Amazon Dumping Simpler Five Star Rating Method: Using Percentages Could Allow Sellers To Easily Cheat System?

Amazon's "Five Star" rating system for the products listed on the world's largest e-commerce platform has been widely appreciated and criticized too. It appears the company is tweaking the system, and it doesn't appear to be in the best interest of the end buyers or consumers.

Amazon has degraded the way it presented the previously calculated five-point product review or rating scale, which is visually represented by up to five yellow stars beside the item's picture. Although Amazon is trying to ensure the reviews are authentic and stem from actual end users, the new method of presenting the overall rating of a product is confusing and open to manipulation.

Amazon Replaces Simpler Product Rating, Adopts Percentage Of Five-Star Reviews

Be it Amazon, Flipkart, or the myriad number of online marketplaces selling millions of products, nearly every e-commerce platform is fighting to offer authentic customer reviews. These reviews and ratings help keep sellers in check and ensure product quality, buyer experience, and other aspects don't fluctuate much.

Needless to say, Amazon has one of the most pleasant apps and online or mobile shopping experiences. However, it has always faced an uphill battle with sellers. Sellers use nearly every unethical or immoral trick in the book to tilt product ratings in their favor. Many even put-up fake positive reviews or just buy glowing reviews to drive more sales.

Amazon's traditional Five Star review system has been trying to keep reviews and ratings authentic, as it is critical to represent them accurately to the consumer. To date, the rating was calculated as an average of all the star ratings the product received. For example, if an item has seven five-star ratings and an equal number of one-star ratings, the average shown would be 3 stars based on 14 ratings.

However, Amazon has been selectively testing a new way to present the ratings, which seems to offer percentages of five-star ratings. Referring to the same example mentioned above, wherein an item has seven five-star ratings and seven one-star ratings, under the new system, Amazon would now have a search page rating of "50% 5-star," with the average rating of 3 preceding it.

How Is Amazon's New "Percentage Of Five-Star Reviews" Rating System Open To Manipulation?

Previously, Amazon's Review and Rating system, condensed into a simple Five-point grading, was essentially an average of all the reviews submitted by the buyers. In other words,

Amazon clubbed all ratings and then drew a simple indicator that was easily understood by potential buyers.

However, the new system is clearly biased in favor of positive or five-star ratings. The new system essentially attempts to sideline the poor ratings, and instead, offers a rosy picture that's supported by the percentage of only positive ratings the product has reviewed.

The new "Percentage Of Five-Star Reviews" may even further encourage fraudulently obtaining sufficient-enough five-star reviews to tilt the number and counter the truthfully negative reviews.

Amazon may have attempted to offer more information at a quick glance. However, the older system was much easier and quicker to read and judge the listing.

Amazon has maintained the older method of representing the average reviews on the left of the new system. Additionally, buyers can still see the percentage breakdown of ratings on the product page.

Reports from some internet users suggest Amazon is currently testing the new system on Amazon India and Amazon Germany websites and apps. It is possible the e-commerce giant might finetune the system.

Some early adopters have suggested that Amazon retains the older five-star system and displays the same prominently, instead of focusing on the percentage of positive reviews. However, this perception could gradually change as buyers get accustomed to the new system.