WEBVTT - The Fake Reviews and Counterfeits That Amazon's Trying to Quash 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:08.280 It's that time of year again, Mistletoe, Santa Claus being 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:11.840 crosby on heavy rotation in the soaper household and the 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.760 holiday shopping season. And with every year that goes by, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.360 it becomes more and more likely that you'll be spending 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.960 more of your hard earned dollars on a little site 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.720 called Amazon dot com. Yes, Alexa has been playing a 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.040 lot of being crosby in our household. And if you're 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:28.800 a vendor who sells on Amazon, this is an all 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.479 important time of year for your business. You're hoping for 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.519 a rush of Christmas sales and you'll be doing everything 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:37.080 you can to make sure that customers browsing on Amazon 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.159 can find your goods. And occasionally people go to really 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.640 really extreme lengths to try to get that edge over 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.800 all the other vendors competing for business. That's what our 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.600 story is about today, the rough and tumble vendor on 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.239 vendor hand to hand click to click combat going on 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.960 behind the scenes at Amazon Marketplace. Yeah, things like pumping 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:00.520 your customer reviews with five star ray eetings is a 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.120 way to game the algorithm and appear higher in the 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.800 list of search results when customers are looking for a 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.600 given product and counterfeiting popular items. That's something else that 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.440 happens all the time. We'll tell you about Amazon's never 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.440 ending quest to shut down this activity. It's like an 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:17.920 epic game of whack a mole, where just as Amazon 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.560 manages to crack down on one kind of bad behavior, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.480 another practice springs up in its place. But first, let's 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:29.000 explain what exactly is Amazon Marketplace. Yeah, the name might 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.160 not sound familiar, but if you shopped on Amazon, chances 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.800 are you've already browsed products being sold on the marketplace. 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.160 Amazon operates like a traditional retailer such as Walmart or Target. 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.000 They buy things in bulk at wholesale prices and resell 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.640 them to shoppers. But it also operates like a consignment shop. 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.240 It lets more than two million merchants post their own 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.000 things on its site and give Amazon a cut of 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.040 each sale. That's the marketplace and is a major part 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:57.480 of Amazon's business. By letting third party merchants sell goods 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.200 on its marketplace, Amazon has been able to expand that's 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.760 inventory far more quickly than it would have been able 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:05.760 to if it operated only as a traditional retailer that 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.920 buys stocks and then sells its own merchandise. In an 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.640 annual letter to shareholders, CEO Jeff Bezos said that marketplace 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:17.160 sales account for nearly half of all units sold on Amazon. Yeah, 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.200 the marketplace is fifteen years old, but because of the 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.880 way all the search results in Amazon are listed, it's 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.519 not always clear which items are being sold by Amazon 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.840 and which are being sold by independent merchants. A lot 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:32.120 of our listeners probably buy from marketplace every week and 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:33.760 and may not even know they're doing it right, But 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:35.760 one of the best ways you can tell that a 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:39.119 given product is coming from the marketplaces by the customer reviews. 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.120 It's hard to overstate just how important these reviews are 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.200 for vendors, how much lots of great reviews helps them 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.000 boost sales, and how much negative reviews can really sink 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.880 a product. Reviews are the currency of Amazon. That's right. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.040 Amazon really can't afford for shoppers to stop trusting the 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.480 authenticity of reviews. A recent report from the research from 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:03.280 feedwisor found that nine of Amazon shoppers wouldn't buy a 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.800 product at all if at a fewer than three stars. 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:07.960 So there's a lot of incentive to try to gain 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:11.240 the system, especially on Amazon, which drives so much more 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.040 commerce than other sites, and that's where all these underhanded 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.119 tactics really come into play. At stake are the billions 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.320 of dollars people spend on Amazon Marketplace every year, and 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.000 as we do more and more of our shopping on 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:40.000 the internet, the stakes are really only getting higher. I'm 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.040 Brad Stone and I'm Spencer Soper, and in this week's 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.640 episode of Decryptid, we'll hear from some of the people 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.960 who make Amazon Marketplace work. We'll hear from a vendor, 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.240 someone who has faced threats to his business because of copycats, 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.800 as well as one of Amazon's top reviewers to understand 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.960 just how influential those customer reviews can be. And we'll 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.600 off to the businesses trying to spot and stop customers 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.320 from getting duped by the fake reviews. Let's start by 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:19.480 taking a trip to South Carolina. Come in, all right, 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:28.240 so you're ready to talk Amazon reviews totally. It's my 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.560 favorite topic and you don't know what to do with me. