INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Amazon is testing an easier way for people to leave product feedback with the launch of one-tap ratings
The change is meant to encourage those who don&t have the time, energy or interest in writing reviews to still share their opinion about the
product, which benefits the larger Amazon community of shoppers who are reliant on ratings and reviews to make better purchasing
decisions.
If you have access to the new experiment, you&ll be able to just tap once to leave your star rating on any item, without having
to fill out additional fields like a review title and written review, as previously required.
You&ll also be able to access these one-tap
ratings from a number of places, including the &Your Orders& page on Amazon where you can tap the &Write a Review& button; by going to a
product page directly; or by responding to solicitations sent to you from Amazon or those that appear on the homepage when you log in.
The
process of leaving a one-tap review is extremely simple — you just select the star rating and you&ll then see a green checkmark confirming
the submission.
Only those one-tap ratings from Verified Purchases will contribute to the product overall star rating
You&re also able to expand on your feedback later on, if you choose, by adding a review, photos or video.
The new feature could go a long
way toward being able to collect feedback from a larger number of online consumers, as many don&t bother with writing reviews
It also could help balance out the ratings with feedback from real shoppers, as opposed to those who may have been incentivized or paid to
leave reviews.
That against Amazon policy, of course, and is a practice the retailer has been cracking down on for years — including by
outright banning incentivized reviews, by way of multiple lawsuits, fines and through suspensions of seller accounts
But there are still services out there offering to boost a product Amazon reviews through less-than-official tactics
And there are products on Amazon that continue to have suspiciously positive reviews, ranging from weight loss pills to Bluetooth
headphones.
Flooding those products with legit reviews from real customers could bring about a more accurate rating, even if Amazon isn&t
able to fully flush the scammers from its review community.
The new ratings test is showing both online and in the mobile app worldwide
Not everyone will see the feature at this time, as some customers will be in a control group.
Amazon confirmed the new feature is an
experiment, not a public launch.
&We are testing a feature that allows customers to leave feedback easily while also helping shoppers get
authentic customer ratings on products from a broader set of shoppers,& an Amazon spokesperson said.
