Product Reviews: Who Can You Believe?

When it comes to product reviews, reasonable doubt should have us all wondering who we can believe and when.

The following online comment has has stuck in my mind since 2012:

     > Most of the book reviews on Amazon are just a marketing
     > ploy to sell books – through high ratings as well as
     > high number of people who find those reviews helpful.
     > And when there is not a favorable review, the same
     > marketing machine tries to discredit the review by
     > showing that most did not find the review helpful.

Most books and products I see online have many more 5-star (best) ratings than 1-star (worst) ratings. Many of those people have allegedly received the book for free with a request to provide a review. Providing something gratis is a great marketing tool. The recipient often feels grateful and at some level wants to repay the benefactor. One way to do this is to write a positive review.

Shills go a long way to destroying credibility for many. A shill is someone involved with covert advertising who attempts to spread buzz by personally endorsing a product in public forums with the pretense of sincerity. Unbeknownst to the audience, shills are actually paid for their promotional services. Online, shills look very similar to genuine reviewers and sometimes the difference is not detectable at all. Occasionally shills will have one and only one post on the website. While this is a hint that the account may have been created just to promote a product, the casual reader cannot know for sure.

At the other end of the spectrum are negative reviews, which I tend to believe more than the positive ones. It seems to take more effort to sample a product and be detailed about specific flaws then it does to simply say “great product! Everyone should try it.”

In the end, faking a negative review is probably just as easy as faking a positive one. If you paid attention to the 2016 POTUS election then the reason for doing so is plain to see. Someone working for one company can easily make a competitor look bad by posting a slew of negative reviews for the competitor’s products.

In the end, who can you trust? While this question entered my consciousness from internet experience, it’s probably an issue as old as advertising itself. The only advice I can offer is “don’t believe everything you see.” Apply critical thinking to ensure some things make sense before making a decision that really counts.