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.280 That's me arriving in Greenville, South Carolina to meet you 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.440 sell A Houseman. Just Sella is a top reviewer for Amazon, 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.080 and she's even written a book about it called Naked 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:45.640 Truths about getting Product reviews on Amazon dot com. Seven 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.120 insider tips to boost sales. One of the first things 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.040 to Sella explained to me is why these reviews matter 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.840 so much to merchants. A cool side effect of these 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.839 reviews is that sellers can get direct feedback on what 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.080 their customers like and don't like about their products. But 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.560 the real reason is landing a high ranking in Amazon 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:09.000 search results. Here's Gacella. This is a computer system that 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.760 works purely on algorithms. So the second you go and 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:19.159 buy any product, the sales ranking of this product is 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.760 going to improve. At the same time. You may designed 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:27.280 to review this product. Now it gets a review. And 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.960 here's why this is important. If a product has a 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:35.320 good sales rank and also a lot of reviews, Amazon's 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.280 s c O ranking pushes this product on its own. 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.320 Seeing her in her home in the Greenville suburbs, ge 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.839 Sella comes off like a college professor, passionate about her 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.640 subject matter and eager to share her knowledge. We chatted 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.440 over coffee while her cats lurked nearby, and Gescella told 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.839 me that she first got interested in Amazon reviews as 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.320 a book author because she knew they would be key 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.560 to her success. So she figured the best way to 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.000 learn about them was to begin writing them herself. Being 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.279 a top reviewer on Amazon has to be a pretty 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.760 odd business to be in. Just Selah told you she 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.920 gets two fifty emails a month from sellers hoping she'll 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.320 write a good review of their products. Yeah, she's become 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.080 quite a magnet. And because she gets pitches from so 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.279 many sellers, she also has some insight on the schemes 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:23.080 they come up with to help boost their ratings. Here's 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.120 one anecdote she had about how she was approached by 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:29.320 a Chinese seller. They said, hey, we're going to offer 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.200 you a couple you buy this product for ten percent 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.200 of the price, some of them for one percent of 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:40.239 the price, but you had to buy it was reduced ridiculously, 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.400 and then please review. If they went through the entire 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.920 is killed out top reviewers and they offered these some 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.160 digital device or Christmas lads in this time of the year, 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:56.520 they'd suddenly have a huge spike in which they sold 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:01.400 at one percent of the price, which Amazon ignores, sold 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.840 is sold regardless of how much yourself had. A huge 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.400 bag of a hundred and fifty product is coming in 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:13.120 over three days as a purchase oh, so this is 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.560 a key detail. Even if you buy something at a 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:20.560 steep discount, Amazon's algorithm does not care exactly. All Amazon 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.560 sees is that you paid for it. It doesn't matter 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:27.200 how much. Amazon is not a person. That algorithm says, 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:29.440 oh my god, this book is this product is in demand, 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.880 in demand, in demand, and it shows the same product 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.080 and all kinds of sites as if it were a 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.800 best seller. Other people see this product and they go, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.360 oh my god, look at that product shoots up and 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:49.840 regiuss in the best seller category group area of vicinity. 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:51.840 And now you have the reviews coming in on top 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:58.400 of it. And that's when everybody else spies. And that's 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:00.840 why I think that Almason be the way with it, 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:06.680 because they realized what's happening. Okay, that last point is 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:10.960 really important. Last month, Amazon changed the rules for customer reviews. 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.000 Now Amazon gets to decide who's allowed to leave what 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.360 they call a quote incentivized review. That's right. Amazon is 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.160 something called the Vine program, and it's Amazon's way of 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:26.200 deciding which customers can receive promotional products and review them. So, 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.280 if I recall correctly, previously incentivized reviews were allowed, but 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.840 the reviewer had to disclose that they received the product 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.719 at a discount for their review. The problem was the 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.480 disclosures were becoming so prolific on the site, so ubiquitous, 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:41.920 it was actually tough to find that authentic review from 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:45.160 someone who just bought the product with no strings attached exactly. 