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OT: Whether Amazon Feedback is Posted on an Item is Determined by the *Seller.*

dgfoster

Diamond
Joined
Jun 14, 2008
Location
Bellingham, WA
Over the last year or so I have noticed a few of my reviews not ever being posted on Amazon. Those missing reviews were fair, in my opinion, but not positive. The positive ones, which make up the great majority always show up. So, I concluded that Amazon was selectively holding back negative reviews and basically I decided to not be their shill and to not write any reviews.

Today I learned that it is the sellers who can suppress reviews and Amazon only learns of this and investigates if there is a complaint. That Amazon does not track reviews posted in its website on items sold throug​h its website to be sure the reviews are posted and why the seller is allowed to suppress reviews at all without explanation to Amazon amazes me. It would be the simplest thing to for Amazon to note an exception of a review submitted but not posted and to ask for an explanation. But, according to a customer service rep I talked to at Amazon tonight, that is how it works. So, if you have a bad experience and post a negative review, you might want to check to see that it is not suppressed. And we should bear in mind that the Amazon reviews are not representative of all buyers' responses.

The back story:

I recently bought an power drill adaptor for the knee elevating screw on my BP mill. It was advertised as made of hardened steel and would fit most mills. Any number of people reported fitting problems and I was no exception. The bore was undersize. I measured my crank rod on my BP and it is .6246 or so. The last 1/3 of the bore of the adaptor was undersize. I reamed it out. No big deal, but pretty sloppy to not have some sort of QA at the factory consisting of a simple piece of .6250 rod acting as a no--go.

Secondly the item was made of steel as soft as steel gets---Rc 10. I checked it on a calibrated Wilson bench tester. I also did a simple file test. It filled on the teeth just as you would expect dead-soft steel to file. In some ways, being soft may not be the worst thing. I'd rather the adaptor wear out rather than it wear out my mill knee crank. But I do object to misrepresentation of an item as being made of better materials than it is.

So, I called Amazon customer service and to my surprise actually talked to living person who spoke English fairly well. I registered my complaints and asked about why I was not seeing some of my reviews on Amazon. that is when I got the explanation that the sellers themselves can autonomously block reviews and need not report blocks to Amazon and that Amazon does not check for suppressed reviews unless prompted by complaint. It is not hard to see how such a policy boosts sales at least in the short term. But Amazon could pay if they lose credibility.

FWIW,
Denis
 
Axxzon is a huge octopus with endless appetite for money.....and reputable business practices dont come into the equation............I saw an expose on the Zing doorbell ,and the other domestic "aids"......done by some Euro TV network....Scary ,unless you dont care who can buy information on you.
 
Over the last year or so I have noticed a few of my reviews not ever being posted on Amazon. Those missing reviews were fair, in my opinion, but not positive. The positive ones, which make up the great majority always show up. So, I concluded that Amazon was selectively holding back negative reviews and basically I decided to not be their shill and to not write any reviews.

Today I learned that it is the sellers who can suppress reviews and Amazon only learns of this and investigates if there is a complaint. That Amazon does not track reviews posted in its website on items sold throug​h its website to be sure the reviews are posted and why the seller is allowed to suppress reviews at all without explanation to Amazon amazes me. It would be the simplest thing to for Amazon to note an exception of a review submitted but not posted and to ask for an explanation. But, according to a customer service rep I talked to at Amazon tonight, that is how it works. So, if you have a bad experience and post a negative review, you might want to check to see that it is not suppressed. And we should bear in mind that the Amazon reviews are not representative of all buyers' responses.

The back story:

I recently bought an power drill adaptor for the knee elevating screw on my BP mill. It was advertised as made of hardened steel and would fit most mills. Any number of people reported fitting problems and I was no exception. The bore was undersize. I measured my crank rod on my BP and it is .6246 or so. The last 1/3 of the bore of the adaptor was undersize. I reamed it out. No big deal, but pretty sloppy to not have some sort of QA at the factory consisting of a simple piece of .6250 rod acting as a no--go.

Secondly the item was made of steel as soft as steel gets---Rc 10. I checked it on a calibrated Wilson bench tester. I also did a simple file test. It filled on the teeth just as you would expect dead-soft steel to file. In some ways, being soft may not be the worst thing. I'd rather the adaptor wear out rather than it wear out my mill knee crank. But I do object to misrepresentation of an item as being made of better materials than it is.

