Swallowing freely! Jinyi Review War October 4th 13:27
Review of products sold on online shopping sites is an extremely important factor for sellers that greatly influences sales. Under such circumstances, it has become clear that many exhibitors are improperly manipulating reviews as a means of advertising and promotion. Appears up to "Sage Review" to reconcile the reputation of rival companies. A review war without Jinyi has begun. (The darkness of online advertising and review review team)
Sage review
In August, about 20 businessmen gathered at a hotel in Kanagawa and Hakone to hold a study group.
The participants are all those who sell products on Amazon.
The purpose was to discuss countermeasures against fraudulent reviews that each of them was damaged.
One participant introduced the “sage review”, which is a low evaluation for the socks he was exhibiting.
There was a dirty, messy photograph that says “the hole was open”. Despite being inspected and shipped, the returned product was cut in two.
In addition, the review texts on products from other vendors are copied and attached as low-rated reviews, or hundreds of large orders are shipped and returned with unknown destinations. He complained one after another that sales were being harassed.
"Product has exploded"! ?
Daisuke Matsuda who lives in Toyama Prefecture who participated in the study session. A former engineer of a machine maker, he has been losing his salary last year and selling headlights.
Matsuda's product has a “sage review” in July.
“When I used it on the site, it exploded! No! It was ignored to ask for reimbursement. It ’s the worst. If you check it, there ’s no PSE certification!
A few days later, the buyer who gave this review sent back the product that exploded. Matsuda talked about the surprise at that time as follows.
“The box wasn't open in the first place, so if I thought it was strange, it was an unused item that wasn't used at all. Of course, there was no explosion.”
The review says "I was ignored to ask for compensation," but I never interacted with the buyer.
It's not just harassment
This one review attached to Matsuda's product.
It will do more than just harassment.
The day after the review is posted. The Amazon side discovered this review, and with the message that “the customer received a complaint, I would like you to prepare a document that shows the safety of the product”, Matsuda's product was forced to stop selling .
In particular, this time was just before Amazon held an annual sale. For Mr. Matsuda, who borrowed money for the sale and bought a large number of products, only a few reviews were going on.
After that, Mr. Matsuda prepared 15 kinds of documents to prove the safety of the product, negotiated with Amazon, and finally resumed the exhibition after more than one week.
The damage caused by this sage review is said to have reached 1 million yen.
“I think other companies in the same industry are doing it. It would have been in the way. It would be better to have such harassment and disappear.”
Exhibitors who put their hands on the review operation
Some people have embarked on a “review operation” in response to this “sage review”.
It was summer in the summer when the “sage review” arrived for a man selling fitness equipment. The review that “the rubber has run out” was posted one after another, and the sales decreased by about 30%.
“Since it is made in thousands, defective products are inevitably mixed, but if similar contents (reviews) were made at similar timing, this was done.”
Therefore, we decided to delete the review of Star 1 that was in a row.
In the introduction of an acquaintance, I contacted a Chinese intermediary who “undertakes to delete an inconvenient review”. The service description that was sent suggested that reviews could be deleted on Amazons around the world.
The cost per case is 800 yuan (about 12,000 yen). I felt that the cost of several lines of text was not cheap. In addition, the success rate was 40% for Amazon in the US and 60% for Japan and Europe.
Still, the man said that the cost was satisfactory.
“The price of 12,000 yen per case was cheap and I wanted to do it right away. If I can keep the sales of hundreds of thousands and millions in the future, it ’s absolutely ant.”
In addition to “Sage Review”, the man also revealed that he was being attacked by exploiting the Amazon review system called the “Helpful” button.
The “Useful” button is a mechanism for evaluating reviews that the user thought was “helpful” at Amazon.
A review with a greater number of times this “useful” button has been pressed is displayed at the top of the page where it is easy to see.
“On smartphones, only the top three reviews are displayed on the first page. Sales are greatly influenced by what reviews are posted on the top page.”
