Amazon is one of the most successful businesses in the world and while they have their hands in many pies, they remain the titular e-commerce platform. Amazon is widely credited as a key component in the death of the high street. A compelling reasons for this is that Amazon seemingly opened up opportunity for normal people to design and sell their own merchandise in a way that was completely touchless.
The consumer could go from order, through payment, to receipt without ever interacting with the guy or gal taking the profits at the end of the process. This type of commerce became known as “drop-shipping” and was popularised by some of the concepts in Tim Ferris’ book “4 Hour Work Week”. The idea is compelling. Simply find something that people want to buy, create a storefront, and as far as possible automate the process by which they can receive their goods. Do this by creating a direct link between the order and the manufacturer so that they do the heavy lifting and you become liberated to pursue your own life goals – be it travelling or pottery or building a classic car from scratch. Within a short time, drop-shipping has become a very common model. And like everything else, it’s been optimised, hijacked and squeezed dry. The biggest winner, as always, are the platforms like Amazon.
This freedom for anyone to buy and sell direct has come at a cost. In times of yore, merchants had a distinct incentive to ensure that their products were superior quality. They would spend a lot on quality assurance in order to protect their reputation. This is rooted in an even older practise, whereby a bad reputation formulated by word of mouth could ruin a merchant. If you were in your cottage in your pre-industrial village and you heard that a merchant has conned your uncle and sold them a bad product, you wouldn’t buy from them. Then you’d tell your friends not to buy from them. Then they would tell their friends. This could end the merchant and so, there was a form of reputational regulation to keep people honest. But time moved on. Now, a seller doesn’t even need to see a product before they start to sell it via their “drop-shipping” model. And the scale of operation now means that sellers don’t care as much if they annoy a family and social group. They are selling to millions of people, so what if a few people have a bad experience. They’re not in it for repeat businesses, they just need to shift as many units as possible to hit a profit.
In response, the market has turned to reviews as a way to bring back this form of reputational regulation. But ratings can be manipulated, with good money being made for increasingly clever ways of bumping up positive reviews for dodgy sellers. The introduction of AI has meant that, as hard as the platforms try to stop the practice, they are faced with ever more well styled and grammatically correct reviews across any language.
This can be a confusing world, especially for those who are less savvy in terms of e-commerce. Luckily, there are some tips that can be used when looking at reviews to help make your money go further:
Look at ratio of score to number of reviews.
More reviews mean, normally, that the product has been available for longer and purchased more frequently. So, a product scoring 4.6* with 10,000 reviews is typically more trustworthy than a product scoring 5* with 10 reviews. This will help weed out dodgy sellers. But it’s worth taking into account that the seller might just be new and if you’re prepared to take the risk, you could end up grabbing a great introductory deal ahead of the curve. Just be careful.
Do more research outside of Amazon.
Once you’ve found something you like, check the validity of the company or manufacturer. Use established review sites such as TrustPilot. Beware copycat review sites which will write good reviews for anyone willing to pay. The general rule is that the more established and trustworthy a seller is, the more places you’ll find reviews and information about them. This research will also give you a good indication of other services, things like delivery, returns and customer service.
Trust bad reviews.
As cynical as this may seem, always start from the bottom. Sellers can pay for as many 5* reviews of glistening quality as they like, but they can’t take away bad reviews. So, get stuck into the 1* and 2* reviews. While almost certainly providing entertainment, they’ll give you an idea of potential design faults, weak points or poor quality, often with photo evidence. There tend to be two types of review at this level. The first is the “Karen” review, people who are upset by almost anything and brandish the 1* review by way of compensation. “The picture clearly shows a cyan product, what I received was aqua and now my partner is leaving me, 1*.” These should be examined thoroughly, with a glass of wine and popcorn. The second type are useful, genuine reviews with less emotion and more evidence. Pictures of broken stitching, bad build quality, time taken to break or fail. These are gold dust. What you’re looking for here are patterns – the more people who have experienced the same issue, the more likely it will happen to you. Once you’ve done the 1*s, do the 2*s and so on. Look for patterns and see if these put you off. Depending on what you’re buying, 10 minutes of effort here can make all the difference in the amount of value you get from a product.
Allow yourself to be put off.
It can be frustrating to see the perfect product in just the right colour, only to see it’s got middling reviews (for me, this is anything less than 4.5/5 or equivalent). It’s tempting at this point to dive into 5* town and look for reasons to buy. But don’t do it. These are so often the purchases that punish you. So, if something doesn’t feel right, go with your gut. You might not get the perfect colour or size, but you’ll also ensure you buy a product that will last more than 20 minutes.
Consider the high street.
The boom in e-commerce and models like drop shipping have threatened to cut high street retailers out of the loop, creating speculation that the high street is dying. While the impact of this is undeniable, it has led to a small silver lining. The retailers that have survived have really had to up their game. They have had to try hard to retain their customers, which means a significant investment in Quality Assurance. This means that for a small premium, shopping from high street retailers means you are more likely to get products that will weather the storm. The other benefit is that these retailers have established customer service and returns policies, and a vested interest in keeping customers happy so that they return – all of which leads to a better global experience for consumers.
So, the idea that price and value are different things has never been more prominent. You can spend as much as you like on Amazon, and you have no guarantee whatsoever of quality. Your £500 product could easily be a poor-quality cash grab from a neophyte drop-shipper. In a cost-of-living crisis, it can be easy to focus on price over value, opting for the lowest possible options. While this may sadly be a necessity for some, the time to look at the reviews and explore other options can save you from false economy, while simultaneously making a difference the planet and your pocket.
This was inspired by my mother, of all people, to help her stop buying things from Wish or getting into protracted battles of attrition with bad customer service (of which I am proud to say she’s won more than she’s lost.) Hopefully this guide will make life a little easier.
For more about how trust in companies and institutions has changed, check out Trust Shifts.
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