It’s not just Amazon and the political trolls:
Sites
such as Amazon, TripAdvisor and Yelp are now the go-to destinations for
customers who want to cut through advertising waffle and discover what
products and services are really like. Yet, according to research that
is sure to panic business owners across the world, a fifth of Americans
have left online reviews for items they’ve never bought or even used.
This figure is even higher (32 per cent) among parents with children
under 18 and the most popular reason why online shoppers questioned did
this was simply because ‘they felt like it.’
I think
“panic” is too strong a word. But I do think the online retailers need
to do a much better job of eliminating fake reviews and providing
meaningful rating systems than they do.
Although the
inaccurate headline is misleading. A fifth of all online reviews are not
fake. A fifth of Americans have, at some point, left a fake review.