The male product was given 3 reviews and 1 star review, each with 20 “helpful” buttons, and the low-rated reviews were displayed at the top.
For this reason, the man asked the contractor to press a total of 100 “useful” buttons for the 4 reviews of 5 stars so that highly rated reviews were displayed at the top.
“Now, even if a 1 star review is given, it is unlikely to be displayed in the top. The cost of having a button pressed once is about 60 yen, so this is about 10,000 yen. "
These measures worked, and sales were restored.
Review operation is so easy
Exhibitors who put their hands on the review operation in an attempt to increase sales of their products as much as possible.
But can anyone easily manipulate reviews?
In fact, there are sites where you can easily purchase “reviews” on the Internet.
The site has servers overseas, and the service content was majesticly posted on Amazon in Japan and the United States, "Acquiring Amazon reviews in a secure and secure way."
If you look at the price list, you can submit 30 reviews for each review. In addition, it is written that ▽ "useful" button and buttons to report violations can be pushed in large quantities, ▽ can increase the order of listing of products in Amazon, etc., ▽ delete bad reviews There was also a service that said.
I was able to listen to the exhibitor's man who spent about 1.5 million yen to use this service.
The purchased review is for a protective film for smartphones. Some were later removed to the Amazon side, but they still showed me the reviews that are still on the product page.
It was written as “It was easy to put it neatly on the catch phrase,” and a star 5 was attached.
“For example, if you purchase 1,000 reviews, it will cost 3 million yen. However, if you can display the product at the top of the search screen, it will generate 5 million yen and 6 million yen per month. “You can immediately“ recover ”your invested funds.” Even if you pay for a review and buy a review, you'll get enough rewards.
“The Amazon side also monitors reviews, so if a large number of reviews are made in a short period of time, the account may be suspended and it will be suspended. There are a lot of “throwing” vendors who are thinking about doing things. ”In addition to this site, there are many other vendors acting as a reviewer. He told me that “study” is constantly being researched.
“As a seller, I want to deliver good products to consumers, but if there are so many bad reviews in the Amazon, I can't even sell the product without some bad reviews. The current situation is that vendors with fraudulent reviews outperform the Amazon.
I can't help it ...
The fact that the reviewer can freely manipulate it is different from the original purpose of review. It is the consumer who is left behind.
I asked some questions to a man who talked about protecting his products.
Q How do you feel?
A I think that I keep the rules as much as possible, but in order to fight against opponents who don't follow the rules, it is unavoidable because I can not win unless I fight my own level down to the last minute. I think that
QDoes your conscience hurt?
AA seller (exhibitor) whose quality is clearly lower than his / her own category is in the top of his / her category. It is better for customers to receive good products. I don't think it's bad, but I think it's a way to protect my products.
Q. Is it wrong to be fooled?
A: I don't say so, but I want consumers to be smarter and more scrutinized to be able to tell whether they are genuine. There are lots of “Yarakara” that do bad things by taking advantage of consumers' ignorance. That is true.
Q. Isn't it that you are becoming one of those “Yarakara”?
The man just laughed, "mmmm".
One month after this interview. The man said that 300 “useful” buttons were pressed for a low rating review of star 1 for his product, so he asked a vendor to push back 1000 “useful” buttons for a 5 star review. It was.
The battle over reviews is just overheating.
How do we consumers
So what should we consumers do?
Shinichi Yamaguchi, a professor at the international university GLOCOM, who is familiar with the Internet information society, said, “The fact that the review has spread is not only misleading people's purchasing decisions, but also makes it impossible for us to believe the information on the Internet. It must be recognized as a negative and dangerous one, but first it should be handled by a platform that handles online shopping, but it is actually difficult to monitor and delete all reviews. Imposing responsibility doesn't solve the problem, it is also necessary for each of us to recognize that there may always be fake in the information on the net, which protects itself It leads to something. "