Amazon Reviews may undergo major changes, and the number of reviews is no longer important

Product reviews are extremely important to Amazon sellers , especially for new products. Therefore, even though Amazon has cracked down on fake reviews many times, many sellers still secretly post reviews to increase their favorable ratings and the number of reviews. However, this situation may change in the future.

Some sellers have observed that some product reviews on Amazon have undergone major adjustments. Amazon is using AI to summarize sellers' reviews and display them above other reviews. This means that the number of product reviews is no longer important. Old products have lost their moat, and high-quality new products have a chance to come to the fore. This is a big blow to marketing sellers who value the number of reviews, while sellers who focus on products will have their moment of glory.

Amazon Review has undergone major adjustments

Yesterday, some sellers discovered that Amazon is using AI to summarize customer reviews and display them above other reviews. Some overseas observers saw this change earlier.

Mark Wieczorek posted a post on LinkedIn saying that Amazon is now summarizing reviews through artificial intelligence, and posted an AI review summary of an air purifier, as shown below.

This product has 22,000 global ratings and a customer rating of 4.7, but now 20,000 reviews have been summarized into a simple paragraph:

“ This air purifier has received positive feedback from customers in all aspects. Many customers praised its ability to clear the air and improve air quality, with some even calling it the best air purification device. The product is also quiet, effectively removes odors, and customers appreciate its stylish appearance. However, some customers expressed mixed opinions about its effectiveness in reducing allergies and asthma. ”

At the end of the summary it says “ Generated from customer review text .”

What is the impact of using AI to summarize reviews? Mark Wieczorek believes that it has long been known that old products have time to accumulate a large number of reviews, giving them an unfair advantage when newer, potentially excellent products enter the market.

“There has been discussion about limiting the number of reviews shown on search results pages (500+) to reduce these moats. Chad   Rubin suggested that AI could be used in Amazon search to better guide consumers to purchase based on the subtle features they want that might not be reflected in a simple search query and a simple list of results .

In his view, Amazon’s use of AI to summarize reviews could be a step toward reducing the review moat, which could lead buyers to potentially superior products that don’t have a review moat.

Juozas KaziukėNas, CEO of e-commerce intelligence company Marketplace Pulse, also noticed this change. He posted an AI summary of about 28,000 reviews of AirPods :

“ The earphones received positive feedback from customers regarding sound quality, performance, value, and fit. Customers praised their noise cancelling capabilities and the ability to listen to just music. AirPods Pro 2 were also considered some of the best quality earbuds available. Customers appreciated their good battery life and considered them to be a good value for money. The fit was also rated highly. However, opinions were mixed regarding battery life, quality, connectivity, and comfort. ”

However, only a few products currently display AI summary reviews. Some sellers did not see such summaries after searching, while some sellers saw the summary after searching for "Bluetooth speaker", as shown below:

“ This product has received positive feedback from customers in all aspects. Its sound quality is excellent, and customers describe it as being well made and amazing. The quality is also praised for its portability and durability. Customers appreciate its lightweight design, which makes it easy to carry and use. The product performs well and fulfills its purpose very well, standing out among mid-range products. Customers also find it easy to use and good value for money. However, opinions are mixed on the battery life. Overall, this product seems to be a good choice for those looking for a high-quality, portable, durable speaker with good sound quality. ”

Some sellers searched according to this keyword and found that some products showed AI review summaries, but others did not. It is unclear whether this is due to the number of reviews or if Amazon is still testing.

After the change, the number of comments is no longer important

Some people believe that Amazon uses AI to summarize reviews, which saves users the time of browsing a large number of reviews, speeds up users' decision-making, increases sellers' sales, and improves Amazon's "table turnover rate", killing two birds with one stone. But from the seller's perspective, if this adjustment is implemented, it will bring about far more changes. Cross-border Xiao Wangge analyzed several impacts:

1. The number of reviews is no longer important, and the moat of old products disappears. There are many products on Amazon with many reviews, with the number of reviews reaching tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. This moat may not exist in front of AI, which is equivalent to reducing the number of reviews. With AI summary, this large number of reviews is just a number for buyers and has no substantial impact. Buyers can draw conclusions efficiently by looking at AI reviews directly.

2. Good for product sellers, bad for marketing sellers. For sellers who focus on products, AI summarizing reviews is a good thing, which helps to solve problems in a targeted manner. As long as the product is good, there is a chance to rush to the front, and a few hundred reviews may be able to compete with products with tens of thousands of reviews. For sellers who pay more attention to the number of fake orders, it will be a big blow, because the number of reviews is likely to be unimportant. In the past, sellers could use a large number of reviews to cover up product problems, but now AI will analyze, summarize and reflect this shortcoming. Sellers can no longer rely on marketing to defeat others, and their competitiveness has been reduced.

3. Discover room for product improvement . Amazon has many positive reviews, and sellers will try to increase the rate of positive reviews. However, it is difficult for sellers to find the shortcomings of products from the massive reviews. Through AI summary, product shortcomings can be easily found. Even products with good ratings have room for improvement. Subtle bad experiences or user needs can also be reflected in this way.

Using AI to summarize reviews can significantly reduce the time it takes for users to read reviews. 20,000 reviews can be compressed into just one paragraph, and the number of reviews will become less and less important. Buyers’ decision-making time will be greatly shortened, which will improve purchasing efficiency to a certain extent. This move can not only improve buyers’ shopping experience, but also allow sellers to spend less time on marketing through screening, and instead focus more on the product itself, which is a two-pronged approach for Amazon.

In fact, before Amazon got involved, software service providers in the industry had already used ChatGPT for review analysis. For example, a tool would parse reviews of a product and archive the data into purchase motivations, customer expectations, product advantages, disadvantages, usage scenarios, customer profiles, etc. Sellers praised it, saying it greatly improved work efficiency.

At present, Amazon AI review summarization may still be in the testing stage and has not been widely deployed, which shows that sellers’ demand for AI review analysis is no longer a false demand. However, this move by the platform may inadvertently take away the jobs of service providers.

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