Online reviews may be fake but we still put our trust in digital word of mouth

Friday, 7 June 2019

Online reviews are important but can you trust them?

The way we shop has fundamentally changed in the digital age and yet so much of how we make purchasing decisions has stayed the same.

We still want to hear what other people think before we buy.

A recent government survey into consumer habits found 60 per cent of New Zealanders rely on online reviews most, or all of the time to make a shopping decision.

But research by Which, a consumer watchdog in Britain , revealed unknown tech products for sale on Amazon were riddled with potentially fake reviews.

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Of the 12,000 reviews displayed on the first page for headphones the vast majority were from unverified purchasers or had suspiciously high five-star ratings.

These are two of the key red flags for fake reviews, Which said.

In response, Amazon estimated that more than 90 per cent of fake reviews were computer generated.

The online retail giant said it used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse all reviews and to block or remove fake ones.

An earlier Which investigation identified two Facebook groups which were run as a 'factory' to create dodgy reviews for online retail giant.

Auckland University of Technology senior marketing lecturer Sommer Kapitan said online reviews met a need for consumers to hear what other people thought about a particular product.

'All the data shows that we have higher trust as consumers, as human beings, when we hear things from word of mouth or electronic word of mouth. We have higher trust when we hear something from another shopper than when we hear it from the brand,' Kapitan said.

'That's because we fundamentally know the brand is trying to sell us something. So, when we read something else, whether fake or not, we tend to believe it a lot more than if the brand had taken the same words to sell us something.'

Auckland University of Technology Senior Lecturer of Marketing Sommer Kapitan says people still trust word of mouth over marketing campaigns.

Consumer trust is a lot higher when friends, or even strangers on the internet recommend something, she said.

But that means brands have begun producing their own online reviews and that's where we have the worry about fake recommendations, Kapitan said.

'For the most part, it is basic human instinct to trust when someone you hear or meet or someone online is like, this was great because. We tend to trust that, because we don't think they have a stake in the game, they are just telling us what they thought.'

So how far can we trust the five stars?

Amazon estimates that more than 90 per cent of fake reviews on its website are computer generated.

Hamilton mother Hannah Shearman, said she always looked at the online reviews before heading to the store.

'The reviews help me narrow something down to the couple I want to consider, so reviews really do influence what I buy,' Shearman said.

'When I looked at the rabbit hutch for my daughter, I looked at all the ones that had reviews. The one we purchased had a negative review, and I took it into consideration but I still bought that one.'

On sites like iHerb, Shearman is more aware of the prevalence of fake reviews.

'Sometimes I scroll through and I am like, um, I don't think that person knows what they are talking about. It hasn't put me off buying something that I wanted because after I look at the reviews, I go to the store and look myself. '

Aucklander Ian Pattison says he uses online reviews for bigger ticket items.

Shearman still consults friends but she goes online to do her own research.

'For cafes and restaurants, maybe I will ask my friends and then I will go online, look at their website,' she said.

'When I had to get a gardner, I used Builders Crack. That was something that really influenced who I picked. One guy who replied to me had terrible reviews from people who had used him before and the other guy didn't.'

Aucklander Ian Pattison said he relied on reviews for the bigger ticket items.

'I use it for things that are $500 or up and accommodation,' Pattison said.

'I just need to make sure that I am not getting a dud. I make sure people aren't saying 'it lasted three months and then gave up'. If there are a few of those then I don't get it.'

Pattison said he also read reviews from experts to get a better understanding of a product.

He dealt with fake reviews by reading multiple reviews before making a decision, he said.

'In fake reviews the language is normally a bit different, or it's amazingly glowing where other reviews are a bit crap.'

C1 Espresso, in Christchurch, makes bad reviews work in its favour.

Reviews matter whether they are real or not

Christchurch cafe owner Sam Crofskey has decided to make bad reviews work for his business.

As owner of C1 Espresso he began printing bad Trip Advisor reviews in the cafe's menu last year as a way to take ownership over the anonymous opinions.

Crofskey told Stuff in October that C1 wasn't perfect and genuine complaints were important feedback.

But some bad reviews can be a mindless lashing out by an anonymous person who has been triggered by something – often the cafe's stance in not using trim milk in coffee.

While the person may forget the review fairly quickly, it lived as an online black mark against the cafe forever, Crofskey said.

Kapitan said New Zealanders across all generations placed too much trust in reviews online.

'The younger generation … we think they are more savvy then they are just because they grew up with it. We think they are more in tune with scams but in fact, they are more beholden to it. They are the same as the rest of us, they are exposed to the same tendencies as us.'

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment consumer protection manager Mark Hollingsworth said many people said they used online reviews.

'Consumer protection's recent New Zealand Consumer Survey found that 60 per cent of consumers look for extra information including online reviews most or all of the time,' Hollingsworth said.

'While reviews can be a great way to help consumers know what to expect when it comes to using a business, fake reviews do exist.'

Hollingsworth encouraged consumers to check reviews of businesses from different sources.

'It's also okay to be suspicious. Look out for a sudden increase in good or bad reviews in a short time period; look out for very similar reviews, similar tone, style and words, supposedly from different reviewers,' he said.