Paid Product Reviews Sink Amazon and Walmart's Credibility

Amazon and Walmart endorse paid product reviews.

December 1, 2022 - Los Angeles, CA – Product reviews are critical to a product's success on Amazon and Walmart. However, unscrupulous sellers go to great efforts to game the review system and deceive consumers. Desperate sellers have paid for glowing reviews; some offer gift cards or free products in exchange for ratings. Many Amazon and Walmart product reviews are fake.

Both Amazon and Walmart have now endorsed third-party paid reviews, despite their claims to the contrary and commitments to clean up their notoriously corrupt product review systems.

The fake reviews -- seemingly legitimate product assessments created by a seller or someone paid by them -- are harder to spot and even easier to post.

• According to the Amazon website, Amazon's "Vine Voices" program gives selected reviewers the unique opportunity to order items free of charge and share their product experiences with Amazon customers to help them make "informed" buying decisions. A confusing array of online reports list Vines's cost from $100 to $2500 per unique listing (ASIN). Vendors must provide the products to be evaluated for free.
• Walmart recently endorsed a program offered by vendor Plumshop, allowing branded merchants who sell on Walmart marketplace to pay for product reviews through Plum’s Field Agent program for $15 per review. Paid reviewers using Plum's Field Agent app accept review jobs in the app, purchase the product, use it, and then the "shopper" writes a review of the product, according to an article from eCommerce Bytes.

Walmart claims it expects all reviewers to adhere to its guidelines prohibiting posting false or inaccurate content. However, a Walmart spokeswoman said that the website does source a small number of reviews from third parties such as brands and review sites.

In the end, Walmart and Amazon understand that product reviews help their bottom line when shoppers make a purchase. Amazon claims that sellers participating in the Vine program could help boost sales up to 19% on new or slow-moving products. Still, even cautious buyers aren’t getting the full and proper picture. While product reviews play a significant role in consumer purchase decisions, the reviews are no indication of authenticity or quality. Giving out free products or compensation in return for a review. . . that’s not an unbiased review. How likely would you be to post a bad review on an item someone gave you for free?

Website Fakespot rates the reliability of product pages and reviews on Amazon, Walmart, eBay and others, reporting that more than one-third of online reviews on Amazon are fake. Fakespot’s algorithm looks at reviews and reviewers, analyzing language, previous reviews, and purchase history to determine trustworthiness. In 2021, Apple removed Fakespot's iOS app in response to Amazon's claim that the app supplies misleading information. (Fakespot is also available as an Android app).

The Counterfeit Report, an award-winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, made hundreds of counterfeit and fraudulent product test purchases, the majority from Amazon as the direct seller. Dozens of negative reviews left to warn consumers about the fake items (examples below) were blocked or removed by Amazon. While Amazon is blocking negative reviews for its direct sales of fake and fraudulent merchandise, reviewers are recruited and incentivized with cash, coupons, or products to leave four or five-star reviews for essentially worthless garbage products.

While it is best to avoid businesses that enable, facilitate, or participate directly as global criminal enterprises, here are some tips;

• Watch out for an overwhelming number of positive ratings. An equal number of five-star and one-star reviews would be more realistic. People who feel strongest about a product, both positively and negatively, tend to review it. Unhappy people leave reviews; happy people move on.
• Look at whether reviews are spaced evenly over time or clustered around particular days or a product introduction.
• How many reviews are written by verified purchasers who have bought the item directly from a legitimate retailer.
• Analyze the language, looking for repetition of themes, broken English "Chinglish," or words that would suggest the posts are written from a script.