Yeah, I hate this. This has completely ruined the reviews in a lot of cases. I’ve seen electronics manufacturers combining reviews for completely different products. And I’ve seen reviews combined for completely different recordings (from different companies!) of the same symphony. I have no clue why Amazon lets them do this. It’s fraudulent to take a review for one product and represent it as another.
I didn’t pay for a ‘delivery time limit’ whatever that is, I paid for a product that I want in my sweaty little paws ASAP. Plus it’s scheduled to ship on May2, guess what the first day in their little ‘delivery time limit’ is?
I buy a lot of router bits made by Freud and sold by Amazon. There are literally hundreds of different cutting profiles. Some are easy to use and some are a bitch to set up correctly. Good reviews can help sort out the benefits and pitfalls of a particular bit. Amazon lumps all the reviews together! I spent a week exchanging emails with customer service trying to get them to post the reviews of a specific bit with that specific bit. No success. For whatever reason, they seem to think it’s too much trouble.
No ranking.
I use, “No problems,” in Amazon marketplace. I generally don’t do product reviews.
I never take Amazon’s stars at face value. I always skim for the last few low star complaints, then read them to see if they are legitimate problems, mere whines or something in between.
I hate marketplace sellers who send you an email that they are refunding you money because they are out of whatever you just ordered, but when you check, they are still listing it as in stock.
I also hate people who email you asking you please for 5-star feedback. I never review them at all. Except the ones who pester me for feedback before I have even received the item. They get nasty feedback regarding my not-received item. If they reply that the deadline for reception hasn’t passed, I reply again that what the heck are they doing asking me for feedback when they know I can’t possibly have the item.
If you choose the slowest shipping option because it’s cheap, they’re not going to race to get it to you. If it’s not stocked in a warehouse near where you live, they’re going to move it internally to a closer location first, and it’s probably not going to move overnight since you were directly asked how fast you needed it and you said you were fine with it taking a while.
Yep, this sucks.
A while back, a product i was reading about seemed to have a lot of these types of reviews, so i actually went through the first 100 reviews and counted. About 70 of them were subsidized reviews, where the reviewer had received the item free or at a discount in return for writing a review.
And—surprise, surprise—the vast majority of these 70 reviews were 5-star reviews, and the average star rating was over four and a half stars.
Of the 30-odd non-subsidized reviews, the average was closer to 3 stars, and there were a number of 1- and 2-star reviews.
I think that what Amazon should do for reviews like this is, instead of requiring a written disclaimer in the body of the review, have a check-box for subsidized reviews, and then allow shoppers to filter out such reviews while browsing.
I simply don’t buy a product that has subsidized reviews. I figure a company won’t do that unless they know the product is sub-par.
This. I’ve always been pleased with Amazon’s customer service but much of that is in years past and it may be starting to turn downhill. One of their star features always used to be fast free delivery, but with the invention of “Amazon Prime” this all seems to be going to hell. A few years ago I ordered a Christmas gift that I was afraid might not arrive on time, but I ordered it on a Friday night and it arrived on Sunday. Sunday! There isn’t even normally mail or courier delivery on Sunday. And shipping was free.
I recently ordered something (sold directly by Amazon) but now in order to get free shipping I had to opt for something like 8 day delivery time. The most expensive delivery option was next day. With my option, two business days later the thing still had not even shipped. WTF? There’s no reason it should take any longer to pick and package an item regardless of how it’s shipped. It’s like they were deliberately holding it in order to make the more expensive shipping more enticing. Backfired on them, though. While they were pissing around I found what I needed locally and canceled the order.
If you choose the one-day shipping, they ship it from the warehouse where the item is stocked, wherever that is. If you choose free shipping, they send it to the warehouse closest to you and ship it from there. (Likewise, with multiple items, they’ll send multiple shipments if necessary to fulfill an expedited order. But free shipping means that they’ll try to get the whole thing in one box, even if that means holding some things until the truck gets in from California or wherever.)