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So sellers want to have lots of reviews, and some step over the line to get them. That's what it takes to put brand A's dog food above brand B's dog food in search results. Kate Linebaugh: Lots of sales and lots of five-star ratings and lots of reviews. So for example, if you typed in something like dog food, what appears on that first row in search results probably is the best-selling dog food on Amazon. In order to have lots of sales they need a high average star rating and lots of reviews. Nicole Nguyen: And so sellers are desperate to get onto that first page and into that first row and in order to do so, they have to have lots of sales. Its search algorithm measures things like how many people are clicking on a product, how many people are buying it, and how positive the reviews are.
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Amazon uses them to decide how to rank products on its site. Kate Linebaugh: Reviews are really important in another way. And so as there was more money at stake, sellers realized that reviews could be as good of an investment as marketing or advertising the product. Nicole Nguyen: As Amazon became more and more popular and Amazon opened its website to third party sellers and created a Marketplace, reviews became something that could be manipulated. Kate Linebaugh: Have the reviews changed over time? Nicole Nguyen: Since Amazon sold books, they've had reviews on the site, yes. Kate Linebaugh: Have customer reviews always been part of the service? And so they need a recommendation from someone else to make them feel confident in actually adding it to their cart and getting it shipped to their home. Nicole Nguyen: A lot of people put stock in reviews online because they can't touch and see the product that they're buying. Kate Linebaugh: And for these sellers to get noticed in this infinite bazaar, they need customers to post reviews. So on any given item, sunglasses, shoes, beauty products, there are thousands upon thousands of sellers competing in the same category. Amazon doesn't put limits on how many sellers can come to this marketplace. It's a bottomless virtual place where sellers can come sell their goods to all of Amazon's customers. Nicole Nguyen: The Amazon Marketplace is what I like to call an infinite bazaar. Millions of other companies use the site to get in front of customers through what is called the Amazon Marketplace. It's Friday, August 13th.Ĭoming up on the show, the often bogus, sometimes menacing world of Amazon reviews.Īmazon is the largest online retailer in the world, but it's not just Amazon that sells products there. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power.
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Kate Linebaugh: What Nicole found was a whole world of sellers that are willing to fake and manipulate customer reviews. And I realized that every single one of those reviews was fake, and just became obsessed with figuring out why there were so many fake reviews on Amazon and who was writing them. And they all seemed legitimate and there were like photos of people with earrings that were not the earrings that were sent to me. Nicole Nguyen: This product had like 1000 five-star reviews. But what stood out to Nicole here was that the customer reviews had been glowing. Kate Linebaugh: Nicole writes a personal tech column, so she knows things on the internet aren't always as they seem. They were like plastic, sort of like Barbie, like costume jewelry. And these clip on earrings were from this no-name brand that I had never heard of, and when they arrived, they were absolutely not clip on earrings. Nicole Nguyen: I once bought a pair of clip on earrings.
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Kate Linebaugh: Our colleague Nicole Nguyen told us about a shopping experience she had on Amazon that drew her attention to the power of online reviews. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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