I recently had a drive-by 1-star rating only dive bomb a long established good seller. But I’m handmade, so that means even after several years it only had 17 ratings, but a nice 4.8 average. Still, for me, it’s a reliable seller, 1-2 a month even after handmade disappeared…
But this one drove it down to 3.7. Dismal - the recency bias is stupid. So I tried a Vine sale, and got a lovely detailed 5-star for the effort…however, the rating average is still only 3.8, 5 days after the review.
So that leads me to ask: Are Vine reviews not given much weight in the algo?
Because otherwise this product is probably sunk…which stinks.
How we calculate overall star ratings
Amazon calculates a product’s star rating using machine-learned models instead of a simple average.
These models consider factors such as how recent the rating or review, and verified purchase status. They use multiple criteria that establish the authenticity of the feedback. The system continues to learn and improve over time.
We do not consider customer ratings without an Amazon-Verified Purchase status in a product’s overall star rating until a customer adds more details in the form of text, image, or video.
It’s a black box, unfortunately. If that star-rating-only came from a ‘reliable’ ‘trusted’ reviewer according to the magic Amazon Algorithm, it may be a death knell. :\
Patient? Lol this is handmade. It’s taken over 9 years for that item to get 18 reviews. How else will it come back unless it gets new reviews? and the sales will be less now with a lower rating, so…chicken/egg, etc.
We do custom and it has taken 14 years to get 13 reviews on one of our items. All we can tell you is that we had one item that had a 1 star (review because the customer had trouble operating the clasp) that was running 4.9 star average until that review. It dropped to something like 4.1 because of that one review.
This one 1 star review is given 17% weight in the calculation when there are 54 ratings total. Out of that 54 ratings, 52 are 5 star, 1 is a 3 star (which was phantom in nature), and 1 is the 1 star review. On the surface, that looks bad but, when you read the reviews, it makes the customer who wrote it look like an idiot.
Sales slowed on it for a couple of months but are now back to normal … thus the patience. As the customers started buying again, placement and everything else came back into line … even without getting another review.
Do we agree with how this happens? Absolutely not, but it is Amazon and Amazon seems to enjoy setting up things to make the seller look bad when ever then can.
@aerides I know it was a drive-by 1-star, but is there anything you can highlight on the pdp to suggest to an interested shopper that the customer who left it was also an idiot?
And do you still have Vine reviews pending or available?
A general question to all, how do the thumbs up/down “helpful” ratings on individual product reviews affect the weight of that review?
it was a rating-only 1 star, not an actual review. I’d prefer it were a written review as those usually reveal themselves as twits. and yes can be up/down’ed. It’s just that it went under a 4 average which makes recovery harder.
I can do one more “free” vine on the asin, but this last one only brought it up by 0.1 so that’s an expensive way to do it ($53 earrings, but, I know, not if they don’t sell!).
25% weight for a 1star with no comment, the other 17 reviews collapsed to 75%:
but anyway, I think the main thing is that a Vine review is a good thing to get actual reviews, but it’s not gonna boost or change the average that much, if at all. I can only wait and see on this one. I might have to kill it and start over, which would suck. I’ll give it a month.
I wonder if the status of the Vine reviewer also affects the weight of the review.
I just hate it for the item and the system.
But there are still some crazy review readers out there who do actually read seek reviews (not just ratings) and who sort by “recent”. Hopefully they’ll find the lovely Vine review!
ETA: And yes, also that the TLDR here is Vine is perhaps better for newer products without any reviews yet, than for pulling up a low star rating.
It is very similar to one with an actual review, but seems to be a little less in intensity.
@aerides … your’s is very similar to ours. Pretty sure our 1 star took us down to around 3.7 when it first hit and has adjusted over the last 10 months up to the 4.1.
This is so feckin’ unreasonable, for a single 1-star to have that much power on customized and handmade items that are inherently not going to have the sales volume to balance it properly.
We complained on NSFE when it happened and was just quoted what @VitRhea provided above in post #2 from one of the Amazon mods. It hurts all sellers. Imagine trying to launch an item and getting a 1 star rating with maybe four 5 star ratings. It could kill an item.
We had several phantom 3 star ratings with no reviews hit our items over a weekend a couple of years ago. Several sellers were complaining about it as it had happen to all of us at the same time. We had several items that had legitimate all 5 star ratings that got these phantom 3 star ratings. It was like Amazon didn’t think or want items to have a perfect 5.0 rating. We no longer worry about the star rating because of that.
Correct. We always launch with Vine (30 giveaways) and it def helps get a listing going but after you start getting actual reviews, Amazon buries the vine reviews and if you get a 1 Star after doing Vine, it does drop down more than ordinary averaging - like a lot…
this one just hurts more because it was a good seller, had plenty of good reviews and a solid average, mostly 5’s and a few 4’s. This one -1star threatens all of that.
So I hoped perhaps a vine review might even things out. a $55 lesson to find out, nope.
