NEW YORK – Clothing has the most fake reviews of all Amazon categories, new research has found. Software experts collected data from Amazon for ten product categories and found clothing has an average of 36 per cent fake views, with over 800 fake reviews per product.
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The product with the most fake reviews was a ‘Nightbex Original Blanket Hoodie’ with 80 per cent of its reviews being fake. Following on, is the Multibuy Cotton Rich Plain Tights, also in the top 10 best sellers, for which 52 per cent of the reviews are fake.
The research was carried out by Bespoke Software Development which used ReviewMeta to collect data on the original number of ratings and altered number of ratings (after fake reviews have been removed) for best-selling products in different categories.
They looked at best sellers for 10 different categories on Amazon. These categories included beauty, tech, clothing, home and kitchen, clothes, large appliances, books, automotives, health and personal care, pet supplies, and toys and games.
The top 50 best selling products were selected and data was collected for the original ratings and adjusted ratings along with the number of unnatural (fake) reviews.
The data was aggregated and the average per cent difference in ratings and average per cent of fake reviews for each category analysed was found. The categories were then organised from highest to lowest average number of fake reviews.
The business has also offered some advice on how to spot fake reviews on Amazon. These include a lack of detail. Jignesh Vaducha, tech expert at Bespoke Software Development said: “For instance, clear sign of a fake review is a review of few words or even just a one word review e.g. ‘great’, ‘superb’, ‘couldn’t ask for more’ etc. This is similar to an automated response by a computer as opposed to a person who has made the effort to leave a review.”
Vaducha also said that a lack of differentiation between reviews is an obvious red flag. He added: “If there are several reviews that follow a similar structure and lack individuality, this can suggest that the reviews are fake.”
Poor Grammar and spelling mistakes are another sign the review might not be all it seems.
Likewise, a high percentage of five star reviews could be a sign of a fake as, “it is unlikely that a product is perfect on every count, therefore you would expect to see few five star reviews.”
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