Amazon Reviews - make sure they are for the item you are looking at.

JoolzS

It's been a while since I bought anything for more than a few quid on Amazon, but I've been looking for a new TV today and noticed something I hadn't seen before. (If I'm a complete idiot and it's been around for a while, then ignore this. Or maybe get as annoyed as I am right now.)

One of the TVs I was considering was the http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-TX-32A400B-32-inch-Ready-Freeview/dp/B00IOQ5TU8/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

I was reading through all the FANTASTIC reviews of it and then noticed that most of them are for other Panasonic models, including 40" and 50" TVs (and many others in between). In fact, from a quick skim, of the first 12 pages of reviews only FOUR reviews are for the actual TV I was considering. I can see that they give a link to the actual item that is being reviewed, but it is in smaller text and not obvious at first glance.

I know that for a long time they have combined the reviews of books - HB, paperback, trade paperback, etc - and that is fine because a review of a book is a review of the story that book is telling. But having reviews of one Panasonic TV combined with reviews of another seems completely unacceptable to me. Showing my age here, but it's like someone leaving a fantastic review of the VW Golf and VW using that as a review of a Jetta!

JReacher1

It looks a like the reviews are all for the same model of tv but with different screen sizes.
Not sure if it's anything underhand as many products come in different sizes. For example if you read reviews of an item of clothing you would expect reviews for all different sizes not just the one size.

MsCasey

I've found this a lot on Amazon myself. For instance the Harry Potter Paperback Book Collection I recently ordered, some of the reviews are for the Hardback Version, even one of the photos shows the Hard book Version when looking at the paperback one.


Sorry cannot post links.

lulu_92

I guess if it's only the screen size that differs in the reviews then I wouldn't be too concerned.

If the reviews were for a DVD player on the page of the TV then I would be more annoyed.

bod1467

It's still a bit disingenuous though, and looks like a means to pad listings with reviews (to make them seem more popular) rather than provide useful information.

JoolzS

JReacher1 wrote: »

It looks a like the reviews are all for the same model of tv but with different screen sizes.
Not sure if it's anything underhand as many products come in different sizes. For example if you read reviews of an item of clothing you would expect reviews for all different sizes not just the one size.

I may have accepted that as an explanation, except if you read the reviews the ones for the 40" and 50" TVs are FANTASTIC but the ones for the 32" (that I could find) are pretty much "good TV", "OK for price", etc, so I don't believe for one second that the only difference is screen size. I also shouldn't have to compare all the specs of 4 or 5 TVs just to ensure the only difference is screen size.

I agree with Bod1467 - it's padding the reviews.

It could be that Panasonic have told Amazon that they are happy for all those models to be lumped together in the reviews, but it lost them a sale to me (even though I have a Panasonic TV that I do think is fantastic).

I also used the TV as one example. Another is http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roku-3-HD-Streaming-Player/dp/B00E37LZVY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427374075&sr=8-1&keywords=roku. If you check the reviews there (1,127) they are reviews of all 5 Roku products that Amazon sell - all of which are different products with very different prices.

JReacher1

JoolzS wrote: »

I may have accepted that as an explanation, except if you read the reviews the ones for the 40" and 50" TVs are FANTASTIC but the ones for the 32" (that I could find) are pretty much "good TV", "OK for price", etc, so I don't believe for one second that the only difference is screen size. I also shouldn't have to compare all the specs of 4 or 5 TVs just to ensure the only difference is screen size.

I agree with Bod1467 - it's padding the reviews.

It could be that Panasonic have told Amazon that they are happy for all those models to be lumped together in the reviews, but it lost them a sale to me (even though I have a Panasonic TV that I do think is fantastic).

I also used the TV as one example. Another is http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roku-3-HD-Streaming-Player/dp/B00E37LZVY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427374075&sr=8-1&keywords=roku. If you check the reviews there (1,127) they are reviews of all 5 Roku products that Amazon sell - all of which are different products with very different prices.

The ROKU reviews are slightly strange as although they are completely different products they appear to be sold as one product with five different options of products. By doing this they have syndicated the reviews across all 5 products.

I agree that is strange behaviour.

I don't however think that its anything terribly devious as they do seem to post a significant number of negative reviews for these products.

Azari

JReacher1 wrote: »

It looks a like the reviews are all for the same model of tv but with different screen sizes.
Not sure if it's anything underhand as many products come in different sizes. For example if you read reviews of an item of clothing you would expect reviews for all different sizes not just the one size.

It's not just sizes. They group things on various attributes if the name is much the same. It's not underhand as it makes sense in most cases.

Unfortunately, sometimes manufactures significantly change the item but keep a very similar name and in those cases the reviews can be extremely inaccurate.

trukdiver

JoolzS wrote: »

I know that for a long time they have combined the reviews of books - HB, paperback, trade paperback, etc - and that is fine because a review of a book is a review of the story that book is telling. But having reviews of one Panasonic TV combined with reviews of another seems completely unacceptable to me. Showing my age here, but it's like someone leaving a fantastic review of the VW Golf and VW using that as a review of a Jetta!

Not necessarily. The Kindle version may be quite different from the print version. The actual text should be the same, but photos, maps, diagrams etc may not be the same, depending on how it's been converted. e.g. full page maps on the print version and thumbnail size maps on the Kindle.

Money-Saving-King

Another thing I've noticed is a lot of reviews where the owner has been given the product by a manufacturer to then write a review on Amazon. Here's an example

http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R10W68!!!I3VRD/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00KL4WY9K&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=560798&store=electronics

Notice "Disclosure: I was kindly sent this by the manufacturer to give an independent unbiased review." at the bottom.

Looking at that persons reviews it appears every single item has been given to him to write a review about. some of the items are worth over £100! Be interesting to know how he does this eg a member of a market research company?

d70cw6

first rule of thumb is to ignore amazon customer reviews.
go to a reputable site for decent reviews of products