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.280 And some consumers are actually getting frustrated by seeing all 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.760 of these disclosures about getting free products, and that undermine 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:55.640 this review system. That's so important because for customers sometimes 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.560 the hardest part about buying something online is not being 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.520 able to see it and touch it first. Consumer reviews 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.440 help eliminate that guesswork, but only if they're authentic. And 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.920 we should point out that reviews aren't just important to 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.080 Amazon and their companies like Yelp and trip advisor and 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.040 eBay and open table that rely on customer reviews to 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:17.000 drive traffic, and they also grapple with complaints about gamesmanship 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:21.320 and authentic reviews. Yeah, the gamesmanship has been relentless. And 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.920 get this, just weeks after Amazon made those changes, Gessella 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.120 told me sellers are already finding ways around it and 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:33.360 are trying to keep Amazon in the dark so I 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.960 can approach from a Chinese game up who writes to me, 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:41.559 please review this product. We will send you a gift card, 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:47.120 and then we pray that you don't tell. The phrase 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:51.320 we pray that you don't tell already implies that they 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.440 know they're doing the wrong thing. The same system is 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.760 happening as before. The band that gives me the product, 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.200 the gift card. I I'm buying the product, I'm driving 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.360 up the products rank, and then they want my review 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.040 and basically the same thing happened that before. Now we 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:15.560 put ourselves into Amazon's position. They probably know them. They 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.160 cannot say we're gonna stop selling gift cards, so that's 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.559 not gonna happen. Obviously they cannot. So what they do 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.120 is they come in break to Active and try to 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.840 find these reviews with the algorithm. And that's the only 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:39.400 thing that they can do. Now. Jo Selah wasn't the 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.520 only one to notice something fishy happening with Amazon's reviews. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.080 So I took a trip to Brooklyn, New York. I 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.080 just do what I do. SEE have to do what 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.520 I think I can do what I think. I don't 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:56.520 know what I do. I just do without change. Before 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.680 we were all buying helps from Amazon around this time 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.720 last year, and we kept not noticing that it would 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.160 come really late, or it would come without Amazon packaging, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.360 or it comes with stamps from foreign countries that we 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.040 didn't realize it was coming. So it looked really weird 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:21.959 and suspicious. That's MINGUI Minx companies called fake Spot. It's 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.400 a website that rates the authenticity of Amazon's product ratings 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.200 and reviews. Basically tells customers whether they can trust the ratings. 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.679 So an entire company dedicated to spotting fake ratings and reviews. 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.439 It gives you some sense of just how widespread the 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.280 issue is. If there's a cottage industry developing around online 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.200 customer reviews. Yeah, and the timing of it to fake 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.520 Spot only launched last year, but it's already getting millions 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.400 of users. It works by cutting and pasting the u 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.560 r L for an Amazon product into its search engine. Here, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.800 let me show it to you. Okay, so you've got these. 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.880 You've got an Omega fish oil up on Amazon dot 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.360 com and it's got three two reviews, mostly positive. It 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.839 looks good. So how can fake spot help us? So here, 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.160 we're gonna cut and paste the u r L for 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.560 this product. Go over to fake spot, which looks like 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.160 your normal search engine. You're you're entering the r L 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:16.680 into a search bar and you click analyze Wow, an 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.440 F grade of failing grade, just like an F on 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.440 a term fail. The Omega fish oil with three two 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.520 reviews and four and half stars, that those were bogus. Yes, 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.080 So if you just counted on Amazon reviews alone as 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.480 a time strap shopper, you might see those reviews and 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:32.120 decided to buy the product. But if you take an 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.800 extra step over at fake spot, you might have second thoughts. 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.160 And I picked that Omega three fish oil because Ming 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.679 said that healthcare products and beauty products in particular are 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:46.000 susceptible to fake reviews. My wife is getting all these 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.880 recommendations from our friends and like usually buy this cream 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:55.679 or by that oil. And as we started reading and 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.360 poking through the reviews, we realize that we weren't looking 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:03.319 at reviews with with a more critical eye, and that 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.800 we were just randomly accepting that that five. You know, 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.480 this thing has one or two views and it has 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.640 four stars, it mustn't be good. So we just and 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.920 as you start digging in deeper, as when you realize, oh, 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:19.440 sometimes people leave a review, it says, oh, I just 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.560 got this product, will update my review, you know, once 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:25.720 I tried the product, but they will leave it four stars, 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.120 And like, well, you're leaving four stars from a product 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.800 we haven't try it. But I think being in tech, 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.319 you're probably trained to think about They started this in 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:37.520 every all each of us started to see patterns. For example, 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.920 you would see that everybody used the same language to 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.360 describe the product. So for example and beauty, almost every 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.320 review would say with things like oh my skin was 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.840 so soft and supple, or the reviews would all be 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.320 clustered around the same date and no of a suddenly 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:57.480 look like twenty people dropped the review on this on 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.120 one same day. It was like and these were like 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.959 to us early early telltale sigence where something is wrong 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:13.840 or that the reviewers would leave seemingly long uh reviews 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.760 of the product, but it would make no mention specifically 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.120 of what the product was. It would just say I 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:21.560 loved it, I use it every day, It's fantastic, O 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.680 I reckon highly recommend everybody use it, with like, well, 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:26.760 that looks like a review that I'll go right for anything. 