8 Facts About ‘Positive’ Reviews in Online Shopping You Probably Didn’t Know About

Last Updated on 2020-11-24 , 5:36 pm

The shopping landscape has changed drastically over the past 10 years. Back in the past, you can request to hold the bag, look at its zippers and feel the quality.

Today? You only have a picture to base it on.

That’s unacceptable, right? I mean, how do you justify spending your hard-earned money just because of a picture?

So, being the untrustworthy humans that we are, we decided to find another thing to justify the purchase.

Online reviews. Reviews by users, or guinea pigs as we call them, who bought the products and wrote about their experience.

Supposedly.

Because being the illustrious humans that we are, we’ll definitely find way to exploit the new benchmark.

Here are 8 facts about online reviews you’d need to know, and the truth’s way scarier than you’d have thought.

1. In 2016, A Huge Majority of Singaporean Adults Shopping Online

Let’s set some context first. Exactly how big is online shopping in Singapore? 10%? 20%? Or maybe…really?…40%?

Nope, it’s 73% of adult Singaporeans.

To put it into perspective, more adults are shopping online than percentage of people who voted for PAP to remain in power in the last General Election.

Which was 70%, by the way.

And the total spending on online shopping in Singapore was estimated to be about S$3 billion. Yes, billion as in a B.

In fact, Singaporeans are classified as one of the more confident cross-border shoppers in the entire world.

So what does that tell you? That there’s real money to be earned in this industry. Which is why we have this entire situation about online reviews.

Now you finally know why Orchard Road is like a ghost town, huh?

2. Online Reviews Are Second Most Trusted in Most People’s Shopping Experience

What’s the first thing you look for when you get onto an online shopping platform? Reviews, right?

According to a study, it was found that online reviews has serious influence on your shopping decisions.

The one with the strongest impact is, of course, reviews or recommendations by friends and family members.

In other words, word of mouth marketing.

Which is why that fish stall uncle always sell out his fishes at 7 am in the morning. Because the 13 floor auntie told my mom about how fresh his fishes are.

And the second is…*drum roll, please*

Online reviews.

PricewaterHouse Coopers conducted a survey back in 2016 and found that social media has a stronger influence on online shopping behaviour in Singapore.

In our little red dot, 57% of respondents used social media for reviews, compared to the global average of 45%.

Data analytics lecturer Koh Noi Sian from Nanyang Polytechnic found that positive reviews can help boost sales by 9%.

Which is why some companies are specialising in brushing.

3. Brushing: A “Marketing” Strategy

The act of getting individuals to put fake reviews online is known as brushing. Who comes up with that anyway.

And mind you, it’s a booming industry.

A recruiting company for this actually has 80,000 fake reviewers on their payroll, including some lovely fellow Singaporeans as well.

However, when they were asked if they consider this as cheating, they said it was merely a ‘marketing strategy’ to help companies boost sales.

Like that also can ah.

But here’s the kicker: A full-time fake online reviewer can earn up to $1,600/month.

4. What does the reviews really do?

So there you are, wondering, why are companies so willing to pay for reviews. I mean, if it’s just for people to buy, they can focus on making good products and depend on real reviews, right?

Nope.

Just like how you have to send your resumes out to let employers know you’re available for hire, online stores need reviews to let shoppers know they even exist.

Why? Because algorithm.

When we shop online, we typically only looked at online stores that comes out at the top. It’s pretty rare that you’ll be hardworking enough to scroll all the way down to search for that elusive store.

And even if you do, you’ll be turned off by the fact that there’s no reviews for the products.

So, by paying for good online reviews, not only will people be more convinced to buy your product, your online shop will also be seen by more people.

“When customers shop online, they’d only browse the top few sellers listed on the search. With brushing, we’re able to boost our rankings so that we’re visible when customers do a search for products.”

In other words, these fake online reviews aren’t there just to deceive people, but a computer, too.

5. Fake Profiles Built On Real Lives of People

Gone are the days where you’re able to tell whether a review is fake or not. We’ve always known that there are fake reviews out there.

We just didn’t know how powderful they got.

Back in the old days (I can’t believe I’m talking about old days, bah!), a fake review profile is pretty easy to spot. It has an obviously fake profile with no display picture.

Today, that fake review is totally different. Fake accounts are created and built around the lives of real people overseas.

So every fake account looks like a real one.

After all, remember: a person can earn up to $1,600 a month doing fake reviews leh. Of course there must be some quality in its fakeness lah, right? Cannot be just Photoshop a person into a stock image and say it’s real mah #justsaying

6. Bad Reviews Can Be Fake Too

Remember the last point we talked about? The point about bad (and thus authentic) reviews? That’s not how it worked in real life.

Business is a dirty, dirty world and sometimes, just sometimes, competitors might decide to win by pulling you down.

In other words, by hiring people to talk smack about your business.

After all, it has indeed happened in Singapore.

And the Gushcloud saga is one that’s reported. Who knows how many businesses have apparently paid reviewers to talk shit about their competitors.

7. Consumers Need To Protect Themselves Well

Reviews are the lifeblood of a shopping platform. Without reviews, people won’t buy. And without people buying, there’ll be no sellers and at the end of the day, the platform will die.

In other words, they’re here to stay. The good news is that these online platforms have the incentive to clean up their review sections.

Because regardless of how many reviews the platform has, as long as the products are not good, people are still going to leave anyway.

But the bad news is, these platforms might not be able to do much anyway. Thousands and thousands of reviews are being uploaded to these platforms all the while, and they’re done by real people.

Amazon claimed that only 10% of their reviews are fake, but Ms Koh from NYP is suspicious because over 80% of the reviews are positive.

Which is very “skewed”, according to her.

8. Then How? Should You Stop Shopping Online

Don’t do that. I mean, when it comes to buying stuff, it’s still cheaper online. And the variety is wayyyyyyyy better than brick and mortar stores.

Renting in Singapore not cheap, y’know.

For one, you can use websites that review reviews and tell you which is likely fake, and which is real.

Copy the URL of a product and paste it into such websites.

The website will remove suspicious reviews. Reviews that were submitted by accounts that were just created, or has a lot of repeated words.

But like with all things, these websites aren’t 100% accurate lah.

Another thing you can do is to check for reviews across various platforms, and not just one. So that even if one platform has excessive praise for that particular seller and product, you might be able to discover negative (and more authentic) reviews from other sites.

That or look for reviews that are more balanced, something that highlights both the pros and cons of the products.

But to be honest, the entire situation is messier because platforms has made it easier for you to write reviews.

Nobody wants to sit down and type a heartfelt essay on the pros of getting a nipple pad. Nope. The most you’d do is to tap on “prepared answers”.

On Shopee, when you rate a product, you can click on buttons that say Product arrived in good condition, Shown as display and other generic review phrases.

So, now that you know these facts, it’s time to be more critical about the reviews you see online.

Featured Image: Black Salmon / Shutterstock.com