I have been reviewing items on Amazon for several years. I have reviewed over 200 products in detail. I review almost every item I buy, whether I paid full price, received a discount, or got it free. I always followed FTC guidelines, disclosing if I received a discount or a sample in exchange for an honest review. I also gave both good and bad reviews, as I was being honest. I was never paid for my reviews, as that is against Amazon policy.
Last week Amazon revoked my right to review anything. ANYTHING. All of my past reviews were deleted. The “review this product” button is gone from my order page. I got no notice, no explanation, no way to contest the decision. Amazon customer service had no clue what was going on. They had to send my case to a specialist, who sent me this poor excuse for a response:
What???
I had to do some research. It’s happening to a lot of people, including bloggers. It started with book reviewers, but has since spread like wildfire. People are calling it “The Purge.” In a vain attempt to get rid of fake or dishonest reviews, Amazon is deleting reviews and banning reviewers en masse. There is even a group of vigilantes called “The Mob” who stalk product pages and the Amazon reviewers forums to find “coupon reviewers” and vote as many of their reviews unhelpful as possible. Not so coincidentally, I became a victim of their harassment less than a week before I was banned. It makes me wonder if their activity is influencing Amazon’s. A sudden influx of unhelpful votes could have put me on Amazon’s radar, so to speak. The fact that such hateful, spiteful people can effect Amazon makes me worry for Amazon’s future.
While I understand that not all “coupon reviewers” are honest and their false reviews can hurt the customer, I also must argue that it doesn’t mean we are all bad. Many of us take pride in our work. Many are bloggers looking for content for their sites, who are willing to help out the seller by including a review on Amazon too. We write detailed reviews with both pros and cons. I often like to add specifics on how I use the product and why. We are also far more likely to leave photo and videos on our review, so the consumer can see what the product actually looks like versus the stylized photo the seller presents. Seriously, how often do clothes you buy online actually look and fit like they do on the model?
I also have a rather unique perspective in that I know the blogger review system from both sides. I work as an ecommerce sales manager for a brand that uses Amazon as one of our many sales outlets. We sell products that most people do not want to freely admit that they purchase, so word of mouth referrals are almost non-existent. I can tell you from experience, that it is nearly impossible to sell an item that has no reviews or worse, only bad reviews.
Regular brands can expect about 2% of people who purchase from them to review. Due to the sensitive nature of our products, it is even less. That means we have to sell at least 100 products to even get one measly review! Even if you do get an organic review, the typical review contains very little information. They are often “works great” or “too small!” Bloggers are much more informative. Also the average person is more likely to review if they don’t like the product, than if they do. This in itself makes it look like the percentage of people who don’t like a product is greater than it is. Online retailers know that the best way to boost sales is to get informative reviews. Asking bloggers to do an honest review is the quickest way to get our products seen online. “The Mob” likes to call this “manipulating” and maybe it is to a degree, but it is simply another sales tactic like ads.
Because of this, I see no point to Amazon removing our reviews and banning us. If they continue to do so, Amazon will only have useless reviews available and sales will drop. I certainly won’t be buying anything from them anymore. I also won’t be using my Amazon Associates account to refer sales to them anymore. If that program isn’t considered “manipulative,” then I don’t know what is. How is trading a commission for a sale referral any different than giving someone a discount in exchange for a review? It isn’t. Amazon’s just pissed they don’t directly get a cut from the blogger reviews. If the ban us all, they will end up losing a lot of sales. Frankly, I hope they do. I have been a loyal customer for years and they think they can get away with treating me like dirt? Nope.
Reviews and Freebies 