So, I called Amazon customer service and to my surprise actually talked to living person who spoke English fairly well. I registered my complaints and asked about why I was not seeing some of my reviews on Amazon. that is when I got the explanation that the sellers themselves can autonomously block reviews and need not report blocks to Amazon and that Amazon does not check for suppressed reviews unless prompted by complaint. It is not hard to see how such a policy boosts sales at least in the short term. But Amazon could pay if they lose credibility.

FWIW,
Denis

"FWIW"

"Credibilty"? Amazon? Surely you jest!

Wasn't aware they HAD any to risk the loss OF!

Waddyah expect .. when the founder of Amazon has the morals of a stick of juicy-Fruit chewing gum? Not his politics. Morals. Or lack, thereof.

Badly used and abused juicy fruit, at that. The sort found stuck under a vintage school desk, fall of 1940...
 
This might be fallout from two problems Amazon had with reviews. First problem was paid shills promoting a product. Amazon apparently made a half-assed AI/automated attempt to filter those out - but plenty clearly still remain. Next step in the review wars was dishonest sellers paying people to write crappy reviews for their competitors; sometimes even recommending the seller's product instead. Could be the "blocking" policy was Amazon's attempt to rectify this - so that unfairly slammed sellers were made whole??

Far as I can tell Amazon recognizes that somewhat credible reviews are to its own benefit - they get more traffic and repeat business that way. They also realize that every time a real human being gets involved, they're spending money. So if they can't automate a process, getting a human to correct it is often cumbersome.

My experience with the company has been pretty positive. The prices are reasonable, the shipping fast and free, and any time I've had a problem with anything actually sold and shipped by Amazon they've made good. I leave lots of reviews, too, very rarely five star and a few deservedly in the one and two star range. Pretty sure they all are still there.
 
Not directly related to a bad or good review, but the one time I had a problem with an item bought thru Amazon, it was handled extremely well. Bought a cheapo gage pin set, arrived busted up, a couple email exchanges, and they let me keep it and refunded 100% of my money.
 
The "business partner" wears the return and freebie...cost A/zon nothing...the Euro program also listed the vast data storage A/zon is /has built .....enough to keep facts on everyone on the planet,including facial recognition,and store information for sale to anyone needing it enough to pay.
 
If I was starting up to sell on Amazon I would only allow fairly good reviews until I had a lot of top reviews. Then I would gradually delete the less then top reviews until only top reviews would be left. Maybe leave up one or two less then perfect reviews to look honest.
What this has to do with sending out free seed packets I have no idea. So called "brushing"
Bill
 
Not directly related to a bad or good review, but the one time I had a problem with an item bought thru Amazon, it was handled extremely well. Bought a cheapo gage pin set, arrived busted up, a couple email exchanges, and they let me keep it and refunded 100% of my money.

That is how my friend justifies buying a lot of tools at Harbor Freight due to their liberal return policy.
 
As a buyer and a seller on Amazon I don't find much of anything works the way it should if you're a seller.

Buyer-seller communication sucks. I will get every message a buyer sends me, but buyers rarely respond to any messages I send them. probably because it's buried in some bullshit Amazon AI message that goes in your junkmail folder.

Amazon's entire search and ranking system is driven by ratings and revenue. The ones on the front page and buy box are the ones that generate the most revenue for Amazon.

As a seller, I cannot do much of anything with reviews of my products. The only thing I can do is request that offensive/vulgar reviews are removed. Never had to do that, all my legitimate product and seller reviews are 5 star, but I have two 2 star reviews without explanation on an otherwise 5 star product that aren't legit. I'd assume they are from a competitor, but Amazon won't do a thing about it.

All my stuff is seller fulfilled. Amazon makes up your delivery window to make you look bad. My products are delivered in 1-3 days always. Amazon states it will take up to 2 weeks for people to get it though. I can't change that.

As a seller, writing your "catalog pages" for your products is a joke. You don't have much control over what is displayed. Amazon AI actually changes and messes with your descriptions and then won't let you fix them. It's crazy.

So, if you find that your thing is different than the Amazon description realize that there's probably a 99% chance the seller knows this, but the only way they can fix the description is to cancel the listing and start a new one which will drop the product rankings to the bottom where it will never sell. I can't even call Amazon to ask them to fix it (not they would anyway even back when they did have seller support). As a buyer you can call and talk to a real person. As a seller I'm fucked. No chance in hell anything will get resolved in my favor.