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.000 So I found two things interesting here. First, both ming 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.320 and gessella feel like these phony reviews are a fairly 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.400 new thing, like in the last year or two. That's interesting. 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.240 I mean, we've had customer reviews on the internet now 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.600 for twenty years. The probably have been fake reviews all along. 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.760 It's just that the stakes are so high and the 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.680 levels of online commerce are so significant now that the 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.160 problem is getting more attention exactly, becoming more prominent and 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.240 and and not getting washed out. The second thing is 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.920 Ming says, this product market for his business exists because 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.400 consumers are conditioned to respond to and trust products with 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.960 a lot of positive reviews. It's probably similar to the 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.720 Pavlovian response that we experience when we see the word 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.760 sale right. We feel like we're getting a good deal, 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:13.560 even if the price may not be all that great. 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.240 I fall for it all the time. And fake Spot, 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.920 which has created a hundred and fifty million Amazon reviews 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.760 to date, makes money from ad sales, but only enough 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.320 to maintain its web servers. Min said he and his 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.640 partners have some seed money, and they're primarily focused on 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.120 the product right now, and they worry about monetizing the 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:35.360 concept later. But here's how this search algorithm actually works. 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.120 The engine does two things. When you click for an analysis. 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:43.280 It goes and logs every review that the product has. 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.520 So let's say the product has five reviews, for example, 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.520 it will look through all five hundred reviews and then 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.400 at the same time, while I was looking for through 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:56.560 the reviews, it will then also take the profile of 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:02.160 each reviewer at all their reviews and his into account. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.280 If you have a lot of unverified purchases, which our 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.400 purchases made outside of Amazon, but you leave the review 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.880 on Amazon, that's a big telltale sign for us. If 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.240 you have the date cluster thing, and so we have 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.160 things that we put in place to to track aggressive marketing. 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.720 So if you have a lot of date clusters, if 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.560 you have a lot of reviewers, then because we go 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.000 through the history. So let's say you have one reviewer 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.440 that posted a product A, and then as we go 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.640 through a check their history, we noticed that they were 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.200 on products see this category product D the other category 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.080 will know that they were a professional reviewer. Part of 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:41.880 the problem here has to be that there's just so 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.240 much for the merchants to gain as as well as 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.960 the reviewers who probably are enjoying their their freebees. Exactly, 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.200 they go hand in hand. Me and I talked about 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.800 how much the lure of the freebee is driving all 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.160 of this. We checked out the profile of one reviewer 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.040 who was really cleaning up this guy and I won't 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.640 name the name. Look at this review is starting from here. 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.919 Here's another one on the twenty four. Here's not a 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:09.800 one of the twenty four. Here's a not a one 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.840 twenty four. Here's any one twenty four. Here's another one 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:17.639 on the twenty four. So they're reviewing Spatula, pizza cutter, 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:26.080 garden Staples, EO plugs, Essential Oils, and two days two 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.359 days ago, drinking straws two more days ago. So you 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.399 look at this and you already can even if I 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:34.840 don't know who the person is in real life, I 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.160 can make you and I can make it an informed 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.680 judgment that says, who has time to sit down and 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:46.520 write ten reviews on ten different kinds of products in 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.800 ten different categories, And then two days ago did the 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:55.359 same thing on a bike pump. Who's got room for 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.119 all this? And they're all five stars? Love it? Love it, guys, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.320 love it. I don't care if they are real people. 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.520 The engine books at this, and the engine will say 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:08.920 something is wrong with Ultimately, though, is it ever going 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.040 to be possible to catch all the fake reviews? Is 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.920 fake spots algorithm or is Amazon search engine good enough 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.520 to capture all of them? When you're accompany as big 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:25.640 as Amazon, maybe it's like steering at large tanker. There's 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:34.720 only so much you could do. Fake reviews aren't Amazon's 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.600 only problem. The company is also fighting fake products from 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.879 entering the marketplace. And this is one of those persistent 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:44.080 issues that can be very difficult to really permanently put 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.240 an end to, but a can dent customer trust in Amazon, 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:49.840 and it's been in the press recently yet it has 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.520 Most notably, Apple filed the lawsuit last month against an 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.159 Amazon merchant that it alleges sold fake Apple products, some 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.880 of them in safe, and Bergen Stocks announced it would 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.879 off selling its footwear and Amazon in Now Amazon is 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.800 upping the anti Earlier this month, Amazon filed to lawsuits 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.600 against its own vendors for allegedly selling counterfeits on its site. 