Thank you for being a Fakespot user. I thought I'd bring in some perspective to your question.

Your observation of the preponderance of unreliable reviews on Amazon matches what we see across the board. Unfortunately, ever since Amazon opened up to 3rd party sellers, the reviews have become a marketing tool by a lot of these sellers to move ahead of other products. These sellers use everything from pure fake reviews to gamed verified purchase reviews. This is major reason why so many reviews nowadays are unreliable, it is truly a wild west out there in the eCommerce world and fake reviews can mean $$$.

With that said, we just launched Fakespot Guardian as part of our new Chrome extension which solves the 3rd party seller problem by telling you if a seller is reliable or not. By knowing if seller and reviews are reliable, you will be able to purchase anything with confidence.

Once upon a time I was responsible for a high traffic site with ads as a primary revenue source.

The constant problem was that competitors would automate clickbomb attacks -- fake traffic with click throughs that would ultimately get the site banned from ad networks (or severely devalue CPM rates) for fraudulent traffic. The irony was that we never used the same tactics ourselves, assuming that the risks outweighed the rewards. The malicious bot traffic ultimately spelled the end of the site.

I would imagine that an Amazon product/seller would suffer from high quantities of any fake reviews, whether positive or negative:

Too positive? Amazon or Fakespot & similar services penalize them.

Too negative? Consumers penalize them.

Seems like with a modest budget and a Fiverr-like service, smaller retailers could be harmed with relative ease.

Then, faced with these attacks, I'd imagine many companies with means might try countermeasures, triggering a sort of review arms race.

How do you separate the signal from the noise from deliberate fake reviews (of any kind) from third parties with malicious intent?

I read the reviews but have seen reports that they are sometiems made-up, so I usually look at Wirecutter (a shopping guide sponsored by the NY Times) first. Sometimes the Wirecutter review helps me decide what features I"m looking for and whether I want/need a higher priced product or not. I also do comparison shopping on Google shopping and use the low-to-high price filter on Google and Amazon. So far, everything I've purchased using this combination been a good choice.

Thanks for suggesting another avenue, we'll give it a try.

I try to read the reviews and find ones that seem more personal and skip stuff that seems generic. I either buy cheap stuff with the expectation that it will only work for a limited time (like a single project) or I look for a brand with a good reputation and warranty. If you buy from somewhere other than Amazon, you can find stuff that is cheaper. Currently, some places like Ebay have quicker shipping times than Amazon.Smaller sites may be less prone to manipulation from review mills.

One thing we've run into is that for older products, if you sort by New vs. Popular, the reviews can be a wildly different experience. Frequently we're seeing quality in the older reviews, and more and more complaints in the last year or so.

They don't build them like they used to? I want to say something about kids getting off my lawn right about now.

So, not that a handful of responses are much to go on yet, but as I write this, the sentiment is that avoiding Amazon is the solution, rather than navigating its murky waters. Food for thought. Thanks.

Yep, they are the biggest target of review mills. I've seen it go the other way too, where the new product is better.

Use Amazon for searching, list a few candidates, then go look at them in local meat space and buy the one you like, locally.

Edit: Wait, what? Light bulbs? Just go to home Depot or the grocery store and be done with it. Most other things can be bought this way. And it's same day having.

Thanks for the feedback.

Usually can't find the price/spec/performance balance we want. Light bulbs was just an example -- we wanted BR30 lights (and lots of them) with 3000K color. Everything at HD/Lowes was either 2700K or 5000K. And 3x the per-bulb price. Same issue with just about everything home-electronic: we can't find the same thing locally and online has been gamed.

Plus with Covid-19, we're relying on delivery more than ever- we have a immune-compromised family member so try to take reasonable measures.

I read the negative posts. Companies do not waste their money having negative posts put in.

When I read them I am looking for consistency. If 4 people out of 20 complain it broke in 3 months, well there is my sign.

It is there you will also see that a lot people are dumb. My favorite was some advanced book on a tech topic. Title had 'Advanced' as the first word. Person who scored it one star - 'Not a good book for a beginner. Way too complex'. I wished you could down vote a score, or recommend it for review.

SO I do not just read the one stars, I often read the 2 stars. People posting a 2 star are not as emotional, and just the facts.

I think part of our frustration with Amazon is that there is a sizable amount of clearly fraudulent behavior in their marketplace; addressing even the lowest hanging fruit (huge upswing of 5 star reviews across narrow time windows on a single product for one) would show good faith on their part, yet they don't manage their marketplace.

Another issue that adds to the confusion: a combined five star rating scale on a product that has 12 different variations is meaningless. They could treat them individually, but choose not to.

Not ordering from Amazon.

There are a couple dozen sites I trust across a number of categories of goods. I order from those, even if it means paying a bit of a premium.

Heck, maybe because it does. I’d rather pay $30 for a well made widget that’ll last a few years than $10 for a knock-off that’ll fail in a few days.