Paying for reviews on MP products - Is there an advantage to having lots of reviews?

[Cinnamon Lohner]

A group I am in recently announced in group IM that anyone writing a review of one of their products purchased in MP will receive a xx% discount on future purchases.  They are going to award this discount regardless of the type of review (good or bad) and have referenced a KB article as Linden approval for paying for reviews.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Writing-item-reviews-on-the-Marketplace/ta-p/954941

"Reviews should not be written for pay, or for other rewards or compensation unless both positive and negative reviews are rewarded."

For the life of me, I can't think of a good reason for this marketing tactic.  Is there some value to have lots of reviews for a product?  Do they appear higher in search or something?  Has anyone out there tried this approach to get increased product reviews?

Thx!
--Cinn

[Elle Crescendo]

I’m not entirely sure what impact ratings have on ranking if any. But I tend to agree with you, I think it’s strange that merchants essentially bribe their customers to write reviews by offering such incentives. I prefer my reviews to be on merit of the product.

What I’ve also seen is the offering of freebies/gifts in exchange for a review, the merchants products are listed at a very low price, freebies given out, then once there is a ton of reviews the prices goes up. I’ve seen one designer do this over and over, freebies offered, prices goes down, reviews are written, price goes up again. She also uses the same technque but as a raffle/draw type scenario, so obviously anyone writing a bad review is not likely to win.

 

 

 

[Bouttime Whybrow]

that's real life for you.

[Tari Landar]

I stand rather middle of the ground on this matter. I don't much care what others choose to do, such as paying customers with some sort of incentive, to leave a review. That's their business, not mine. If they think it's working for them, all the more power to them.

Me, I don't do it. I don't find a need to and don't personally think it holds much value to even bother. I'd rather my reviews come from people that actually want to leave them of their own accord.

There was a time when reviews meant a little more. Now, they don't mean squat. Even before when all people really had to do, was rate with stars and they didn't need to leave a text review, the ratings held more water with more people. But these days, I don't believe it's the same. Which sometimes seems a bit odd, given that in order to leave a review now you do have to leave a name and some form of text in the pretty little box. You would think the reviews would mean more to people, right? But really, I don't believe they do.

Then again I am one of those people that thinks the entire rating system they have is stupid and either needs done away with entirely(not my number one choice) or completely overhauled(my number one choice). This way when a customer sees those reviews and ratings they might actually believe what they s and won't wonder if it was artificial(in a sense).

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

To write a review a product must be purchased.  So, if they give a discount on another future purchase they will make two sales per person that does this.  More sales, means a higher listing on the MP maybe even best seller status, generating even more sales.

They will probably sell things to people that would not have bought otherwise so they will come out ahead.  Also, who would be dissatisfied with a product enough to write a bad review and then use a discount on a FUTURE purchase.  Chances are they get nothing but good ones, or they don't have to give the discount for a bad one.  Its just a marketing tactic that really costs them nothing.

Its legal but is it a good idea? I think if it really worked to the advantage of the merchant you'd see a lot more of it going on.

[WADE1 Jya]

"Reviews should not be written for pay, or for other rewards or compensation unless both positive and negative reviews are rewarded."

Agree ^^ The part I bolded & underlined makes it lame.... Pretty much suggests the creation of a lame gaming system which will obviously garnish tons of unwarrented positive reviews. Totally.... How many people are actually gonna leave a nasty review & then ask to get rewarded for it? Nope they will all clap it up to get their treat.

Much better policy (IMHO) would be to have just stopped the sentence short: "Reviews should not be written for pay, or for other rewards or compensation" PERIOD. FULL STOP.

[Ann Otoole]

Many pay no attention to reviews because they are gamed and used for competition griefing and always have been. This is a prime example of why reviews should be ignored.

 

The reviews that count are on blog feeds and threads like show your style at SLU.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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WADE1 Jya wrote:

Much better policy (IMHO) would be to have just stopped the sentence short:

"Reviews should not be written for pay, or for other rewards or compensation" PERIOD. FULL STOP.

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Can't say how much I absolutely, positively agree with this!  Anything else is gaming the system.  I would not buy from a merchant that has to pay for good reviews.  It is not only a reflection on their integrity, but their products too, IMHO.

[Rya Nitely]

If I buy an item that I'm not so happy with and then the merchant asks me to write a review for payment, I just can't imagine taking someone's money to write a bad review. I don't think many people could. I would take the money as a refund, yes. But then that would be the end of it. I wouldn't write a bad review.

So the way that rule is worded creates is a huge loophole to allow the system to be gamed. People would only write good reviews for payment.

 

[Czari Zenovka]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

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WADE1 Jya wrote:

Much better policy (IMHO) would be to have just stopped the sentence short:

"Reviews should not be written for pay, or for other rewards or compensation" PERIOD. FULL STOP.

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Can't say how much I absolutely, positively agree with this!  Anything else is gaming the system.  I would not buy from a merchant that has to pay for good reviews.  It is not only a reflection on their integrity, but their products too, IMHO.

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Agree with both of you!  This reminds me of years ago when merchants paid people to put their store in picks to help with search/relevancy.  From a customer perspective, I did not like that practice and made note to not purchase from merchants who did this.  As a merchant I sure as heck wasn't going to adopt something I found repugnant as a customer.

In the past I would have been greatly surprised that LL actually stated what they did about reviews, now, however, I'm about to the point nothing they do would surprise me.

[Spica Inventor]

Both the ratings and reviews can hurt and help sales significantly. But they will never have anywhere near the same impact as the competitive/price factor does, so you have to put it into perspective. People are much more likely to read a 1 to 3 star review than a 4 or 5 star review naturally, so bad reviews and ratings hurt alot more than good reviews and ratings help. Some reviews hurt/help more than others of course depending on what was actually written.  ;-)