My suggestion is if you are looking for something that is NOT a commodity product, like somebody actually makes it in this country, buy it somewhere else like Ebay.
 
As someone who sells on Amazon, I can tell you that this is in no way correct. Amazon customer service (and seller support) is famous for telling you whatever gets you off the phone the fastest.

I have zero control over reviews and ratings aside from reporting reviews that contain incorrect information. Which doesn't do any good anyway. For example, if a review says the product is wonderful but it didn't work for their application and gives a 1 star rating, the seller could report that as a false negative review, but from what I've seen, Amazon still won't do anything about it. If I get a bad review, I live with it and the only thing to do is get more good reviews to keep my average up. So, if anything, it's the opposite of what you think is happening.

And if you don't believe me, here's a link to the Amazon Seller forums. See for yourself what a nightmare Amazon can be to deal with on the Seller's side: Amazon Seller Forums

Now, to be fair, you will see a LOT of absolute morons making life hard for themselves. But you will also see legitimate sellers with legitimate products having real issues with Amazon.
 
Two Thoughts:

1) I do not intend to broadly paint Amazon with a tar brush as some irresponsible and evil empire. They did easily offer a full refund on this and they have appropriately refunded money on other "problem" sales. No issue with that. I do think that if they lose credibility as evenly posting both positive and negative reviews, they may suffer.

2) It is very interesting to hear from sellers here and the difficulty they have with listing text and shipping times statements. With respect to shipping times being stated as "two weeks" but in fact receiving an item only 3 days after ordering, I have noticed that many times. So, now I figure that 2 week time is likely not accurate. I sell on eBay and list my own shipping expectations and have control over the exact wording of my listing except that contact info and, I think, video links are not allowed.

I've learned from the various thoughtful insider comments above.

Denis
 
2) It is very interesting to hear from sellers here and the difficulty they have with listing text and shipping times statements. With respect to shipping times being stated as "two weeks" but in fact receiving an item only 3 days after ordering, I have noticed that many times. So, now I figure that 2 week time is likely not accurate. I sell on eBay and list my own shipping expectations and have control over the exact wording of my listing except that contact info and, I think, video links are not allowed.
This depends if the item you're buying is FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) or FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). We are strictly FBA, so we send inventory in to Amazon fulfillment centers and they handle the rest. Shipping issues and returns are on them to handle, which I am ecstatic to pay them to do. BUT, when I send inventory to them, it takes anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks for it all to settle in to whichever fulfillment center it will be shipped from, and when my stuff is in 'fulfillment center transfer', the ship times on our item page might show 3+ weeks to be in stock, but end up ready to ship in a few days. It constantly changes as they shuffle shit all over the country. Items in fulfillment center transfer are sellable, but they obviously need to arrive and be scanned in at their FC before shipping to the customer.

FBM is simpler in that all of your inventory is at your facility, just like Ebay, Etsy, etc. But you get to deal with the mouth breathers that can't tie their own shoes, let alone make an internet purchase without issues, and the crooks that like to figure out how to get refunded for a product and not send it back.
 
This depends if the item you're buying is FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) or FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). We are strictly FBA, so we send inventory in to Amazon fulfillment centers and they handle the rest. Shipping issues and returns are on them to handle, which I am ecstatic to pay them to do. BUT, when I send inventory to them, it takes anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks for it all to settle in to whichever fulfillment center it will be shipped from, and when my stuff is in 'fulfillment center transfer', the ship times on our item page might show 3+ weeks to be in stock, but end up ready to ship in a few days. It constantly changes as they shuffle shit all over the country. Items in fulfillment center transfer are sellable, but they obviously need to arrive and be scanned in at their FC before shipping to the customer.

FBM is simpler in that all of your inventory is at your facility, just like Ebay, Etsy, etc. But you get to deal with the mouth breathers that can't tie their own shoes, let alone make an internet purchase without issues, and the crooks that like to figure out how to get refunded for a product and not send it back.



100% agree!

Selling on Amazon leads you to question whether limits of human stupidity exist.

There's a dramatically higher percentage of shitty people purchasing things on Amazon than any other platform. Amazon's A to Z guarantee is really super if you're a shitbag.
 
We are super lucky to not have had issues so far, other than people not measuring things we asked them to measure before purchasing. It's encouraging that other platforms have less of these issues, we are looking at broadening our horizons, so to speak.
 








 
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