Trusted Shops, a European company in the buyer protection branch, published their survey results regarding the influence of product reviews. Most of the German customers, who took part in the survey, mentioned that the reviews are important.
According to the published data, 55% of the respondents say that reviews of shops and products are essential to decide whether the product should be purchased. And three-quarters of the respondents mentioned that it is crucial to know whether real customers write reviews.
In addition, 74% of the respondents would like to see labels on the reviews, showing that real people provide feedback. However, 43% say the labels should be present on every rating, and 31% think it is needed for important or expensive products.
In conclusion, the article provides five characteristics of fake ratings.
- Poor writing style. The shop or product has only positive ratings. In reality, it is improbable to have good feedback only.
- It often happens if the reviews are purchased from agencies. So, the reviews are written in bulk and quite often - using automated translation software which leads to unusual idioms and some errors.
- The shop doesn’t react to customers’ feedback.
- A lot of ratings were posted within a short time. It often happens for reviews purchased from related services.
- Anonymous ratings are also quite often used to publish fake reviews, as it allows one to do it more straightforwardly without spending time to create an account.
Image Credit: Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