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.160 This problem isn't just unique to Amazon. In China, Ali 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.320 Baba has had a knockoff problem for years. eBay probably 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.160 has just a big of a problem, but it doesn't 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.639 get as much attention, and it's it's it's bad for customers, 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.359 frankly because it hurts the merchants who are trying to 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.800 sell authentic products on sites like Amazon. Yeah. To get 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.560 a better sense of that, I spoke to Brett Rosenswag, 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.880 who sells something called the Urban Shelf on Amazon. It's 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.159 a product he invented himself, a small plastic shelf that 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.560 connects to a bed and you can store your cell 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.439 phone while it keys and other items close at hand 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.560 while sleeping. See, I'll pull it up here. Oh I see, 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.600 so it so Yeah. Well, so they're trying to disrupt 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.600 the lucrative night table industry, I see, by just replacing 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.879 it with this little kind of cafeteria tray thing that 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.080 you'd stick into your bed. Yeah, and I think they're 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.440 they're geared more towards the you know, bachelor or the 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:07.760 college dorm student, that sort of thing where there might 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:09.480 not even be room for a night's stance. Okay, So 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.359 how's Brett doing with the Urban Shelf? He says, sales 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.359 of the Urban Shelf tend to spike in the summer 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.600 July and August, when students are getting ready for college, 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:21.040 and sales were growing, but then he noticed copycat products 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.080 selling on Amazon for much less than his Here's Brett 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:25.919 telling me about how he decided to buy one of 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.119 these counterfeits to see it for himself. He got it 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.960 shipped to his home. When the package arrived, it actually 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:37.600 came in a box and the box had our label 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.960 super imposed on the ex chair of the box. So 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.840 they actually gone the distance to construct their own Urban 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:49.720 Shelf box for the Urban Shelf send it over and 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:51.399 it was also rand wrapped in nice I mean it 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:55.560 looked very you know, very professional, aside from few spelling 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.160 mistakes on there. You know, imitation is a sin, serious 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.480 form of flattery. I was a little adder, but at 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.159 the same time I was like, oh, these these rats 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:07.720 just stole my design. I feel I feel cheated. I feel, 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:13.439 you know, like someone took my took kind of like 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.440 my baby in and and ran away with it. So now, 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.399 Brett said he checks Amazon every day for the Urban Shelf, 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.040 looking to see who's selling it. He keeps an eye 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.000 out for potential fakes. His biggest worries that the fakes 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.240 are inferior, so customers buying them who confused them with 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:30.880 the original will be displeased and his product will get 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.160 a bad reputation based on the knockle. Has he had 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.920 any success at all trying to keep these copycats off 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.880 off the web in general or Amazon in particular. Yeah, 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.080 in Amazon particularly, said he spotted counterfeits about five times 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.160 and that Amazon is generally quick to knock them down 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.679 after he reports them. They have an automated system, and 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.080 he said sometimes he's had to go through that system 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.600 and report the fakes multiple times, but generally Amazon is 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:55.320 quick to act. Well. At first, I was like, you 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:56.600 know what, this might go away, and me they just 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.159 have a few of them. Then after a month, I 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.000 I still saw that our sales started to dip a 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.800 little bit because people were buying this lower price shell. 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:09.840 So this got me concerned and we began to figure 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:12.920 out how to get them off of the listening so 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:15.800 I had. Eventually I ordered one as a test sample. 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.800 I received it in the mail, I took some pictures, 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:23.760 I sent it in to Amazon fraud department and ended 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.440 up getting that seller's listing removed. That's the only guaranteed 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:29.040 way that you can. You can make it happy. You 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:32.600 can call, you can, you know moan and the emails, 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:34.800 but they want to see physical evidence of an order, 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:37.720 which is a test by pictures of the fraudulent shell, 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:42.719 pictures of the legitimate product, and actual concrete proof so 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.760 that you're they're not just kicking off some seller by 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:49.960 word of mouth. Given all these headaches of selling on Amazon, 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:52.560 it's pretty incredible so many merchants stick to the site. 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:55.520 But it's also not that surprising. I mean, it speaks 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.760 to how huge Amazon's customer bases and how large the 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:01.120 commerce on the site is, and the fact that there's 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:03.879 really no other website in the Western world that comes 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.000