlier this week, and it confirms that my approach to Amazon reviews -- which essentially is "occasionally read one-star reviews for entertainment, but otherwise ignore customer reviews altogether" -- is in fact perfectly rational.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with sending people free books in exchange for reviews. (At least, I don't see anything wrong with it. I've been working in academic publishing for 15 years, though, which may have affected my view of this practice...) But you shouldn't call them "customer reviews" if they do not come from actual customers.

Disclaimer: I once posted a review on Amazon for a book that I not only hadn't bought from Amazon but hadn't bought at all, because it is such a bad and poisonous book that I refused to give the author or the publisher any money for it (I read it in a bookstore, in bits) but did want to say what I thought of it, for the record.

And that's another thing about "customer" reviews on Amazon: if they don't suffer from the pitfalls of quid-pro-quo reviewing, they suffer from response bias, because many people will take the trouble to go and post a review only if they either LOVED the {book/hotel/umbrella/snowblower} or if they hated its guts...

[brianh]

The main use I've had for amazon reviews has been to look at the 1 and 2 stars to see why people hate them. Not so much to deter me from reading as to find out if the book has good enemies. Since epic scale, interesting and/or competent characters, and high adventure sensibilities are hated by so very, very many people, I usually find those (with slightly different names, of course, like the misogynist, misapplied, and misbegotten Mary Sue label for "a female character who is a full-throttle hero) to be good ways to find a book I'll enjoy.

Other than that, I think the greatest symbol of the terribleness of amazon reviews comes from one on Thor. My wife, a strong feminist, thought the movie was awesome. She especially liked having a smart, geeky female lead who got as much screen time as the male lead, and whose furtherance of her own interests, of her own career and goals, serve as much or more of a motivator than the male lead's. So she was quite irate when, after adding the DVD to her wishlist, she read a number of reviews that claim that Natalie Portman was "wasted", crowned by one moron who claimed that she was simply an appendage and tacked on. We're still wondering if these people even watched the same movie that we did.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Personal recs are always the best, though there are some people whose recommendations I trust, and others I know to steer away from, since our tastes are so widely divergent.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I knew some of the problems in this system, which were fairly obvious to anyone who's had a book reviewed on Amazon, but this was the first time I'd seen a detailed analysis of what was going on. The demographics of the top reviewers surprised me a bit, because the ones I knew of were from the romance side, who have female names (though that doesn't necessarily mean they are actually female.)

And eBay is indeed a pit of voles.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Right, it's the calling them "customer" reviews that is misleading. Not to mention that many of the top reviewers can't possibly read the volume of titles that they are reviewing. One top reviewer posts thousands of reviews a year--many of which appear to be based solely on catalog or backcover copy, and which often get key details wrong. (This reviewer also loves everything, giving books 4 or 5 stars.)

Authors have complained to Amazon about these kind of reviews, but Amazon has no interest in changing their system.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Funny, I have the same thing with one of my friends-- if he hates a book, odds are good that I'll love it. And vice versa in many cases.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

You kind of have to wonder what's in it for someone who doesn't even bother to read the books ... I mean, if free books to read aren't your motivation for writing buttloads of Amazon reviews, what is? o_O